Why I Destroyed And Rebuilt My First Garden

I built this garden back in 2020 and it has been desperate for a refresh since the last one in 2021. I end up finding massive invasive tree roots and ended up building a new raised bed!
IN THIS VIDEO
Memorial Day SALE active until 5/27, up to 50% off sitewide!
→ Epic Shop: growepic.co/3WOhKTe
→ Cedar Beds (15% Off!): growepic.co/4arYePB
SUPPORT JACQUES
→ Shop: growepic.co/shop
→ Seeds: growepic.co/botanicalinterests
LEARN MORE
→ All Our Channels: growepic.co/youtube
→ Blog: growepic.co/blog
→ Podcast: growepic.co/podcasts
→ Discord: growepic.co/discord
→ Instagram: growepic.co/insta
→ TikTok: growepic.co/tiktok
→ Pinterest: growepic.co/pinterest
→ Twitter: growepic.co/twitter
→ Facebook: growepic.co/facebook
→ FB Group: growepic.co/fbgroup
TIMESTAMPS
DISCLAIMER
Epic Gardening occasionally links to goods or services offered by vendors to help you find the best products to care for plants. Some of these may be affiliate links, meaning we earn a small commission if items are purchased. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. More info on our process: www.epicgardening.com/disclai...

[@Thenician]

"I believe that and I think it's true" gonna be my new line when i haven't fact checked the last thing that came out of my mouth

[@jacquesinthegarden]

It just makes sense :)

[@francestaylor9156]

There was an Adam Savage line like this in MythBusters: "I reject your reality and substitute my own." One of my all time favorite lines lol.

[@BrokeFarmer]

Congratulations on 400k

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Thank you!

[@shamancarmichael5305]

The refresh looks great! I especially appreciate the new raised bed design and construction! As a partially disabled person, that is a bed even I could put together. That might just be a game changer for a lot of folks!

[@brycelathrop1604]

Speaking from experience, if you don't put something down under that new raised bed the roots will actually grow up into the bed and you will be having the same problem all over again. Ask me how I know

[@kimpaynter]

Oh no 😢

[@sambito702]

Yup! Always put down thick cardboard. I always lay down the box it came in, whatever recycling I have available, then branches, soil, and compost

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I will be digging a channel and applying root barrier in the winter when the rains start again!

[@andrewhammill6148]

The rutabaga's look like punk rockers with Mohawks. LOL.

[@KelseyIsARose]

I was thinking Mr. T 😂😂😂

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Haha amazing

[@TheGardenFamily]

Lots of hard work there Jacques! I really like the new style raised beds but I'm partial to wooden raised beds =). I'll also add the only mulch I like more than fresh straw is 1 year old composted straw from straw bale gardens. We do 40-50 bales a year so all that organic matter gets added back in. Thanks for taking us along on the garden reset!

[@jacquesinthegarden]

That is a cool little side bonus of having the straw bale gardens!

[@mumstheword8]

When i lived in a townhouse/row house i was planting in these plastic milk crates that I lined the fence with. Well I had a spruce tree in the yard and when i moved and went to load up the milk crate the roots from the spruce tree started to grow up and in the crates!!! I couldnt believe it! i had a hard time pulling up the crates and that was only from 2 years of being there. tree roots are crazy! Lol. Garden is looking great! Hopefully all that work will help you for the next couple of years!

[@FrozEnbyWolf150]

That's a good point. Tree roots will grow in every direction, including up, if given the opportunity. If you're installing raised beds over existing tree roots, there's a chance the roots will find their way into the raised beds unless the bottoms are completely blocked off.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I've heard of roots shooting up into containers and beds. For sure expect that here eventually! Then I actually have to deal with it

[@barrybridgeford530]

@@jacquesinthegarden I've used a battery powered reciprocating saw equipped with a long "pruning blade" to cut down below & along a single shovel blade depth narrow trench, to "prune" the tree roots heading into my raised beds.

[@epicgardening]

Are the tree collards gone though? Please Jacques, please...put them out of their misery...

[@Ash-fd8ww]

😢😢 where will the cabbage moths go....

[@BiancaZombie]

Ha ha ​@@Ash-fd8ww

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I'll never give them up!

[@angdolonkon]

@@jacquesinthegarden long live the tree collards!!

[@MyFocusVaries]

​@@jacquesinthegarden🎶 never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down ... 🎵

[@veronicadoggone5660]

The cedar bed looks fantastic! I have a dozen birdies beds and I love them. I've had to move them 3 times and it's just so simple. But man I like the cedar look 😃

[@carissalizotte8977]

That new cedar bed looks SO sweet! Would love to get one at some point.

