Shea McGee's Kitchen Garden Was Due for a Summer Refresh

I was going through Gardenary's online inquiries one day when I noticed one from Shea McGee. Shea McGee, as in, you know, my ultimate design inspiration Studio McGee. Surely not, I thought. This has to be someone pretending to be Shea McGee.

Turned out to really be her, and we did a consult together online. Shea already had about 150 square feet of raised-bed kitchen garden space. She has been following Gardenary on Instagram and loved how all of our gardens are overflowing with plants, so she decided to enlist an expert to help her create planting plans and plant her garden up for summer. That's where we came in!

Shea really wanted to prioritize flowers and have her beds filled with herbs and veggies she and her family could come out to harvest daily. So my team and I flew to Utah, and on a beautiful, sunny day, we arrived at Studio McGee with our rental car packed with as many plants, seeds, and bulbs as we could fit.

Shea's Garden Before Gardenary

Shea had her six raised garden beds installed several years ago, just before the Covid pandemic hit. She and her family ended up spending so much time in the garden, and her children loved checking on the garden each day to see what was growing.

When Shea started following Gardenary, though, she wondered whether she was fully utilizing her raised beds. She reached out to us, excited for a little garden refresh!

Our goal was to plant Shea's garden the Gardenary way, which means packing in the plants. You might be surprised to learn that planting this way will actually require less tending from Shea as the garden grows in, not more.

More harvesting and less tending? I knew Shea would be on board with that!

Shea's Raised Flower Beds

Shea really wanted to prioritize cut flowers she could bring indoors, so we designated the middle two beds as the raised flower beds. Our goal is for her to have beautiful blooms to cut every single month from June until her first frost of the year.

Each of the flower beds will be a mix of perennial, biennial, and annual plants. For perennials, we've got roses, gladiolas, and scabiosas. For biennials, there are hollyhocks and dahlias. And for annuals, we've got cosmos flowers and, my favorites, zinnias.

Here are the plans we sent Shea.

Shea's Vegetable Garden Beds

We aimed to fill Shea's garden up with herbs and flowers and a ton of veggies. I asked Shea about the types of things she likes to cook so that we could make sure she's got as many fresh ingredients as possible right in the backyard. Shea uses a lot of herbs, so having all her favorite culinary herbs at hand was really important to her. That includes dil, cilantro, parsley, basil, sage, chives, thyme, rosemary, and oregano.

As for the vegetables, I prioritized plants that will stay pretty all summer long because Shea wants her garden to be as beautiful as it is productive. Cherry tomatoes and cucumbers will look extra striking growing on the arch trellises we added to connect her garden beds over the central pathway. By September or so, Shea will have tomatoes covering her new trellises.

In the back two beds, which mirror each other, we also gave her tons of dinosaur kale, buttercrunch lettuce, onions, bell peppers, arugula, green beans, zucchini, summer squash, and beets.

The front two raised beds are similar to the back, but we did grape tomatoes, spring mix, curly kale, red lettuce, celery, and carrots.

We Installed 2 Arch Trellises to Give Shea More Growing Space

Before we could plant up Shea's garden, we wanted to give her vertical growing space for vining plants like cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. We installed two Nicole Arch Trellises, one in the front of the garden and another in the back. These arch trellises create focal points in the garden, like two beautiful bookends.

We Filled the Raised Beds with a Sandy Loam Mix

Before planting a single thing, we needed to refresh Shea's soil. We topped each box off with an awesome sandy loam soil mix. It's my go-to mix of topsoil, mushroom compost, and coarse sand. I also added in things like earthworm castings for a little extra boost of nutrients. I call this my 103 mix, and you can find more information about it in my first book, Kitchen Garden Revival. This soil blend will keep Shea's veggies happy for seasons to come.

Once the soil was in, we reconnected her irrigation lines and spread the drip tubes over the soil.

Then it was time to bring in the plants—lots and lots of plants!

We Planted an Herb & Flower Border in Each of the Vegetable Beds

Even though Shea will have tons of flowers in the middle two beds, we added annual flowers around the edge of every raised bed. I originally started mixing herbs and flowers around the border of raised beds for beauty, and then I realized it also adds pest protection for the plants inside the raised beds. It's like a living fence that benefits the entire garden. (Learn more about the best herbs and flowers to use for organic pest control.)

