Herbs, Greens & Garden Dreams: Zone 8 Backyard Planning After Starting Over
Every spring, the garden hands us two choices — pick up where we left off or start fresh. After a few seasons of hit-or-miss harvests and soil struggles at the hygge ranch jardin, we’re choosing the second option. Starting over might sound like waving the white flag, but honestly? It’s the smartest move we’ve made. It’s not defeat — it’s growth. Literally.
If you caught my last post about garden daydreaming, you already know the plan. The seeds were chosen, the beds were mapped, and the excitement was real. What we learned, though, is that plans and reality don’t always grow the same way. So this season, we’re pressing reset and giving the same garden vision a second chance with better timing, smarter prep, and a whole lot more patience.
Starting over isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing better. Here’s what we’re focusing on:
Planting with Purpose — No more impulse buys. If it’s not on the plan, it’s not going in the cart.
Proven Winners for the Region — PNW-friendly crops that are simple, productive, and delicious.
Embracing Imperfection — Nature’s not perfect. Neither is my garden. And yet... it grows.
The beauty of gardening (and life) is that nature hands you a reset button every spring. You just have to press it. This year, in honor of National Gardening Day, we're pressing it with both hands. We’re rebuilding our edible garden from the soil up — armed with lessons learned, better plans, and a renewed determination to finally grow the backyard garden we've been dreaming of.
What's National Gardening Day?
National Gardening Day is celebrated every year on April 14th — it’s a day designed to encourage gardeners of all skill levels to start planning, planting, and getting their hands dirty. National Gardening Day is early enough in spring to plant, but late enough to see the season starting to shift. It’s a reminder that gardening isn’t about perfection — it’s about showing up and simply trying to grow something... even if it’s just your own patience.
What We're Growing
This season, our focus is simple: grow what we actually eat, sip, and enjoy. Our garden plan is rooted in staples for the kitchen and cozy cups of tea.
Veggies
We're planting the basics that hit our table all season long: salad greens, onions, carrots, squash, and tomatoes. These are the heavy hitters — the ingredients we reach for on repeat, whether it's quick salads, easy dinners, or backyard snacks straight off the vine. Fresh, reliable, and low-drama.
Herbs
For both cooking and teas, we're carving out dedicated space for herbs: basil, parsley, cilantro, mint, chamomile, and lemon balm. The goal is a garden that flavors both our meals and our mugs — no store-bought herb packets or tea bags required. Nothing beats the scent of mint when you brush past it, or the feeling of snipping fresh chamomile for a nighttime brew.
Fruits
We’re keeping it classic with strawberries and blueberries — two fruits that thrive here in the Pacific Northwest when given just a little care and the right spot. We love em because their easy to grow, and so tasty they barely make it from garden to basket
While it may not seem like a lot, the theme of this growing season is doing better so we can spend more time harvesting and less time playing catch-up. We can always add to our garden in later seasons once we get a handle on what we're doing.
While it might not seem like an ambitious list, that's the point. This season isn’t about cramming every square inch with plants just for the sake of variety. It’s about building a garden that works for us — one we can manage, enjoy, and actually harvest from without feeling like we’re always two weeks behind. Once we’ve grown our confidence (and our soil health), the garden can grow too. This is the foundation for the kind of backyard garden that feeds both our kitchen and our craving for calm. And honestly, that's the harvest I'm most excited for.
The Garden Reset Edit: Favorites for Planting & Growing
A fresh start in the garden calls for a few trusty supplies — the kind that make planting, growing, and harvesting a little easier and a lot more fun. Here’s what I’m reaching for this season as we reset the backyard beds.
Monthly Planting & Care Checklist
This is our first spring starting the garden relatively "on time" instead of chasing the weather. To stay organized, I put together a month-by-month checklist. Since our last spring frost was just over a month ago, our growing season will be about 7 months.
MARCH
We didn't do any direct sowing or start any indoor seeds, and instead, we focused our efforts on prepping our raised beds for soil. Our backyard is now home to a mix of raised beds —3x3, 3x6, 2x4, and 4x4 — so we can actually plant according to plan.
We also checked our strawberry crowns and trimmed old leaves. Our strawberry bed is in desperate need of an overhaul and thanks to my recent binge of Homegrown on MAX, I finally understand why — runners... so many runners. Even though they propagated new strawberries, the runners made the bed hard to manage + the plants began underproducing.
APRIL
Before the month ends, we have two goals —
start tomato & squash seeds indoors + some herbs
fertilize our blueberry bushes
fill all of our raised beds & prep them for sowing and/or transplants
By the start of summer — MAY & JUNE — we should have tomatoes, basil, squash, strawberries, carrots, mint, cilantro, lemon balm, and salad greens in the ground.
JULY
We should be able to start harvesting some berries, greens, and herbs, while also sowing our fall greens. With any luck, we won't have to worry about pests impeding our harvest.
To close out the summer — AUGUST & SEPTEMBER — if all goes well, we'll just be harvesting, pruning, and sowing for next season.
Even though we’ve mapped out a plan for the rest of the year, I’m reminding myself that it’s just that — a plan, not a contract. Gardens don’t follow calendars, and neither does life. I don’t want to crowd this season with endless “must do’s” and “have to’s” that turn something I love into another source of pressure. I’m giving myself permission to stay present and to take it one month (or one sprout) at a time. Growth will happen, even if the timeline doesn’t go exactly as planned.
If you're hanging out with me on Substack — and if not, you should be — then you know that this is my season of fresh starts; but starting over doesn’t mean scrapping the dream. Starting over means sharpening the tools and growing with more intention (and fewer impulse plant buys). Same garden goals, better execution.
As we step into this new season, garden plans in hand, I’m keeping one thing at the center: flexibility. The seeds are picked, the beds are prepped, and the intentions are clear, but the truth is, gardens grow on their own timeline. Starting over isn’t about controlling every inch of soil or perfectly sticking to a schedule — it’s about showing up, planting with purpose, and letting the season unfold one day at a time. Whether the harvest is big or small, the real win is in making space to grow — in the garden and beyond.
This reset gives us the space to rethink, replant, and reconnect with why we garden in the first place — for the joy of watching something grow, even when the weather, the weeds, and life itself don’t cooperate. So this season, we’re not chasing perfection — we’re planting for progress. And there’s no better time to hit the reset button than National Gardening Day — the unofficial kickoff to a season full of muddy boots, green thumbs, and fresh beginnings.
