COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION: Turning our lawn into a dream French Country Garden

Get Bec’s guide to Companion Planting here, with 4 garden plans here: https://growinginfrance.myflodesk.com/growinginfrance

It’s been a long wait since our last video but it’s worth it! This garden transformation from lawn to potager is something that we have been dreaming about for years, and it’s finally a reality, stone by stone we are building our dream French life! While we left the renovation of the old stone house on pause , this is the fist project that we see through to completion and we’re so thrilled to show you the journey and share the end result with you all! The stone raised beds and rebar garden arches and obelisks have all been welded and crafted by hand by Jack, and it has not been without it’s challenges and heartbreak but now the vegetables, herbs flowers and bees are living their best life and we are enjoying harvests of strawberries, peas, spinach, silverbeet and looking forward to a bountiful summer and seriously enjoying our new view!

☕️ Keep us caffeinated (this really, really helps, thank you!!): https://www.buymeacoffee.com/growinginfrance
🔗Connect with us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growinginfrance
💌Get in Touch: growinginfrance@gmail.com

RECOMMENDED WATCHING:
– Garden transformation starts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqBuaSQ2_G0&t=139s
– Full Tour of our Maison de Maitre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe2YYhxp0d4

MUSIC:
– Epidemic Sound | https://share.epidemicsound.com/ovq5se

GEAR:
– DJI Osmo Pocket 3 – Creator Combo | https://amzn.to/47AsA1w
– GoPro HERO10 Black | https://amzn.to/3Nahmc0

