My Garden Transformation Before After I Finally Replanted After Losing My Dad

Aloha friends, Christina here and I am so happy to share a garden transformation with all of you today. So many of you have been asking me for a garden update and so today I'm going to be sharing with you my most recent before and afters. For those of you who watched my last gardening video, you might know that after my father's passing it was really hard for me to be in my garden because gardening with my dad used to be something that we used to do together and so my garden went abandoned for some months and a period of time because it was simply too heavy for me and it was just too much grief for me. But since then I have been doing my best to rebirth my garden in memory of my dad and to bring it back to life and it has been something that has been so beautiful and symbolic for me and extremely sentimental. I've been planting new seeds, I've been healing. There has been something that has been so transformative and expansive for me in this process as well as for my garden and it's just been beautiful. So this has become somewhat of a memory garden and it's been a healing space for me and I'm excited to share with you how I have brought my garden back to life. I am so happy to share that this video is in collaboration with True Leaf Market, my favorite source for organic, non-GMO and heirloom seeds. If you've seen any of my previous videos then you know I am a huge fan of True Leaf Market and I have been using their seeds to cultivate my garden for the last seven years. True Leaf Market literally has thousands of varieties of seeds and hundreds of unique varieties that you will not find anywhere else. You can find different varieties of kale, lettuces, herbs, peppers, vegetables, microgreens, sprouts and so much more. It is your one-stop shop for organic seeds. They even have different wildflowers and pollinators for your gardens as well. Not to mention fermentation kits and so much more. And if you're just getting into gardening, you definitely want to check out their zone map calculator. It'll tell you exactly what to grow in your area and the best time of year to grow it. And if gardening isn't an option for you right now, then you can get into growing your own sprouts and microgreens on your countertop for just a couple of dollars a day. True Leaf Market has options for everyone and I cannot recommend that you start building your seed collection enough. I believe that having a stash of seeds in your house is the equivalent of having a stash of gold. Seeds are life and they're also a form of food security for yourself. So if you've not already stocked up on seeds from True Leaf Market, definitely click on the link in the description below and start your garden. Start growing sprouts and microgreens. Start getting your hands in the soil and I hope you enjoy their seeds as much as I do. That link will take you to the best deals from True Leaf Market and I also have links for my favorite recommended seeds, variety packs and more. I hope you check it out and enjoy. So now I'm going to share with you some of my befores and some of my afters. And some of my befores and some of my afters. So these garden beds behind me right now were completely barren and dry about three months ago. And now you can see that they have completely been brought back to life. And I'm going to go through each bed individually right now and show you what I'm growing. So I first just want to say that my garden is a work in progress. It's nowhere near completed and I have a ways to go, but I feel that that's what life is all about. We're always a work in progress. So at least today I'm happy to share those updates with you. And I also want to give a special thanks to my friend, Eileen, who has been helping me getting starters going so that my beds could be possible. So I want to say thank you, Eileen. So as you can see, I am sitting in front of my kale bed. Now I have a whole bed dedicated to kale because I eat so many kale salads that I need a lot of kale to be able to make that much salad for myself. So I have a mix of Lacinato kale, which is also dinosaur kale, and tons of green curly kale. This is my favorite kind of kale to put into salads, to massage into salads, and also to juice. Keep in mind, I also juice tons of kale. So this bed for me right here is a staple bed and it is so abundant and green and beautiful right now. And I love it. I'm also having a few problems with some of the bugs eating some of my Lacinato kale, but I've been spraying them with peppermint oil and that seems to help. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to pick some kale for dinner tonight because that's what I do. The next bed that I am so excited to share with you is my leafy greens bed, which is mainly lettuces, but I also have a mix of other things in here like bok choy, tatsoi, arugula, green onions, dandelion greens, and more. There's so many unique and special varieties of greens in here that I have to go through them with you. So here on the corner, I have some Lacinato kale for protection, kind of a barrier. And then I have arugula, bok choy, tatsoi, red leaf lettuce, a leafy variety of Napa cabbage. I forget the variety. Romaine lettuce, escarole lettuce, or I forget the variety of this, but it's like a green curly lettuce variety. Green curly lettuce, an heirloom red and green speckled lettuce, which is just so beautiful. More bok choy, green onions, and dandelion greens. And as you can see, all of the leafy greens look so abundant and big, and I've been using them in my salads and for juicing as well. And also you can see that some of my greens have bolted. So I'm going to be cutting these soon and using them in juicing recipes. I'm going to be making extra large salads. I'll be using these for veggie platters and dips and more. And I'm just so excited about this bed because I have an endless buffet of greens at my fingertips and so many fun, different flavors and varieties to choose from. So this is my bed of leafy greens, primarily for salads and juicing, and I'm just so excited about it. So next up, I've experimented with this bed just a little bit. I've decided to do half kale because I use so much kale and half spicy peppers because if you've seen some of my previous gardening videos and you know, I love growing