10 Years, 4 Cities, 8 Gardens-Nicole Burke's Kitchen Garden Journey

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Today's episode is a special one.

I am going to take you way back and tell you about the 10 years it took for me to become a garden professional. 

I'm going to tell you why it took 10 years for me to get here. I'm going to tell you about all of my gardens that I've been planting and all the different places I’ve been over the last 10 years. So, let's do it.

Let's grow ourselves together. 

Today we are going to take a stroll through time - a stroll through my 10 plus years of gardening. I'm going to tell you about the struggles, the losses, the challenges, and how I got to be where I am now. We are going to have so much fun! 

I love thinking about the journey that we all go on as we learn anything, but especially as we learn how to garden. My grandfather, Clyde Singletary, who was the head of horticulture at Mississippi State University, used to say in his 70s that he could keep learning about plants and their habits forever.

He said it was literally an endless journey of learning.

That's what I love so much about gardening. I just can't exhaust the topic. I'm always discovering something new and there's always a surprise even when I'm growing the exact same thing I grew last year. The weather is always changing and I'm always a different person. 

So I'm going to bring you through my journey and we're going to go all the way back to Charlottesville, Virginia.  

Gardening in Charlottesville, Virginia

City Number One

Garden Number One-Charlottesville

So I was in Charlottesville with Jason, my husband, from 2006, until 2010. Jason is a chemist, so we were at UVA in Charlottesville. That's where we had our first two children, Carolyn and Brennan. I really wanted to start gardening there.

We lived about a mile from Monticello, and I had Carolyn. I was still working for a company in Philadelphia in the area of philanthropy at the time.

I was new to being a mom trying to figure out how in the world to make my baby sleep. She was a pretty fussy baby so I would take her on walks at Monticello. Monticello was Thomas Jefferson's estate and it has the most incredible setup of row gardens that overlook the Blue Ridge Mountains. I could literally walk up there for free because we lived right down the street. So that was really my first exposure to kitchen gardens and the idea of gardening. 

I was also reading a bunch of mommy blogs at the time talking about eating organic. With the combination of those two things I was definitely itching to start composting and gardening, but I lived in a townhome. 

So we had one car that was pretty much dying, lots of baby responsibilities, not a lot of time or money, and really not a lot of space.   

My mom came and helped me when I had Carolyn and we put in a front yard landscape. So we planted some heather and some ornamental bushes.

Jason and I planted a cherry tree that is now the most gorgeous tree.

Every time we visit Charlottesville, it’s so fun to see the tree in full bloom. 

In terms of edible plants however, I didn't have much going on. When we were at the nursery purchasing those things for the front yard I saw a lady at the nursery tending orchids. That's when I first had that idea of becoming a gardener. 

That was way back in 2007. 

When we were at the nursery I did buy a pot of rosemary and I want to say that was probably the first edible plant I ever purchased. 

Then as we set up the plantings, my mom took some oregano seeds and sprinkled them right underneath those plantings and it ended up growing like crazy, along with the rosemary. I kept the rosemary outdoors that spring and summer then brought it indoors, kept it alive and ended up using it in so many ways. We even ended up planting it in our landscaping in the back yard and watched it make it through a couple of winters.

Of course there was plenty of snow, but to my surprise, the rosemary would come back the next spring. 

So even in my tiny townhouse I was able to grow something edible and that goes to show that no matter how much space you have you can always start a garden of some form. 

This is why I love encouraging people to start with herbs. Inside my book you'll see the four step plan to start gardening and I always encourage people to start with herbs. I think this is largely inspired by the fact that my first successes were with oregano and rosemary.  

Look closely in the photo above once Carolyn is about 10 months old and the rosemary is thriving.

Gardening in Nashville, Tennessee

City Number Two

Garden Number Two-Nashville

We soon ended up moving to Nashville, Tennessee for Jason's job. By this time we had our third child. This time we were renting so we did have a yard but the yard was at a tremendous slope. In fact, to go into our garage, you were literally at a straight down angle - your car could just crash into the garage if you weren't careful. 

Despite that, I definitely had the gardening itch at that point. In 2010 I read the book “Animal Vegetable Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolve. 

In the book she challenges herself and her family to eat locally for a year. It totally opened my eyes to the idea of growing locally and eating seasonally. It was around that time when my third child, Rebecca, was born that my mom came again to visit and help out with the kids. 

This time she brought me garlic chives in a pot and she said, “You're gonna love doing this. It’s so fun to just cut fresh chives.”  

Then in the summer of 2011, I was really ready to go all in and set up a garden. It was the middle of the summer so the timing was totally off but Jason agreed that we could go for it. We actually tried to do a row garden in this little spot at the bottom of the yard. We actually had a friend come over and till up the earth for us.

