The Sweet Spot of the Season
Welcome back to the garden! We’ve reached my very favourite time of year—early to mid-July. After a long, cool spring, everything is finally starting to take off. The weeds are mostly managed, the big overwhelming harvests haven’t started yet, and the first flowers are beginning to bloom. It’s the garden’s sweet spot, and I’m so happy to take you on a full tour today.
One of the questions I get asked most often is how I achieve the lush, slightly wild, “jungle vibe” in my garden. It’s a style of gardening that brings me so much joy, and as we walk through, I’m going to share some of my best tips for creating that magical feeling in your own space.
Watch the Full Garden Tour
You can join me for a complete walk through all three of my garden spaces in the full video tour right here.
My 5 Tips for a Lush & Magical Garden Vibe
Creating a garden that feels like a magical escape is just as important to me as the food it produces. Here are a few of the simple things I do to cultivate that feeling.
- Create a Grand Entrance: I plant large, leafy plants like zucchini on either side of my main garden gate. As they grow, they begin to encroach on the path, creating a lush, green entryway that makes you feel like you’re stepping into a separate, special world.
- Embrace Volunteer Plants: I let self-seeding flowers like sunflowers, calendula, and cosmos grow wherever they decide to sprout. Seeing them pop up in unexpected places adds a layer of whimsy and surprise that a perfectly planned garden sometimes lacks.
- Mix Your Plantings: I love to interplant vegetables, herbs, and flowers. A row of lettuce looks beautiful next to celery, which is next to a flowering fennel plant, with a volunteer sunflower standing tall behind them. This mixing of textures, colours, and heights is key to that “jungle” feel.
- Plant for the Senses: I intentionally plant taller, softer plants like carrots (with their feathery tops) along the edges of my most-used pathways. There’s something so lovely about walking through the garden and running your hands along the plants as you pass.
- Include Perennial Flowers: Because I have a no-till garden with permanent beds, I can incorporate a few hardy perennials. My patch of Shasta daisies comes back bigger and more beautiful every year, providing a reliable splash of cheerful white with no extra work from me.
A Walk Through the Main Garden
As we walk through the main garden, you can see these principles in action. The dahlias, which I grew from bulbs from Costco this year, are just starting to bloom and are absolutely stunning. Next to them, a huge bed of hundreds of poppies is about to explode with colour.
I’m also planning for the seasons ahead. The bed where my garlic is currently growing will be harvested in a couple of weeks. To make use of that space for a fall garden, I’ve already started seeds for beets, beans, lettuce, and spinach indoors to give them a head start.
Updates from the High Tunnel & Crop Garden
- In the High Tunnel: This space is my secret to extending our short season. To make it feel less industrial, I hang beautiful bunting flags, keep the pathways swept, and let volunteer sunflowers create a beautiful backdrop. The peppers are looking fantastic and are covered in flowers, but the tomatoes are having a strange year with less fruit set than usual.
- In the Crop Garden: This is where I grow my main storage crops. The potato plants are huge and lush this year! Instead of hilling, I simply plant them deep and cover them with a thick layer of hay mulch. Next to them, nearly a thousand onion plants are thriving and will hopefully be enough to last us the entire year.
News from the Forest Garden
A walk through the forest garden revealed a few surprises, both good and bad.
- The Sea Buckthorn: I was so sad to see that one of my large sea buckthorn bushes had completely fallen over, and several others have branches that have died back. It’s been a strange year for them.
- A Win for Nature: My sour cherry tree, which was struggling with an aphid infestation, is now almost completely clean! I decided to let nature take its course, and a healthy population of ladybugs moved in and took care of the problem for me. It was a wonderful reminder to sometimes just wait and see.
- A Secret Nest: The cutest discovery of all was finding our duck, Tiny, sitting on a clutch of eggs tucked away under a haskap bush. It looks like we’ll have some new ducklings on the ranch soon!
Having a garden that is not only productive but also a place of beauty and joy is so important to me. These little touches—the unexpected flowers, the overgrown pathways—are what make it a magical place to be, and they motivate me to come out here every day.
Printable Checklist: Tips for a Magical Garden
- Plant a Lush Entryway: Use large plants like zucchini or squash to frame your garden entrance.
- Let Volunteers Grow: Don’t be too quick to pull out self-seeded flowers like sunflowers and cosmos.
- Mix it Up: Interplant flowers, herbs, and vegetables for a more beautiful and diverse garden bed.
- Plan for Succession: As you harvest early crops like garlic, have seedlings ready to transplant for a fall garden.
- Embrace a Little Wildness: A perfectly manicured garden is lovely, but allowing for a bit of “jungle vibe” can make it feel truly magical.
If creating this kind of magical, productive space is something you’re dreaming of, you don’t have to do it alone. This is just a glimpse of the conversations and support we share every day inside the Little Mountain Ranch Community. It’s a place to ask questions, share your wins (and your struggles!), and learn right alongside friends who get it.
If that sounds like the kind of support you’ve been looking for, I invite you to click here to learn more about the Little Mountain Ranch Community.
2 thoughts on “5 Tips for a Lush & Magical Garden (A July Garden Tour)”
I like this web blog very much so much good info .
Thank you! I’m so glad you like it!