[@frankbarnwell____]

Great example to the root of the problem. Many years ago I relocated a grape plant closer to 4 others. It had 2 long, 6ft, roots down in a crease through fairly clayish soil. It lived after the move, but probably should have put the new grapes around the old. Learned a ton about the ground, though.

[@ulla.umlaut]

I have a maple tree on the boulevard a couple feet downhill and across a sidewalk from some raised beds. Within two years of install, the nearest raised bed was about a third maple tree root by volume. Top to bottom on a 1.5 foot tall raised bed you can't dig more than a few inches because the tree roots have bound all the soil together. Trees are gonna get what they want!

[@VashTown]

I dunno about you, but I love when I get to use the mattock at full power.

[@FaceEatingOwl]

Ohhh… tearing up, not tearing.

[@bethb8276]

The English language can be tricky. I wound the bandage around my wound. 😉

[@widehead1234]

Most language is like that

[@gardengatesopen]

I'm just happy y'all are using punctuation! (It's so much easier to read.)

[@Braddy_Daddy]

No he’s crying on the inside

[@JosePineda-jn8jk]

@@bethb8276you wound it around your wound? That doesn’t make sense… 😂

[@glendaross692]

Jacques, you will still have root problems with the raised bed. I have raised beds because of mesquite and fig tree roots. I actually put pavers down under the raised beds and I STILL get roots growing up in the beds. The garden redo looks great!

[@APrettyGoodChannel]

Wooden beds looks fantastic and easy to put together. Somehow ironic that you guys got excited about and picked up the Birdies design from Australia, but then made a version with American wood which I find really exciting and want as an Australian.

[@GrowsGoneWild]

Those are some big roots 👀

[@tpen891]

I know how you feel. Most of my in grown garden have so many roots from a pecan tree and vines weeds. I use a broad fork to break and pull up as many roots as I can. However, I just ordered 8 more Birdies beds. Up to 17 beds with the great buy 3 get one free.

[@potatoslayer8139]

Ever thought about installing root barriers along the perimeter to prevent the intrusion of the tree / hedge roots into the garden? Would be a one a done type of job rather than having to periodically trench and prune out the invasive roots.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I should have mentioned it but I plan on doing it in the winter after the rain softens the earth and most of my plants aren't in the way!

[@TaxEvasion777]

@@jacquesinthegarden I’m sure you have a different idea but stone pavers can help and typically people have old ones lying around that don’t match anything new

[@xaviercruz4763]

Would surely be nice to find a garden like that in the wilderness be let go to seed and populate a natural area. Such a treasure of varieties!

[@860178432]

"I just believe it and I think it's true" 🤣🤣🤣 I love it

[@pascalxus]

hey, i have a bed that looks just like that except much much cheaper looking. but it's the same basic design. and mine only has 3 slats on the side.

[@terrivance8750]

Jacques, Definitely liking the wood chips over the straw in the pathways. Have to admit, though, I'm biased--I use wood chips for my pathways, too. Couldn't beat the cost--got a truck load for free when a neighborhood took down some very old oaks. 😁

[@watermelonraintv]

the wood chip does look much better on camera. thank you for doing this for us :)

[@dinacasey7034]

I've anxiously been waiting for another post from you! And here you are!! Yippee!!!

[@Phalaenopsisify]

Nice and fresh! And you know what? If it doesn't work out with the root situation you can always plant more trees and berry bushes!

[@ahnanda68]

Do everything turn turn doin a great job 💪 keep on truckin motivation is high it's looking good!

[@adigmon]

I’ve had a great bean year so far! I picked 3 lbs yesterday. I grew several varieties but the haricot verts I planted are the most prolific I’ve ever seen!

[@jacquesinthegarden]

That is awesome, I am very much looking forward to a big bean harvest!

[@beingsneaky]

You need a trench digger to better them N doing it by hand and much faster. Will shred the roots deep down. a wide one or narrow one? Wider, the better, I guess, though. And diug a trench around the perimeter of the garden.

[@marktoldgardengnome4110]

Nothing personal Jacque, but the 1st thing that came to mind regarding this wayward garden area was Rod Serling's voice saying, "You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!" lol 😲 tyfs

[@rachellemazar7374]

Great job, I’m very interested in which plants you use in your native pollinator patch. I’m trying to establish one by my vegetable garden here in the SF East Bay Area.

[@francestaylor9156]

Isn’t it almost always like that though. It’s always more than you planned lol.

[@jujubee7351]

Wow you are a hard worker! Good job, that raised bed you put together is beautiful!

