“We’d lay it out, leave it for the night, then come back the next day and go, ‘No, actually,'” Mensing said. “We knew that we didn’t want it to be the traditional-shaped, straight beds next to the walls, but from there we had room to experiment.”
After they got the shapes they liked, the couple would place rocks along the ropes to create their garden beds.
“I think we got a Christmas card from Duluth Dirt that year because we gave them so much business,” Mensing said.
The garden beds take on more of a wave shape near the house and kidney bean shapes toward the edges of the property. Chumich said they try to plan for all seasons with the look of their gardens.
“We do a mix of things like evergreen shrubs for a foundation so it looks pretty all year, or have these long grasses so that it doesn’t look empty later in the season,” Chumich said.
Chumich said they take a similar approach to their vegetable garden. Their vegetable beds are packed with plants, from peas to tomatoes to peppers and mustard greens.
“The idea is that if you plan them close together, they can all support each other,” Chumich said. “And once something is done growing, there’s something right there to help fill the space. That makes it harder for pests and weeds to get in.”
Next to the vegetable garden, Chumich plans to do a cutting garden for flowers to turn into floral arrangements. He previously worked at a floral shop.
