- You've seen plenty of our gardens over the years
so today we're turning the camera around on you.
You sent in your gardens from all around the USA.
We're gonna react and rate them.
So, at the very end of this video,
we'll pick our personal favorite gardens,
but let's go ahead and see what your gardens look like.
Jacques, we're kicking it off
with Jeanna from Berkeley California Zone 10a
just up the coast from us.
- [Jacques] Yep. - [Kevin] What do you see?
- I see a nice little rose arch mixed into the garden
and also, a great seating area and vibe set.
- The vibes are immaculate in this one.
Two umbrellas, couple lights,
I'd love to see this one at night.
It looks like a great use of backyard space.
- Absolutely. Next up we have Janell from Logan, Utah
Zone 5b and it looks like a really stunning backdrop.
I see the mounds, it looks great.
- The thing that I'm noticing here
is the winter-sown milk jugs.
Basically, you cut the bottom off
and you just throw seeds in the ground.
Direct sown, so to speak. - Yep.
- But you let the jug become effectively
a little greenhouse starts to seed on autopilot
once the spring kind of comes in.
- Yeah, and that arch is gonna look incredible filled in.
- Can't wait to see it.
Next, our boy Jeff from South Carolina Zone 8a.
This tickles my fancy, Jacques, in a big way.
The orderliness of it,- - It does that.
- the fact that it's all containers.
I see some grow bags.
He's using some T-posts. What do you see?
- Yeah, it's very interesting to me
that they went full container.
Maybe it's just to keep the soil fresh and healthy.
Somebody who's grown something I love.
- Yeah, this guy is optimized.
I can tell he might be an engineer by trade.
It looks good, Jeff.
- Yeah. Now we have Heather from Tully, New York Zone 5b,
huge amount of space.
- [Kevin] Huge.
- And a nice big bed with some nice logs around it.
Lot of potential here, a lot of sunlight.
- What I like to see over here on this right side
is sort of like one of those
circular, pattern-style gardens.
- Yeah.
- A lot of different methods at play.
Looks like there is a dapper gentleman
in the back doing a little watering.
Heather, you've got a good gardener on your hands.
Next up we have Emmanuella
from Saylorsburg, Philadelphia Zone 6a
and this looks like a deer-proof garden,
if I've ever seen one with actually an entertainment space.
- I know, entertainment space,
a chicken coop, little garden vibe.
Great little safe space that
you've carved out of this huge sprawling area.
It looks incredible.
All right, next we have Grayson Arlington, Texas Zone 8.
And this is apparently a clever reuse of materials.
- This one is an apple box or apple cart.
Looks really aesthetic and nice,
and honestly, on a concrete space shock.
No better option than a container.
- And I know you like that neat organized setup.
- Come on, it tickles my fancy, what can I say.
Jenna from Orlando Zone 9b.
This one's really cool, nice perspective.
Looks like she's using a mix of our Birdies raised beds.
Shout out to you, Jenna.
But also, some of these less expensive options
from just like a local tractor supply.
- Yeah, a little galvanized bed action,
but I do love the perspective shot,
all the rocks and the pathway.
Looks like a nice little vibe
leading up to that banana too at the end there.
- Yeah, the banana is stellar, Jenna.
This is a beautiful sunset shot right here.
- Jennifer from Newnan, Georgia.
We've actually been there. - Yeah, we've been there.
- Yeah, Zone 9b. - We've been there.
Shout out Jennifer.
But this is what's amazing about the Zone 7b.
It's a square foot garden
and you can turn any garden into a square foot garden.
I know it is a sort of basic way to get started,
but that was the beauty of it.
I actually interned and mentored under Mel Bartholomew
in person for a year without really knowing it.
Epic wasn't really even a thing at the time.
I was helping him design a website.
I learned a lot about how his method
sort of propagated through the gardening world
and I still have a lot of respect for it.
Jennifer, this garden looks beautiful.
Garak from Anaheim, California Zone 10 or 11.
I mean come on, Jacques.