welcome or welcome back I’m BX and I’m Jack and we moved 11,000 mi from New Zealand and invested everything we had in these old French houses we currently live in that one and dream about potentially one day living in that one we spent winter renovating downstairs but with spring here we decided to put everything on hold inside to move outside and build our vegetable garden and get it ready for summer so come along as we the story all the best [Music] moments and the disasters the absolute worst has happened and heaps of shots of bees yeah as we turn our front lawn into the if you’ve seen our previous videos you know that we’ve already made some progress on the garden we started with bick’s awesome plan and we drew it out on the lawn in real life it’s bigger than I expected we had to do some pretty heavy landscaping to cut a hole through this wall and then Beck started some seeds and they started growing first we built one Garden it was really amazing to see it come to life as good as you hoped yes it beautiful look at those baby plants you can’t see any dirt in that bed now then we built two more in a week and I watered which I didn’t need to [Music] do I learned how to weld so that we could make an arch and some obelisks for plants to climb on and then it rained and it rained some more and it didn’t stop raining so we went flower [Music] shopping this is just great it’s just [Music] absolutely can rain or shine we couldn’t wait any longer and it was time for us to complete our Dream Garden for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I’m really glad you fixed that bit cuz that’s normally like you’ll come in be like I’m done and I’ll go out and be like B this bit though yeah it’s really hard to spot those things like when you in the middle of it yeah so you need the fresh eyes normally but um I’m also glad I didn’t have to go back out after I thought I was done [Music] [Music] [Music] so because this one got rained on the entire time it was drying it will probably never look the same as all of the others but I kind of love that because it like captured the moment and it tells a little bit of the story of like what I went through and I was building it I can’t tell the difference this is the vegetable garden that we built during lockdown it was built out of sticks and now we’re onto a garden made of stones yeah but it is full of amazing soil so I’m really happy we’ve been able to use it I was way too scared to use the Digger scoop next to the garden beds so I filled them up by hand [Music] [Music] ah now I get it I’m making some more obelisks obelisks mhm hurt you the tummy no it doesn’t hurt my tummy okay I think it’s not D like rainbow daddy like rainbow it’s like a rainbow yeah [Music] [Music] it was at this point that I decided I was going to quit my day job and go full-time making Garden obelisks out of rebar I was having so much fun and I’ve never made like seven of a thing in a row and by the last one like I felt like I had it pretty pretty solid you know had a process and they were all starting to look the same [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] ow [Music] good yeah I’m getting out of a the skin [Music] the sun is shining the birds are singing The Garden is ready how you feeling baby oh I’m so excited I’m so happy hey yeah we did it these plants have been patiently waiting sorry plants it wasn’t my fault it was rain go for it baby doll this one um I’m going to plant based on my plan ooh yeah pretty much I’m also just going to stuff some more things in here so I got all these beans that you grew from seed I did I really need to go in the ground and they got something to climb now oh it’s a very windy it is it’s all right we’ll plant them quite deep and tie them up now where are you planting that kiwi it wasn’t part of my plan I thought we could plant it here but oh look at the bees [Music] so apparently you water your Tomatoes really well when you plant them and then you don’t water them again for like a week and then they send out long rops is that going to be a challenge for you to not come out and water them yes so which tomatoes have we got where we’re going to have a rainbow got ananasa yes then red right then Cherry orange and Cherry yellow and then we’ve got purple cap uh purple capsicum chil red capsicum chilies orange capsicum yellow capsicum nice so if they’re already at the same time it can look quite pretty fingers crossed with leaks and carrots obviously we got kalindula and chamomile and myum as well and so this is all from your companion planting guide it is link here in the description yeah if you want the whole guide It’s got four beds with everything that would work well together I haven’t planted every bed like that because I didn’t start you know we’ just kind of like been filling as we’ve gone but this is fully to plan fully to plant nice something I have noticed with like companion planting and filling more of the beds with flowers and what have you is that when you come out when I come out and do the slug check um lots of slugs are like on the flowers and stuff so it’s just keeping them off the vegetables also want flowers so I do get rid of them I don’t leave them there but um it’s better to see them on a flower like on an aerium than it is to see on your peas yeah you know yeah the flowers pop a new one out every day and a half yeah gosh this is looking gorgeous I can’t wait to like step back and appreciate it you can see how much the other bits have like grown into themselves and filled out so yeah it really is quite amazing what you’ve done here a it’s quite amazing what you’ve done here oh yeah look the the beds are impressive I’ll give myself that but but an empty bed is sad and pointless what are you most looking forward to eating tomatoes tomato yep I want a thin slice of tomato and some Mama on toast oh what are you most looking forward to I love it when I like come out like I don’t know what I’m making for dinner and I come out to the garden and I look at the Garden and then that’s where you get your inspiration chees from there yeah I like that whole process be like oh we’ve got carrots already and spinach and you know yeah I also love eating dinners that you make out of the garden oh look at the sad Bean need some water [Music] [Music] we knew that this tree blocked a lot of the sunlight but we didn’t want to chop the whole thing down so now that we had the gardens built we knew exactly how much we needed to just take off the top [Music] sh [Music] [Music] so here we are just off the motorway an hour from home in the middle of nowhere with absolutely every warning light that our car has lit up oning through them yeah on a public holiday um waiting for roadside assistance but hey look at it look at where we are we were on our way to pick up something very special for the garden and uh that will not be happening today [Music] why is there Wheels floating up in here it’s having the car breakdown has put a lot of stuff on hold it’s meant that not only could we not pick up what we want for for the garden but we also can’t pick up what we need to build the bigger chicken Co and other stuff too [Music] [Music] woo I look perturbed yeah well I’m very perturbed yeah you see the problem hey we can’t pick anything up but I thought I could get started cutting the grass out for the path but no it’s not right it’s not right I didn’t want to say anything it’s not I don’t know what happened I I don’t know how it’s so not right can we just can we just take a moment to appreciate all these bees that are on like every flower even though it’s not right it’s still lovely to be out here to be out here but this has been bugging me I don’t know what happened it’s what happened is it just this Garden or is it both of the this one this one is not in line with anything that it should be in line with it’s supposed to be like here yeah so it’s supposed to be it was supposed to be a straight line from from here yeah yeah from there to that side of the steps then the the inside of the steps but know it’s just nothing I think it’s worse I think it’s both of them this one is too far in and this one is too far out yes they’re both wrong I was going to pick my battles and just say like that one was the that one is the worst one but this one’s not right either no this was the first one that you made this one here I’m going to we’re going to have to redo it can you I mean it’s stone