spicy peppers. And I've also decided to add some peas into here. Peas are something that I've never grown before, so we're going to give it a try. We're going to see how it goes. And you can see that the kale here is already full grown. And these peppers still have a while to go before they're producing. So it's really about maintaining this bed before I can harvest anything, but it's looking super good so far. And I probably have about four or five different varieties of hot, spicy peppers in this bed. And some of those include serranos and jalapenos. So something that I have decided to grow along the fence of my garden are butterfly pea flowers. And I love these flowers because they just, they vine so beautifully in any corner. And there are so many medicinal uses for these flowers. You can make this into a tea, you can dry them and use them in recipes. You can use butterfly pea flower in anything. You can even eat these flowers in a salad. Butterfly pea flowers are said to be wonderful for women with breast cancer because they're so rich in antioxidants and anthocyanins and more. They're a wonderful remedy for anybody really. But breast cancer research is now showing major benefits to this medicinal flower. Next up, I'm going to show you my two herb garden beds. And this bed in particular is filled with my more rare varieties of herbs. So in the first row, I have fresh dill. In the second row, I've got fresh thyme. I've also peppered in some lettuce in here as well just to fill in some space. I've also got garden chives. I've got Thai basil, lemon basil, and blue spice basil. I've got fresh sage. I've got fennel because I love fennel and I love juicing fennel. A row of parsley and a row of oregano and rosemary. Now something I've learned about the placement of this bed in particular is you can see that some of the leaves are a little yellow, which tells me it's gotten a little too much sun and not enough water. So next time, I'm probably going to plant my specialty herbs on the other side of the garden because there's more shade on the other side and there's more sun that hits this bed during the day. So that's something that I learned. But all these herbs are still thriving and they're going to be delicious. So this is my other herb bed, which is mainly cilantro, basil, and dill. And there's so much cilantro in this bed because I use cilantro every single night in my salads, in my dressings, and more. Cilantro is my most used herb and dill and basil and parsley are a close second. But you'll see that this bed is mainly cilantro because it's what I use. And when I was planning out my garden beds this last time, I really wanted to plant the things that I was going to eat so that I could have an abundance of the things that I use every single day. So as you can see here, I have four rows of cilantro. I have two rows of basil, green basil, purple basil, and even a special variety dwarf basil right here. Some peppered dill in there that was grown organically and even a little extra oregano. This is a wild herb garden right here, but it's filled with my favorites. I'll eat all of this in my salad tonight. This is how much cilantro I eat in a day, probably more than this, but I eat a large handful a day. So the last and final bed that I want to show you is my baby bed. This is the last bed in my rotation, which means that it's the one that I most recently planted and I'm still waiting for some of these sprouts and these seedlings to grow bigger. As you can see, the edges or the border of this bed are a little bit taller than the ones on the inside. And this bed is very much still a work in progress. And I've had a few problems with this bed in terms of wild birds coming and digging in here, my cats, even some snails. So I've had a few challenges with this bed, but we will prevail. And in this bed, I have been growing lots of collard greens, Swiss chard, extra kale, different varieties of purple kale, purple bok choy, broccoli, and more dandelion greens. Oh, I've also got some extra green onions in here. This bed is primarily filled with dark leafy greens that I use for juicing. So that is my garden update and transformation. If you have liked this video, please be sure to give it a thumbs up and hit the subscribe button because there is only more goodness to come. My journey in my garden has been such a deeply personal and profound one, especially because gardening was something I shared with my dad. So I really appreciate that you're allowing me to share this journey with you. And so I just want to say thank you. And I hope that this inspires you to grow your own garden or to just get your hands in some soil because it's just so important. And learning how to garden is one of the most deeply transformational things that you can do for yourself as well. And it really does connect you to yourself and to nature. And it gets you healthier too. If you're looking to grow your own garden or if you're looking for the best quality seeds, please check out True Leaf Market. I've included their link in the description below. And as I mentioned, they are my favorite source for organic, non-genetically modified, and heirloom seeds. And you can find everything on their website. Please go check them out. They're an incredible resource and they really do their best to bring farmers together and to bring communities together. And we really need more of that in the world right now. So check out those links in the description below with all of my favorite recommendations as well. And if you're looking for raw vegan recipes and ways that you can use all of this delicious bounty, please download my Fully Raw Recipe app. It has more than 500 raw vegan recipes waiting for you to try. My app has everything from juices, smoothies, salads, dressings, desserts, epic meals, and so much more. It's available on iTunes and Google Play. And it's available on all mobile devices. I've included those links also in the description below for you. Please give it a download and I hope you love it. All right, my friends. It is time for me to go and make a delicious salad with all of these greens. And I hope that you get to go and nourish yourselves as well. Wishing you a peaceful rest of your day, evening, week, and year. And I look forward to seeing you all in my next video. Sending you all my hugs and my love. Aloha.