This thing looks absolutely gorgeous.
- Incredible amount of dragon fruit
and I gotta give 'em props,
because their trellises are still upright.
We need to figure out how they did that
'cause it looks really nice and organized.
- Yeah, this actually reminds me a lot
of my friend Richard of Grafting Dragonfruit's yard
in that side yard and he's actually
somewhere in the Anaheim area as well.
So, maybe you guys know each other,
but if not, you should connect,
'cause this is a gorgeous dragon fruit garden.
- Aimee from Los Angeles,
this looks like a cottage garden
transported into the heart of LA.
Absolutely stunning.
Love the colors, the roses, the arch.
I don't know what to say.
It's a vibe, it's stunning.
- Truly does look transported
straight from like the English countryside.
Beautiful job, Aimee. - Love it.
- All right, we have Josiah from Western Colorado Zone 6b.
The thing that sticks out to me, Jacques,
is actually, how well the garden is integrated
into the overall outdoor living space here.
It doesn't look like he's become
absolutely obsessed like myself or you.
He's actually figured a way to balance it in the backyard.
Little patch of lawn there.
Some beautiful planters.
- And I love the use of the fence to get some more sunlight
and looks like some custom DIY beds
built outta some simple planks.
Perfect for growing herbs and using that space.
Nice work. - Great job, Josiah.
- We have Justin from Caldwell, Idaho somewhere in 6b Zone
and this looks like a clever reuse of tires.
They're all painted in unique ways
and it looks like it's definitely
coming to life and filling in.
- Actually, a lot of schools and nonprofits
will set up stuff like this
where you get to repurpose materials.
I've actually, never grown in a tire, Jacques.
Maybe something I would experiment with,
but clearly Justin's making it work.
This is a special one.
My friend, Erica, who actually,
has been an Instagram friend for a long time.
She's from Gardner, Massachusetts,
believe it or not, in Zone 5b.
Jacques, what you'll notice
is not only is it a huge space,-
- Yeah.
- but she has combined into a super Birdies bed.
- Yeah.
- She's built an arch trellis over it,
put lights on that and that's where she keeps
all of her tomatoes where she said she
got hundreds of pounds this year.
- I actually messaged her about it, 'cause it's so cool.
I think it was like maybe 20 feet maybe 10,
but very sturdy, tons of tomatoes.
Also, seeing a lot of seedlings
and that long bed is giving me envy,
'cause it looks like you put a lot of tomatoes on there
and I'm here for it.
- Fantastic job, Erica
- Alana from Conroe, Texas Zone 8a.
See a lot of really healthy-looking plants.
Everything looks super green.
- Wow. - The squashes look amazing,
the tomatoes, really tall sunflower.
- What strikes me in this one, Jacques,
it's the texture of layers-
- Exactly.
- that really make a garden.
I've fallen prey to having my garden be a bit flat,
bit low, a little too uniform.
And adding some of these pattern breakers
and these texture breakers and keeping them
as healthy as Alana has is a really good call.
- Stunning.
- All right, we have Cheryl
from Adams County. Pennsylvania Zone 6b.
Looks like she's rocking some Birdies beds,
but she also has some maybe DIY wooden beds.
And actually, the thing to me that's interesting, Jacques,
is the garden kind of takes this turn.
- Yeah.
- And she's just making the most of the space that she has.
- Yeah, I love the cattle panel trellises.
I've always wanted to set one up like you have now.
And definitely looks like they have deer there.
Something I'm glad we don't have.
- Seven foot fence for deer.
Otherwise, you're gonna be a sad gardener.
- We have Madonna from Yulee, Florida Zone 9,
very lush-looking garden,
lots of nice healthy-looking onions, looks good.
- The cool part is she's using the old sling method.
It looks like she's growing a birdhouse gourd here,
If my eyes do not deceive me.
I too, Madonna, am growing a birdhouse gourd,
but I have not slung it up like this.
And when you grow a plant vertically,
especially, one that historically or botanically
does not really want to grow that way,
although you can train it,
then this sling method is, actually, really clever.
