How do you go from garden ideas to garden plans? In this episode I visit my friends and neighbors Jake and Dené (who just bought their first and very adorable Portland home). We dig a shovel into the messy process of deciding what to do first and, more importantly, where to do it.

Want to see pics from the garden? Instagram: @freshclippings

Show art by Alison McKenzie

Production guidance from Evan Roberts

Special thanks to Jeremy Bloom

Episode music from Blue Dot Sessions:

Our Son the Potter (Love and Weasel)

Pigpaddle Creek (Sour Mash)

What are doing?

Hey team.

Oh, hello.

Hi, . Hey guy.

How's it going?

How is you?

Good, easy.

Oh, what can we get for you?

No.

Good beer.

Water.

Wine.

No, no, I'm fine.

Okay.

LaCroix?

Uh, yeah.

Okay.

LaCroix.

Yeah.

And then this is the jar from, when you made pickled onions for us forever ago.

Oh, cute.

I forgot to bring it back for a long time.

I'll just set 'em yeah.

Great.

how the heck was your day?

Portland has an amazing garden culture stuff grows so easily out

here with mild weather, which is sunny in the summer and really healthy,

happy rain all the rest of the time.

And then especially where I live out on the east side, the

houses are older, which means.

That they're closer together.

The plots are smaller and they're closer to the street.

So you just see your neighbors a lot.

When they're out there working on their yards, it's where you meet people.

It's where you catch up with people.

See what they're up to.

I wanted to bring some of that Portland garden, energy to the podcast.

So decided to drop by the house of my friends, Jake Ande.

They just recently bought their first house.

And they're trying to figure out what to do with the backyard.

One thing to note my husband, who you may have heard me mention on the podcast

from time to time, his name is also Jake.

That is not this Jake, but they're both lovely people.

So come on, let's head back outside and see what Jake Ande are up to.

So here's what I'm feeling.

We have this big backyard space.

I'm gonna drink our Croix while we're talking to yes, we

have this big backyard space.

We don't know the measurements.

It's it's a new house.

Mm-hmm , it's a, describe it for us, our little tiny cottage in east Portland.

So sell it.

It's a 700 square foot adorable cottage, one bed, one bath, which

works perfect for Jake and I

. Um, It has this big backyard.

I mean, what, twice the size of the house.

I don't know.

It's big enough that like this outdoor space is when we saw the property.

We are such outdoor people.

We wanna be able to live outdoors.

Yeah.

And be out here all of the time.

Even when it's raining, we'll find a little cover.

There's a Perga lot in the back and the cutest little porch.

And we've got our little chairs wrapped around the deck.

We have two fire pits that we'll use when it's not fire season.

Jake's currently putting the apples that are falling from the apple tree into the

bucket, but he is oh, for four on shots.

So by . Oh, for.

My beer pump still.

So what I'm gonna do, , I've just made a terrible drawing for Jake and

I of the apple tree and the chairs.

Jake had a fancy little computer, probably CAD system.

Have you made a single one?

Yep.

There we go.

Yeah.

How many was that?

Eight.

Yeah, I think so.

And him and I, I did a similar, terrible drawing.

Yeah.

And then like, does this kind of make sense though?

Like here's the fence, here's the.

What do you see for garden boxes?

. So basically the question here is we've got this big outdoor space Uhhuh.

It's all grass right now.

Yes.

The existing stuff that we're looking at is we've got a

really venerable old apple tree.

Yep.

We've got some.

chairs in sort of like a semi-circle underneath it to enjoy

the shade when you have guests.

Yes.

And then at the back of the grass lawn, you've got a shed.

Yes.

That might eventually become a sort of like outdoor work environment or like a

office attached office, detached office and aspirations to put like, almost

like a Tiki bar in the back by the shed.

Yeah.

So man.

Have you only made one?

Yeah.

What are we like?

I'm not even keeping track at this point.

We're just not, we're not gonna count this in tosses anymore.

We're gonna count this in time.

Yeah.

Like out of how many minutes . Yeah.

And usually my ING's pretty damn big.

Maybe if you did overhand mm-hmm tough call.

If she got it in the first one that would be for you.

Um, yeah, so.

anyway, the thought is with all of that shade over there, it makes a lot of sense

to make that kind of a hidden chill area.

Yeah.

Um, where, and it's at the back of the lot.

So, you know, you can, it's the maximum amount of space

you can get from the house.

Yeah.

And I, for me, in particular, I think I need to like take it in tiny little parts.

So something that I know that I can do is get these garden boxes built and have.

For the fall and get the soil going and we can get, and so some greens, it meaning

the whole transformation of this space.

I need to start little where Jake is a beautiful dreamer and he is like,

oh, we will do this and we'll do this.

And I'm like, I, I just, all I can think about is this one space, basically we

want, we wanna break ground to start.

Yeah.

. So we're thinking garden boxes first.

You gotta start somewhere.

There we go.

Like Jake says break, gotta break ground.

How are you guys thinking about where to put the garden boxes

we've drawn this terrible picture?

Well, did you just sort of pick it based on where it was on like a wide

ruled piece of spiral note, PA paper?

Or no, we've been, I we've been looking at the sun.

Yeah.

The way that everything moves.

So this would be a great spot for vegetables and, um, herbs.

This gets meaning, meaning, cuz like it's sunny.

It's a lot of sun mm-hmm throughout the day from morning and film night.

Well smack dab in the middle here is the most dependable sun and the least shade.