[@refarmer1574]

Oh, my goodness! I just had to pause when you started showing those roots! We had areas of our garden last year, including grow bags, where things just did not do well, even though things grown in the same places previously did fine. In the fall, when clearing out grow bags, I found they were filled with tiny roots that had grown up from below. This spring, I reworked what had been a squash hill that failed, and it was full of roots, including large ones. The nearest tree is some 15-20 ft away. Currently, I'm reworking low raised beds into what will be their permanent positions and, at one end of all the beds, I'm finding more and more roots. They are all from some Chinese elms that had self seeded, along with some maples, in a raspberry patch. The raspberries were transplanted long before we moved out here, but the saplings were allowed to stay to form a (not needed) wind break (I roughly measured and calculated out that these trees lost about 1200 sq ft of garden space!). The maples are not doing this but as we have been reclaiming and amending the old garden area for the past 5 years, these Chinese Elm roots have been working their way into the softer, improved soil and stunting the things we plant! I never imagined that this would become a problem in the garden!

[@rivitraven]

Kale looks delicious i would keep it.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I have another huge kale patch otherwise I agree, honestly I should have just saved it regardless

[@grannyfisher3863]

Good video. I look forward to seeing this patch as it develops. 👍

[@katie.r.vannuys]

That raised bed is really stunning!

[@kimberleychapman8416]

WoW, the amount you did in a day! Amazing + thanks for the helpful advice. 😊

[@BrokeFarmer]

Nice looking raised beds

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I am super happy with them!

[@mcgritty8842]

Jacques’ back on the block!

[@noahmiller6115]

That's a nice looking bed. I expected Kevin to pop out like Night of the Living Dead.

[@kimpaynter]

Those new cedar beds are gorgeous

[@veronicamarquez276]

Thanks for the tips about the roots. I’m having the same problem.

[@joshi_ru]

Filderkraut! That‘s a variety from the southwest of Germany where I live!

[@RealBradMiller]

It is so neat looking! "Ich habe einen clubfooß!"(the only German I know!)

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Is it one you traditionally make sauerkraut with?

[@suepowlesland8541]

Put some eyes on those rutabaga and you got a Muppet😅

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Hahha

[@jesswelsh9838]

Hi Jacques 👋 it looks great, good job! Thanks for the video, happy growing 🌻💚

[@francestaylor9156]

Slugs are why I started doing cabbage in containers instead of my raised beds. It’s been good so far. Problem is containers get hotter than in-ground. Looks like I can only do cabbage in the fall here in E TN.

[@roelven1282]

trust me .. .slugs WILL find the cabbages and any other food for them in containers as well .... lol .... i got 96 containers in total (all between 45ltrs - 120ltrs) ... and slugs have been spotted ...everywhere ;) muhahahaha .... funny parts is (for the slugs) ... even my 3 ft high raised beds i got ... still are a hurdle slugs still can cross ;)

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Interestingly enough I only lost like 3 out of the 15 cabbages I put to severe slug damage.

[@francestaylor9156]

@@roelven1282 - yah the raised bed slugs had to cross rough concrete blocks to get to my cabbages and they still did it anyway. Crazy. Also, I noticed little tiny baby slugs in the grow bag cabbages so it does look like they will find a way lol. XD

[@sultanofthesun2072]

I love blob gardens 😂

[@nahomic101]

The garden looks great! Can you do a video about growing beans? I have tried to grow them for three years and haven’t had much success.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Ill add it to the list of ideas!

[@DedicatedToADoctor]

Awww Jacque! I'm so sorry those citrus trees caused you so much work! So happy you are going to love having them re-done though!

[@carollyn8885]

Would it make a difference to put a piece of metal to block the roots or would the roots just go over under and around it?(For the citrus tree, not the hedge. The hedge looks intimidating.)

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I actually did just that last year with metal flashing but it apparently wasn't enough :(

[@KyleTheFountain]

That black Shepard in the background is a beautiful dog

[@vandthebees9249]

Should have put weed block beneath that new raised bed. I have tree roots that invaded my raised beds too.

[@kfetter9046]

Those rutabagas looked like puppets with mohawks, LOL!!!🤣

[@lindamurns1245]

That seems to be the way ! You think you're doing a simple task and mother says "no you're not " lol!

[@nancylafferty8362]

Much better! Love the new bed!

[@mariapina1973]

the garden looks awesome 🙂🌻

[@Mark723]

No beans about it: the soil is the culprit!

[@jacquesinthegarden]

💯 we got some and soil to blame

[@waterbitten]

😂😂😂 good one.

[@Gardeningchristine]

Millennial gardener put a couple layers of weed fabric under the raised beds to keep out rodents and tree roots. Do you think it’s a good idea?

[@CanadianChick1000]

Lovely reset, and wow, how much do I love that new raised bed concept!

[@earthisflat]

Good video 👍 I have a passion vine and a chiltipin pepper plant in my 3 ft by 8ft raised bed which gets full unstructured sunlight the passion vine is in the middle of the bed and my idea was to try to create a canopy with the passion vine, but was just wondering what might be some good crops to inter crop with those that could grow great under the passion vine? 🤔

[@lakereflection7386]

Oh i want that cedar bed its so pretty when put together

[@barbebrown7753]

Looks great!