We were in a rental, by the way, but our landlord lived in Thailand so we are guessing he wasn't going to be stopping by anytime soon. 

Then we planted the area with seeds. We planted all kinds of random seeds that we found at Lowe's and Home Depot. We planted bush beans, some potatoes, corn, tomatoes, and carrots. I don't know if you've ever done this in your gardening journey, but I just bought everything that looked good to me and we just went in and planted it all.  

As you can guess we didn't have a ton of success. We were at the bottom of this hill so when the rain came, all of the seeds we planted would just wash right down the hillside so I lost a ton of things we planted. We did however get basil, green beans, and some potatoes. We got just enough from that first garden to really satisfy my appetite. I loved having a space to go out to with my kids.

It was kind of a retreat to go to and discover something new. With three kids I was home a lot and was in what we call “nap jail.”

If you're a mom you can relate to this “nap jail.”

The garden ended up being my escape from “nap jail” so even though we didn't have a lot of success, I still loved it.  

Garden Number Three-Nashville

In the next summer of 2012, we learned our lesson. We did amend the soil a little bit but this time Jason had the wherewithal to try to build up some raised beds. He built the beds in a different spot in our yard, filled it with the soil mixture he found at the hardware store and planted a few cherry tomato plants inside of them. So we had more success in those raised beds and they did so much better than the row gardens we attempted. When the rain came the seeds did not wash away because they were held up with the edges of that bed, even though they weren't very tall. The tomato seemed to like the new soil much better than the Tennessee soil and we actually ended up with some cherry tomatoes in the end!  

That success was so exciting and we were going all in as much as we could. At that point we started composting. We grew mammoth sunflowers that summer and I had a whole edge of the yard that I separated as a pollinator garden.  

Gardening in Houston, Texas

City Number Three

Garden Number Four-Houston

It was all so much fun but then it was time to move to Houston. This was for Jason to begin work at MD Anderson. It was a totally new climate but we did have our experience of growing herbs in Charlottesville and the raised beds in Nashville. So we had already learned that raised beds were going to help us so we decided we do raise beds again. Then we did some research on timing and soil and gardening in Houston. This was the fall of 2013. We did three, four by ten raised beds all along the driveway.  

This time we were much more methodical in terms of the soil we used and the seeds we purchased. We didn’t just head to Home Depot and grab whatever we could find. This was a real pivot. Oh my goodness! Our garden took off that fall and it was incredible. First of all, we've never lived in a climate that we could grow in year round. I was missing so much of the climates I lived in previously with the changing colors and the cool weather of fall but this was kind of a way to survive and get through that by getting to grow in the garden all year long.  

Our gardens were so productive that year. I don’t know if it was because the pests in the neighborhood didn’t know about them yet but we really didn’t have many issues. We were harvesting lettuce every single day for six months from that October all the way to March or April of the next year. This is when I literally just could not get enough of the garden. We were sharing our harvest with neighbors and I was just head over heels with what was happening in the backyard.  

At the time I was still homeschooling so the garden was my getaway when I couldn't get away. I would do schooling with the kids in the morning and we'd go out to the driveway and check out the garden in the middle of the school day and then as soon as class was over I'd head out to the garden to discover the magic that was out there. It was a total gift and escape for me that I could enjoy without having to leave home.  

Garden Number Five-Houston

Not much longer and I was itching to sell lettuce for a living... 

I loved gardening so much that I started to dream of having a business of finding some way to share this as a career. So we will fast forward to the fall of 2015. My vision was that I wanted to grow enough in my own garden to sell those things to neighbors or at a farmers market.

I told Jason about my dream and he agreed so we expanded our garden to have six beds total and we planted them full of greens. My dream was to sell lettuce for a living. That's when I started Rooted Garden Goods. When I first started my business my intention was to sell the vegetables that I grew in my garden but it only took a few times of washing all of those lettuces to realize that this wasn’t quite the right path. 

So I ended up changing the name of my business from Rooted Garden Goods to Rooted Garden. A friend of mine suggested to me that instead of growing things and selling those things, that I should just teach other people how to garden. That was a much better fit for my personality. 

I still was left with those six beds filled with greens from 2015 to 2017 and during these three years I was setting up all kinds of gardens all over the city. Throughout those years I was exposed to higher end gardens because of my clients. I was privileged to create some of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen and actually install them for my clients.  

Garden Number Six-Houston

Now for a garden makeover... 

My mom is an interior designer and while I was never really interested in that because I’d rather be outside than inside, I do think I inherited that love for design. So after I was exposed to these beautiful gardens I wanted to recreate that on a smaller level for myself. In the fall of 2017, I did a garden makeover in my own yard. We pulled those six beds out, reserved the soil, and cleared up the space.  Previously I had been using pine straw in between all of my beds but then we switched to gravel. We then went back to the original three beds and I had my team install drip irrigation. Up until this point I had never had drip irrigation in any of my own beds. The watering was all up to me and the busier I got with my business the harder it was to take care of my own garden. So we condensed the six beds down to three beds and installed drip irrigation. 