I like to do a perennial herb almost every single foot around the edge and then fill in with flowers, which, of course, will add a lot of color.

The flowers that Shea ended up selecting for her borders include this pretty little white chrysanthemum, peach zinnias, calendula, and some marigolds. We mixed and matched flowers so that we could spread each type throughout the space. Shea wanted more of a cottage garden feel, and that, to me, means having hints of colors throughout the garden instead of large blocks of any one color.

I always say my style is formal on the outside and wild on the inside, and these herb and flower borders are one way I keep the edge of the garden looking polished. Shea can harvest her herbs from the inside of the bed so that the herbs always appear nice and full from the outside.

We Planted Large Plants in Shea's Vegetable Beds

Once the herb and flower border was in place, we placed all the large plants. Shea says this reminds her of how she lays out all the larger pieces of furniture first when she's designing a space so she can make sure the room will feel balanced.

Since Shea's beds are accessible from every side and receive a lot of sunlight, we planted large fruiting plants like peppers down the middle of the beds and vining plants alongside her new arch trellises.

Then we came in and planted lots of little lettuce and spinach starts around the larger plants. Ordinarily, I would recommend starting these by seed, but we really wanted to get Shea set up with some salad leaves ASAP while the temps were right.

We Sowed Seeds so Shea Will Have a Root Harvest Soon

We saved seeds till the very end so that they wouldn't get moved around when we were planting larger plants. We filled in all the empty spots in her vegetable garden beds with seeds for green beans, beets, radishes, and carrots.

We Planted Up Shea's Cut Flower Beds

These two middle beds are going to be lush with color and texture. We planted a mix of bulbs, plant starts, and seeds, and then we saved some space for some rose bushes that will arrive soon.

We started by planting low-growing flowers like scabiosa around the border of the cut flower garden. Then we placed the bulbs just inside the border. We did gladiolus, which will send up these gorgeous flower spikes that will really fit with that cottage garden vibe Shea's after. We also planted dahlia bulbs.

We planted little cosmos and larkspur flowers from a local nursery in the inside of the bed. These will both grow really tall and add a little wildness to the beds.

Once the roses are planted and the bulbs bloom, these beds are going to be breathtaking.

We Labeled All of Shea's New Leaves, Roots, & Fruit

Before we were done for the day, we went around and placed copper plant tags so that Shea can easily locate all her favorite herbs, flowers, fruiting plants, and leaves.

We Left Shea McGee with Homework

You might have thought that someone like Shea would have someone who comes to maintain her kitchen garden for her, but that's not the case. Tending the garden is actually one of her greatest joys, so I know this garden will be in good hands.

I did give Shea specific homework though, and that's to water the garden where we planted seeds every single day for at least the next two weeks. This is the most critical time if we want those seeds to swell and then burst open and turn into plants.

We also left her with a parting gift: some Gardenary tools, including my favorite long, thin trowel and a seed organizer filled with Gardenary seeds. (From a designer's perspective, Shea appreciated the beautiful brass details on the tools.)

If Shea keeps up with her homework, then everything will really start to fill in soon.

Shea was surprised by how many plants we could pack into her six beds. My goal is that once all those seeds sprout and their leaves fill in the empty spaces, the most common tending tasks she'll have to do will be pruning and harvesting. There shouldn't be too much weeding or fertilizing.

I'd love if Shea gets to spend the majority of her time in her garden just cutting some things to eat.

Watch Shea McGee's Garden Grow

The really cool thing is that Shea was able to begin harvesting from her garden that very night. There were already enough plants for her to make a little spinach salad or an herb dip. In a couple months, she'll be enjoying her first big fruit harvest, and then she'll be eating garden-fresh salsa and homemade caprese salad all summer. Dinner at Shea's? Yes, please!

It was such a treat to plant with Shea McGee and her team in this beautiful space. It's going down in the books as one of my favorite planting days, for sure. And I love that Shea is showing people who might think a garden isn't possible for them that anyone can have a garden. Shea is obviously super busy, but she takes a couple minutes a day to tend her garden and enjoy some peace and quiet.

I can't wait to see her garden grow in!