[@pencey]

The new raised bed is stunning! Nice work on that garden update.

[@judymckerrow6720]

Thank you Jacques. 💐💚🙃

[@lawrenberghanson4401]

Uh oh! It looks like you have a jumping worm at @2:29, Jacques! Watch out for those worms. Good job on the refresh!

[@MyFocusVaries]

I wondered about that when I saw that worm in the compost.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Hmm, I am going to have to look closer, hopefully it was just an adventurous worm.

[@teresaedwards3659]

Nice to see you!

[@Not_Seth_Rogen]

Does correctly composting scraps and old plants get rid of the risk of former plants germinating and popping up in a later season, or will you always run the risk of a tomato or tomatillo growing at some point?

[@sigmundblank7403]

Fork it all !

[@gangofgreenhorns2672]

If kale is bolting it would have had to go through a cold period right? They're biennial.

[@mrstoneybrew]

Do you do anything to your eggshells before throwing them in the compost.?

[@Benweis1]

Why didn't you insert a root-barrier when you had already dug up the whole path? In case it's just missing knowledge: there are barriers especially for that purpose. They are normally used to stop plants from spreading, like bamboo or peppermint, and taking over parts of the garden they're not wanted in. You could use that to limit your citrus tree.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I plan on trenching and adding root barrier in the winter when it rains again all along the boundaries of my garden

[@lornaj3310]

Where are you that you get slugs??? Or cabbages?

[@julipolito7761]

Jacques, do you treat all the beds with neem cake? Can you, as a preventative? I, too, struggle with nematodes. I’ve used it for the first time from your suggestion, last year. Thank you!

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I pretty much do with any sensitive plants or in areas where I know it has been an issue.

[@gnargnar1992]

Looks good Jacques! I highly recommend lactid acid bacteria serum (LABS) as an easy KNF recipe to alleviate phosphorus toxicity.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I will look into it!

[@user-hn8zb6tq6b]

Hey my man

[@pintsizestories196]

Raised beds with bottoms the only way to tackle tree roots.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

For sure the best options, I plan on trenching and adding root barrier in the winter when it rains again!

[@Plantandpeoplecarer]

I love sugar cane mulch, it’s readily available in Australia and it’s cheap

[@jacquesinthegarden]

That is cool, I wish we had a local waste product

[@teresastewart9760]

What is the tall plant in the background of your raised cedar bed that has the tall stalks of blue flowers?

[@Idontwantachannel67]

Echium

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Pride of Madeira!

[@louisamichelleloll]

Have you ever had any issues with herbicides in your manure compost? It’s something I just found out that I’m dealing with it and I have no idea what to do aside from wait 3 years

[@MyFocusVaries]

A friend had this issue with compost she had brought in! It killed her dahlias before she realized the problem. I've heard it's less of an issue with chicken manure, but it's one of the reasons I'm trying to find organic alfalfa as an alternative. I'm curious to hear if there's anything to be done besides wait it out

[@jacquesinthegarden]

I went with an organic based manure so in theory they shouldn't be eating any herbicide laden foods

[@lukewoolsey836]

Have the nematodes worked for the grubs? I’m struggling with them.

[@jacquesinthegarden]

They do if applied regularly at the right time. For now most of my grubs seem to be concentrated in my raised beds where I never applied nematodes

[@cantnv1]

Where can I find that Lincoln log planter!?!

[@jacquesinthegarden]

Link in description!

[@SpareBedroomGardens]

Full bean?? Was that a Jeff Acuri reference?

[@KelseyIsARose]

Those rutabaga look like Mr. T

[@jacquesinthegarden]

hahaha amazing!

[@Ash-fd8ww]

🌱🌱❤❤

[@user-nlvmruu]

why do some beds have wood or metal and some are just in the ground?

[@jacquesinthegarden]

It is all preference really. The ground beds are harder to maintain and work on since they are so low. Wood looks great for some metal looks great for others. Metal will last longer than wood, by at least double, but it comes down to preferences here!

[@laurielangley2306]

GO BEANS! And, um, why does it seem you have to work TWICE as hard as Kevin???

[@mmmsshenanigans9422]

I love my woodchip mulch but i also wish i could comfortably walk around barefoot. I still walk barefoot but i have to walk slowly so i dont skewer my feet lol

[@valeriesjeans]

Won’t they just grow back? (Roots)

[@jacquesinthegarden]

They for sure will, I plan on trenching and adding root barrier in the winter when it rains again!

[@anthonycopacetic5016]

For views

[@PlantObsessed]

Yeah worm compost. Worms rule 👍🏼🪱😁