So, nice job.
We have Autumn from Poolsville, Massachusetts Zone 7.
This is the quintessential cinder block DIY garden.
Actually, a double keyhole.
- Yeah, I know a double keyhole.
And they're also making use of
all the pockets in the cinder hole.
I'm seeing strawberries I think planted in them.
Totally maximize space all the way throughout.
- What's really cool about this is she has full access
and she's maximized her space. - Absolutely.
- If this is the only space you had to garden
doing the double keyhole, meaning basically,
giving yourself about two feet reach-in room,
you just get as much space as you can possibly have.
And then to your point, like putting this strawberries in
looks like maybe she could even add a few more-
- Yeah. - down the line
- And they won't take up space.
- Yeah, not at all.
Great job, Autumn.
- Courtney from Kansas Zone 6b.
And it looks like I see the trellis to make you jealous.
- It's a very cheap trellis
and it kind of looks like she's put it on the back fence
so she can attach it across multiple of our Birdies beds.
- Absolutely, and grow bag heaven for sure right there.
It's loaded up.
- Yeah, the grow bags to me like lining it along a bed
or a pathway is a great way to make use of space.
That absolutely probably is dedicated
looks like mostly to lawn,
but you get to squeeze in a little more produce.
Amber from Fallbrook, California Zone 10.
This one's cool to me,
because she's breaking like the way I would design it-
- Exactly.
- because I would not have
put 'em in this sort of angular structure.
I'd be very, I don't know, streamlined about it.
And that's to my own detriment.
I've learned from Jacques how to kind of
design a more natural-looking space.
It's really cool the way that this all plays together.
- I like how it flows and like it leads you on a path,
because sometimes if it's too rigid
you're just gonna walk a straight line.
But this kind of forces you to interact
with more parts of the garden.
- Yeah. - That's a really great idea.
- Check these collards and kales out.
These look absolutely gorgeous.
- Looks really healthy. - In Zone 10,
that's not easy to grow.
Good work there. - Good job for sure.
- Next, we have Dan from Broomfield, Colorado.
Definitely somewhere we love, 'cause of Botanical Interest.
- The home of Botanical Interest our seed company.
Zone 6a, 5b, what do you see, Jacques?
- So, I'm seeing a lot of tomatoes, some healthy peppers,
and a green stock that's fully loaded up in some greens.
- He's got the grill and chills set up.
Dan, it's very lush.
You can tell it's all containers, because he is on concrete.
Proof that you can make it it no matter where you live.
- Small space, tons of garden.
- All right, we've got Carroll from Ankeny, Iowa Zone 5a.
I have to say I'm envious
of these lower zones in the Midwest
where you just get space like crazy.
I don't have that here.
But a really clever setup here
with the Birdies beds kind of making L-shape, Jacques.
- Yeah, and I like that they did the tall short
so they're probably maximizing the sunlight.
How it travels.
They put the tomatoes in the shorter beds.
Greater use of vertical space.
- What's cool about this too
is this is a very extensible garden.
You can just keep adding that outwards as much as you want
and just let the lawn be where the lawn is.
So, great job Carroll.
- We have Kelley from the Central Coast, California.
One of my favorite parts in the country.
- Beautiful - for sure.
And this right here, is speaking to me.
I love everything I see.
- What's cool about this one is you get in close
you see those planter blocks-
- Yeah.
- with the standard sort of two by six wood.
One of the first videos I ever did, Jacques.
- [Jacques] Yeah. - World's easiest raised bed.
Planter blocks and two by six.
I see a lot of cornflower,
a lot of bachelor buttons - Lot of flowers.
- Actually, looks like mostly a floral garden.
A lot of nice little rock and stone pathways.
Maybe that's a place where the water can travel,
if it was to rain.
- Beautiful garden.
- Mandy from Norfolk, Virginia Zone 8a.
This is a deck patio garden.
It looks like exclusively grow bags
with some clever trellis going on, mostly edibles.