The next thing we did for my garden was actually because of a happy accident. I had ordered some custom arch trellises for one of my clients but when they came they were in the wrong size. The company that made them made a huge mistake and had to re-make them.

My client ended up with some of the most beautiful trellises but then I got to thinking about the ones we sent back. I ended up calling the company to ask if they still had them and they did! So for my birthday I purchased those trellises for my own garden (of course they gave me a good deal) and ended up with something beautiful for my garden that I normally wouldn’t be able to afford. 

So I had finally put together this absolutely beautiful garden and then it was time to move again. Jason was transferred to the Chicago area for work. I had to say goodbye to my beautiful new kitchen garden and head to Chicago.

Gardening in Chicago, Illinois

City Number Four

The house we moved into had a very large yard but it was mostly shaded in the backyard. The previous owner actually had a raised bed that was 16 feet long. It was very overgrown with weeds but I knew that it’s what I needed to get me through this time. I was quite down about the move to Chicago and that I had to leave Houston where my business was thriving. 

Garden Number Seven-Chicago

I knew this was the right move for our family, but I was really struggling so the garden again was my place for therapy. So I just planted up the garden that existed, added new compost, pulled all the weeds and planted tomatoes, peppers, greens and all kinds of things. I was trying to experiment and learn the climate but that summer ended up being a flop. We got a lot of herbs and a few tomatoes but not too many other things. The garden was unfortunately just set up in the wrong place. 

Garden Number Eight-Chicago

And now for the eighth and final garden (to date)  

So, in April of 2019, I signed my contract for my book, Kitchen Garden Revival. 

I knew I had hundreds of gardens I could photograph in Houston, but I lived here now. I planned on going back to document the gardens for the book but I knew that I also needed my own garden too.  

Over the previous year I was plotting for my next garden. I was trying to figure out where the sunshine was and where the garden would line up best with my home. There was a spot on the side of the house that was filled with concrete and it was kind of just an eyesore at that point.

I was getting ready to write my book and my mom was telling me, “You know Nicole, you’ve just got to get that garden set up. You can’t write a book about gardening and not have a garden of your own.” 

So I ended up asking the contractors that were already working on my house to tear up that concrete.

They came by and filled an entire dump truck with cement that was in the way of the garden. Then my daughter and I started to level out the land but quickly we realized it was just too big of a job for us. I was getting closer and closer to documenting my book and I just had to get this garden set up so I called a landscaper, told them my vision, and they ended up giving me a good deal.   

When it was time for Eric, the photographer for my book, to come document my garden, it ended up SNOWING. He was scheduled to come on a Wednesday and the Sunday before it snowed EIGHT inches. I was in complete despair. I thought everything was going to fall apart but luckily the next day it warmed up and all of the snow melted. We were able to get the garden completely installed while Eric was here.  

That garden ended up exploding with growth so Eric came back in August to take more photos and we documented the growth of the entire garden. We actually did this fun harvest day. I harvested all these things from the garden, and then the girls and I worked in the kitchen literally all day long, cooking and creating different dishes. It all ended up coming together in this crazy way and at the end of the night Eric documented us sitting down on the back deck, having a meal together. 

Four Cities and Eight Gardens Later...

So, that is the story of my garden. I hope that this story gives you a picture of a gardener's journey because it really is a journey. 

It's about planting one thing, learning from it, and then moving on to the next one. It's been so fun to go through this with you and trace back through time to share my journey. Wherever you are in your journey, I hope you feel encouraged by my story. Where you are right now is exactly where you need to be. The experiences you’re having this spring and summer are going to prepare you for the next one.  

If you had told me way back in 2007 that I was going to run a gardening business and write a garden book, I would have laughed in your face but honestly we never know where each little seed we plant will take us and that is the fun of the journey. 

If you’re interested in learning more about my garden journey, I would love for you to order my new book that is officially out now.

Kitchen Garden Revival is available wherever books are sold and I would love for you to get in on the revival with us by ordering a copy for yourself. 

Click here to order.

Once you do please email hello@gardenary.com with a screenshot of your receipt and your review to get access to our mini course AND our 50-page planting plan e-book.

I cannot tell you how much your support means to me so please know that I am grateful for each and every book order and review that comes through. 

Thank you so much for listening to the Grow Your Self podcast. If you enjoy this podcast will you please take a selfie while you’re listening and share it on Instagram so more people can find out about it? If you’re anything like me, you want the magic of the kitchen garden to spread all over the world and one of the best ways to make that happen? Instagram. Post your selfie to your Instagram stories and tag us @gardenaryco. I can’t wait to hear from you.