Yeah.

Um, so if we're gonna maximize our growth, put it right in the.

Which is tough, cuz it's right in the middle.

So then the question becomes, are we breaking up the space?

Are we, you know, is it the centerpiece of the yard or is it a

natural, you know, transition point?

If you've ever looked at a patch of land large or small and wondered how

do I fit all my ideas into this space?

And then if you've ever had to navigate that conversation with another

person, what you're hearing right now probably sounds a little familiar.

The thing is Jake and Nate are starting in exactly the right place, which is great.

They're starting to think first about sunlight.

And since sunlight is usually the thing you have the absolute least control over

in any of your spaces, it's crucial before you make any decisions about what you're

gonna do or what goes, where that you understand the quality of sunlight you.

Jake.

And they know that in order to grow vegetables, they're gonna need a lot of

direct sunlight through a lot of the day.

. That's what makes your vegetables happy and nutritious and delicious.

But of course, there are a few other things to consider too.

Once we'd identified where they were getting the vegetable

quality sunlight in their yard.

We started to think about placement.

We were looking at a lot of those spots and there were some of those sunny areas

that had a lot of dips, um, or ridges that would've meant that they would've had to

either flatten that land out and move it around or construct some really innovative

garden beds in order to keep things.

We also talked about other things that they eventually

wanted to have in their space.

You heard them talk about a Tiki bar, chill out area in the back.

Jake wanted some spots that he was gonna be able to bring in some

local natural plants that wouldn't need much attention, but could kind

of fill in and shape the space.

And.

Understanding how you'd navigate between all those different areas

and the sitting area that they talked about underneath the apple tree.

Once we had a lot of those variables in place.

Jake brought out a few long pieces of wood, and then he just started to block

out where potential vegetable beds could.

That was really helpful because that process allowed us to kind

of see things for really what the dimensions that they were gonna be.

Eventually we got to something that they were really excited about.

Okay.

So sum it up for us.

Like if we had to sum up like the decisions that we made in this one, what

did, how are you guys feeling about sort of like, what did we try to do here?

And then what did we succeed in.

I think the main thing was placement vis Tovi all the other elements

that are planned for the garden, but aren't gonna happen for a while

. Yep.

I think more than anything with the topography of the backyard and making

sure that, you know, we're, , we're not having to do a bunch of earth

moving just to set up some garden boxes . Dene, how are you feeling?

I feel great.

I think that something that if you could see it, we're standing in the back

and we're sitting in the chairs near the porch and in the back, there's a

shed and it's kind of just like a shed that matches the color of the house.

Mm-hmm , but it's in like this big yard space that having this, the

idea of where we wanna put the garden boxes in front of the shed that.

Makes the yard one feel less intimidating because now we've

got it broken into this area.

That's really aesthetically pleasing mm-hmm and makes the shed look

less awkward in the back as well.

We also have like mismatched fences all around, you know, so.

it just takes your eye away from that.

It takes your eye towards this really pretty shed.

Totally.

Um, that, you know, is painted brand new.

It looks like white and black.

And so it, it kind of works really well.

I love it.

It really ties the shed into the whole space.

Yeah.

I think that's a great point that it kind of contextualizes the shed.

It gives it a reason for being Uhhuh.

It doesn't feel crowded at all.

Yep.

Like the nice thing is when you put things in your space, but you leave other areas

around it and then it sort of almost feels like it's like legal, the things I have

and they're not crowded in or anything.

I think too, that once we get this going, like we were talking about,

oh, we just gotta break the ground.

We gotta.

I have some movement on something here.

Even if nothing else takes shape, we have garden before we have had garden boxes

before, like we know we can manage that.

So does that shed actually become a garden shed instead of, or a greenhouse

or something it's in permeable, but does become a greenhouse rather

than an office space like that.

Doesn't wow.

Love it.

Like it doesn't matter because that's there.

So even though I said it's not a centerpiece, like it is, and it.

um, yeah, it becomes the main, at least the one thing that

is always being maintained, worked on taken care of . Nice.

Love it.

You guys made all the decisions.

I just poked this thing in your face and you guys talked it

through that's good though.

Okay.

One, one last let's try and get, uh, let's try and get audio of you.

one.

You have one last, try to redeem yourself.

God, cause you've only done one this entire time, right?

No.

Uh, I think I got two in, I didn't record the other one for

success as far as distances.

Okay.

Okay.

I'll try it from you get, yeah, you get best of three.

Best of three.

Yeah.

One, one more apple and then make one apple in the bucket.

You want me to pick it up?

No, I got oh, the bucket.

No.

You can put it up.

See?

Okay.

We're gonna heaviest first try number one.

close over.

Oh, bounce off the rim.

Come on.

bounced off this redemption shot or DNE.

Do you just wanna try one, try to catch it for him?

No, no.

I think you should try to make one in this guy played beer

pong with me for a couple years.

He would I'm I'm embarrassing myself.

The memories we had.

Oh, all right.

You needed four, but you got it.

I'm gonna sleep.

Y'all have good now.

and with Jake redeeming the college beer pong skills

that frankly, I think he, and I remember a little differently.

Let's let them get back to garden planning.

We are at fresh clippings on Instagram, where I will share some pictures

of their brand new yard, Jake Ande.

Thank you so much for letting us join you on plant time.

And thank you everybody else for tuning in

for clippings.

This is tofa burns.

I'll see you in the garden soon.

perfect.