And she's kind of organized it in this U shape
so she can kind of access them at will.
- Yeah, this is amazing to see
somebody make use of this space.
It's probably also the sunniest part
that they have access to.
And it's amazing how much food you could get
in such a small little spot.
- I might even, if I was her,
I might even throw some balcony railings there
and maybe just go
full flowers. - Some bush beans
or something, oh okay.
- Even bring in some pollinators something like that.
But regardless, Mandy, this looks awesome.
- We have Michael from Cleveland, Ohio Zone 5
and a perfect little keyhole garden.
Just the amount of space that they probably need.
- But look, if you're a family of two,
and you have the time to maintain a space like this,
actually pretty big, nice looking garden.
It's very orderly and he's probably getting more
than enough produce out of this.
So great job, Michael.
Got the deer fence as well.
Here we have Noah Shepherd from Davis Zone 9b.
- I've become addicted to hammocks.
If I see a hammock, I'm gonna lay in it.
It's gonna take me, regardless.
But the garden also looks great
and it just looks really happy.
Everything looks really green.
Anytime I see tomatoes, I'm happy.
I see some peppers too.
- Take a look at this though.
Take a look at this.
I think, dare I say he's growing something
that's gonna be trellis up those lines there.
- Maybe hops?
- It is the way hops would grow though so,
if that's hops, Noah, you'll have to let us know.
Congrats, the garden looks really nice.
- Peter from Ohio Zone 6a.
This is a full setup.
- This is a farm, this is not a garden, Peter.
Look at this thing.
Look at the bed sizes, the rows.
He's got a frost cover on one.
He's got shade cloth on another.
I mean, what else do you see?
You can sow this endless.
I see the straw built gardens.
Love the hoop covers.
The lighting coming through those trees.
- Wow.
- This is an amazingly neat organized garden
and definitely is cranking out a lot of food.
- This is farm level.
I mean if it's not just grown for your family, Peter,
I would imagine you might be selling this out
to the local farmer's market or something
or preserving a lot of this,
but this is one of those idyllic type of setups
that honestly, I'm very envious of.
So, nice job.
All right, we have Jordan
from Wheeling, West Virginia Zone 6.
Another beautiful patio garden,
got the green stock in there,
got a bunch of, actually looks like our Epic grow bags.
Take a look.
I think those are our Epic bags.
- I think they are.
What I like though is he's using
some purchased products, of course,
some of us from our store.
So, thanks, Jordan, for the support,
but also just some tubs.
- Yeah.
- Just whatever you have.
Some little pockets, like felt pockets here on the railing.
Cramming in looks like maybe some strawberries there.
- And still room for flowers.
Always room for flowers.
It looks great.
Tons of great use of that space.
- I love it.
- We have Kelley from Fallbrook Zone 10a
and this is really cool, 'cause it's all fully netted.
I'm guessing you might have a bird issue,
because it's stopping the birds, great.
- I would imagine, Jacques,
this garden probably wasn't too expensive to set up.
- No, not at all. - The PVC is relatively cheap.
It looks like a lot of it was full DIY.
She's got the galvanized planters
that are a little bit more budget friendly.
- Yep.
- And look, it still works.
And so, great job, Kelley.
All right, Sean Groveland, Massachusetts Zone 6.
It is a clever pattern here.
He's sort of going this like cornucopia shape I wanna say.
And just building rows kind of in that pattern.
I dunno, what do you see?
- I really like it.
It looks like nice curves to it, nice tight beds.
Easy to organize and I love that flow,
that little pathway.
- It looks pretty big.
I think he's got a little grill at the backside there
or somewhere like that. - And maybe a composter.
- Yeah. - It's a cool set up.
- Love it, Sean.
- So, we have Tina from Oregon City, Oregon Zone 8b.
Amazing little sunset shot
and it looks like a custom bed set up
that's perfectly turning into like a sort of
circular piece to the middle. - Kind of a pie.
- Yeah. - Yeah, sort of thing.