wall you can knock it down and you can do it again I bet that’s just what you feel like [Music] doing not really but no oh I mean we get more Garden out of it and it I don’t and I then have to make less path I’m not just a little bit frustrated for the rest of our lives I don’t know how we did that you helped me measure this Edge as well if it was just me like I wouldn’t actually be that surprised but the fact that we both looked at it together and lined it up and measured it and teamwork that that feels wrong [Music] [Music] this was a very first the very first wall on the very first Garden that I built and I mean it’s prob probably the best one to take down because I had no real idea what I was doing this is a good opportunity to to do it better um I’m sure it’s not perfect this is tough though this is really tough [Music] [Music] man look at the [Music] roots for [Music] a bit of deju oh man the piles of rocks on the lawn yeah I know almost felt like we had a finished Garden for a minute [Applause] there are you all right I don’t know it’s real sad it’s the first one that I built it’s the first part of the first one that I built well it’s probably good you’re doing it again that’s what I said and and fairness it was a lot more morar than Stone like I like how you’ve got how you’ve got on these edges you’ve used the this nice big flat one at the bottom you like that yeah that’s good I was kind of worried you wouldn’t like that no I really like it so if you could just find more of those yeah we’ve got Stone I’ll see what I can find [Music] hey look at that [Music] is [Music] is [Music] the rain is like it’s here to stay so I won’t be finishing that one tonight but I did get that one done check it out those guys come over from the river now he’s trying to leave he not happy with you is he I always always see these little things like smushed on the road I don’t know why they oh don’t fall buddy can you see it yeah I don’t know why they get out of the river in the first place but they’re not very good at getting back to it so I think we should take him over okay yeah he’s not so sure about that I’m here to help I promise oh got you he’s big one I think they get about twice the size really I’ve never seen one that’s big I’ve seen them in the river a bit bigger than this oh we swim there River I know your toes all right okay go pop him back home I’ll take him home at least the sun’s out for this bit oh just take that off put it is that possible look if that’s not fine construction I don’t know what is oh that’s a big rock oh no your plants keep escaping Savaged yeah yeah yeah yeah that’s what I did to you can you fix it now please what fix it I thought you said you were going to do this one no I’m loving I’m loving that one I think it’s come up so nice it’s way better cuz I really didn’t like it but like show me the there are four or five be there are five bees on there you honestly can’t get her a s bees yeah look at that big huge one on the just bees oh my God are you recording yeah C [Music] [Music] think [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we have never ever used this gate uh while we’ve lived here because it’s very busted um it doesn’t lock properly and so we’ve always just piled rocks against it so that it can’t be open from the outside um and this always just felt like oh no I can’t fix that cuz I’m pretty sure it’s welded on and yeah until recently I did not know how to weld so yeah this has just been basically part of the fence rather than a gate that we can use but now that we’ve got the garden and the path and we’re really excited to get this functional again which means I need to get this off find a replacement uh figure out how I’m going to get it back on you catch the one on um exactly yeah I’m going to try to get this off so I can pop a new one on why dad there you go it’s a real shame this is in such bad shape because like once upon a time it would have been really cool look at that turns out this guy was living in the lock sorry buddy but look in finace when I’m done measuring it you can go home [Music] you can really appreciate how straight those lines are now that the centerpiece is out oh it looks so good hey Ludo [Music] [Music] and now the absolute worst has happened what you got there piece of the garden I was so close to being finished you’re just basically becking the Digger up to drive it out pretty much they got comp a little bit complacent what I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so sorry me too least you’re not being rained on that is true oh babe well you only built this part of the wall once so makes sense you’ve got to do it again [Music] broken I feel terrible for Jack he does not feel like doing this I think you know I know there’s like only so many times you can do the same job this is a real bummer Jack says it go oh it’s cracked it’s cracked all the way around here was ever planning to make a garden like ours or any kind of garden that was structured like this um I’d highly recommend leveling the space first I mean in hindsight that’s obviously what you do first but hindsight is 2020 isn’t it [Music] [Music] so you think this one oh I don’t know between the two but this this one can get compacted see it’s not so hard to walk through cuz this is the one we’ve got up by the maon yeah this one I’d like to have it as a driveway so we may as well just stick with the same Stone okay okay that one L that one L cool [Music] do you think it’s enough I was just going to say is this what not enough Stones looks like so you don’t think it’s enough there not even close to enough how it’s like two ton wasn’t it this is two tons of stone that sounds like a lot of stones yeah and then W I don’t know about WW but really so you’re going to do some meth on it and I’m just going to look I’m not going to do some meths I’m going to do some moving it with a wheelbarrow and then pretty quickly we’ll find out oh I’m so excited to see what it looks like this is like the final this is the cherry on the top I hope it’s enough then it’s going to be half a cherry sprinkles the sprinkles on the top hey yeah okay I’ll take that you take that okay that doesn’t seem fair no oh help I’ve only got one wheelbarrow though well I know you could help load it um it’s just annoying that it’s lunchtime otherwise I could use hoppy but I have to wait 2 hours to do that and I’m not prepared to wait 2 hours what’s the time just after 12 oh wait is that hurting your elbow not yet no Jack seriously if it’s quicker you’ve got other jobs I’m just I’m just talking you’ve got other jobs to do like you can wait 2 hours to do hoppy right now is when you harvest the cett when they still got the flow on the end of them if you want to um have a Michelin star restaurant you know the portions are tiny yeah no they look really pretty with the flower on top cuz it’s a very small window where it’s big enough to be a cette and still have the flower on the end of it yeah that’s not big enough to be a CO oh wow wow goes further than you think yeah more oh I want you to keep going anyway no do it with do it with the Digger if it’s going to be if you think it’s going to be much quicker but I don’t know if it will be much quicker I don’t know if it’ll be much quicker but I’m much less likely to injur my elbow yeah first time in 5 years probably a hell of a lot longer than that we have a usable [Music] gate I know we said that we were going to wait till after lunch and use the Digger but beex has just gone out to meet a friend and I think it’ll be a lot more fun if this is done when she gets back so I’ve got a couple of hours I’m going to try and surpriser which means no Digger uh but here we go oh [Music] do what you doing buddy what you doing well I guess that’s all we got then please come in come [Music] in this work this work almost wow oh my God look at this just using this gate it works really nicely now I know we’re going to use it now now you got somewhere to go look at it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] wow well done oh I love you love you too baby you work so you work so hard on this now it’s up to you to to grow it I think that’s doing a pretty good job ball on its own look how beautiful it is look how beautiful it is there all the different [Applause] angles have you done this yet no we haven’t had a chance down here look look [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music]