- Very cool.
- This is the first one, Jacques
I think we've seen that's done
that circular fragmented garden design
that you see a lot of the time.
I personally would say, you put a little
like table in the middle.
Let that plant energy hit you
right in the sunset. - Centered.
- I don't know, this one's really nice.
Oregon sunset's, hard to beat, well done.
Sandy from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Zone 6a.
A woman after my own heart here
with the extensive use of wood chip mulch
and then a nice little shed right there.
That looks cool. - I was gonna say,
I like their use of pops of color here.
Like the door has like an accent color.
This little table is nice and yellow.
Kind of just helps balance the whole garden
and just makes it look more vibrant.
And the corn, looking pretty good.
- Corn's looking great.
What I like is she's giving herself ample space.
She has the space so she's gonna take the space
and actually, give herself the ability to wheelbarrow around
and work in it in a really flexible way
instead of like... - Sometimes I wish I had that.
- I know, instead of cramming it in.
Well done, well done.
- We have Liberty from Puyallup, Washington.
Hopefully, I said that right Zone 8b.
Really cool, looks like a garden
that's been there for a while.
The wood is nice and weathered.
Everything looks lush and filled in.
- Cool part, Jacques, to me about the beds
is she's gone with a bit of a fancier design.
- Yeah.
- So, she's gone vertical with the pieces
that build the sides of the bed
and she's given herself that flat seat.
It looks like a two by four, two by six type of flat seat.
And I also like what looks to be these custom arches here.
- Yeah, I was gonna say.
- Maybe grapes going up that, maybe something else,
but nevertheless like these heightened texture differences
and then putting green space on them,
it's a beautiful, beautiful look.
- And the woods takes me home.
- We have Sarah from Lambertville, New Jersey Zone 7.
This one's really nice.
She's gone with, looks like pea gravel
or decomposed granite as the floor here.
She's done the picket fence to sort of
segregate the garden from the rest of the yard,
'cause she has the space.
Looks like a shed in the background.
But I see a really well laid-out garden here, Jacques.
- I can't tell if that's like
a massive bunch of potato plants
or like a fig tree from here,-
- No, it's a potato.
- But it looks really, really happy.
- That looks like a huge potato plant.
Yeah it does.
- It looks incredible.
- It does, it looks like she does
have a couple of our Birdies beds there.
But then also has done a couple of
these like sort of DIY plank beds,
and then also, in the foreground here
just attached to the outside of the picket fence.
Really long fence railing planters
that look also custom built.
- Yeah, and they're short flowers.
They don't need much root space.
Great use of the plants in the appropriate space.
- Yeah, think about the borders of your garden.
Where borders happen in nature,
there's a lot of biodiversity at the border of things
and it's sort of when you're building a garden,
you're mimicking that.
And so, you want to make sure
you're bringing things in at the borderlands
so that you can get pollination
or you can get pest control from the native environment.
- Now, that we've seen all these amazing gardens,
which one's your favorite Kevin?
- So I have, I'm cheating I have two,
'cause I have to- - Classic.
- I have to dance with the different situations
that we all live in, in life.
So, Peter from Southwest Ohio Zone 6a,
this ticks all my boxes for that idyllic
production focused farm life with a ton of space.
Looks like a beautiful country home.
Clearly this guy knows how to grow.
He's got all sorts of different setups going on.
This is like to me the full expression
of a production garden for your family.
But I also like Jordan's,
because I like to showcase that you can grow anywhere.
And this is to me is a jam-packed
and crammed balcony, - Love it.
- which is actually a good thing.
What about you?
- So, my favorite is the Central Coast garden.
For me, I love the woods in the background.
I love how dense it is, the different heights, colors.
That just to me is where I wanna be at some point.
I want a nice Central Coast garden.
Huge, filled with flowers and life.
- You guys sent us gardens not only from the USA,
but all around the world.
So, make sure to subscribe.
We're gonna be doing the international edition
of this video soon.
Stay tuned, good luck in the garden,
and keep on growing.