Zolene Quindoy Of Yardzen: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create A Successful Vegetable Garden To Grow Your Own Food
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Location, location, location! Selecting a proper site for your vegetable garden is crucial to long term success. Sun exposure is perhaps the most obvious factor, but microclimates such as reflected heat from nearby hardscape, or cold air drainage due to a slope can also affect the growing conditions for your veggie bed.
As we all know, inflation has really increased the price of food. Many people have turned to home gardening to grow their own food. Many have tried this and have been really successful. But others struggle to produce food in their own garden. What do you need to know to create a successful vegetable garden to grow your own food? In this interview series, called “5 Things You Need To Know To Create A Successful Vegetable Garden To Grow Your Own Food” we are talking to experts in vegetable gardening who can share stories and insights from their experiences.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Zolene Quindoy.
Zolene Quindoy is a California-based horticulturist with a passion for backyard chickens, composting, and edible gardening. She is head horticulturist for the online landscape design and build platform, Yardzen, where she oversees the standards for all softscape design. She resides in Orange County with her husband and three children.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”?
I was born and raised in San Diego where the climate is amenable to growing plants from all over the world, but apartment-living meant I had very little space in which to put anything in the ground. As such, my early forays into gardening were mostly restricted to containers (still a favorite and very effective way to grow both ornamentals and edible plants).
After college I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and purchased my first home in Oakland. It was a fixer-upper with a blank slate for the garden, and this is where I installed my first proper vegetable beds, as well as tended a small flock of urban chickens. During this time I worked in both retail and wholesale nurseries and had access to all kinds of amazing plant material. This was a boon for my adventurous gardening streak, but unfortunately not so much for my pocketbook!
In my role at Yardzen I help guide our clients, designers, and build partners through the process of selecting cohesive plant palettes that meet their style and design needs and will be successful long term. I am a staunch advocate of “right plant, right place” and enjoy finding solutions for difficult planting sites.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I’d have to say one of the most unexpected (and delightful!) turns in my career has been working with Yardzen. As a fully remote landscape design platform, we rely on technology to drive our industry-leading designs and 3D renderings. Because we design in all 50 states, we also rely on a firm understanding of climate and local ecology across the entire country. As the Head of Horticulture, I’m responsible for developing the tools we use to ensure successful plant selection and placement for our clients nationwide. As such, I’ve had to brush up on a lot of interesting factors that affect plant selection — from moose-resistant species in Alaska, to salt-tolerant species for coastal locations, and tough alpine plants for clients living at high altitude.
My role has afforded me the unique experience of gardening virtually in almost every corner of the United States — something I almost certainly would not have otherwise accomplished IRL in my lifetime!
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Be agile. Having worked at a couple of startups, I’d say being agile has been critical to my success. Disrupting an industry inherently means you may not know exactly what you’re doing (because it has never been done before). I rely on my experience, work ethic, and ingenuity everyday to tackle whatever task is at hand and if something isn’t working as well as I’d like, I pause, take stock, and if needed, modify my approach. In work and life (and gardening!) it’s fine to make mistakes — as long as you use them as opportunities to learn and grow.
- Be a teammate. There are plenty of things I’m good at, and even more that I’m not! It’s important to know what you don’t know and feel comfortable seeking out and relying on the expertise of your teammates. None of us exists in a vacuum and credit for my successes in both my professional and private life is shared with those around me.
- Learn and be curious. Being a lifelong learner has fueled my drive to excel at my role as head of horticulture at Yardzen. I’m constantly researching and working with our design team to refine our planting design tools so that we are best able to serve our diverse nationwide clientele.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I love the proverb, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” To me, this embodies two main principles: (1) the importance of foresight and planning for the future, and (2) it’s never too late to embark on a new venture.
I’ve applied this in a very literal sense in planting several small fruit trees after moving to my current home several years ago. Sure, I would’ve loved it if there were mature trees here when we bought the house but alas, we inherited a patchy lawn and a row of gnarly hedges instead. No worry — I researched low-chill stone fruit that would bear despite our mild SoCal winters, labored to remove the hedges and prepare the soil, and planned to plant my selected varieties that winter during bare root season. As they grow, I keep my eye toward the ultimate canopy size and shape I’m aiming for and make ambitious pruning cuts (those first few pruning sessions can be brutal!). In a few years time, I’ll have transformed my generic suburban backyard into a mini home orchard and productive vegetable beds. Plan for the future, and take action now!
Are you working on any interesting or exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I’m continually doing research and refining our plant selections to ensure we have a deep roster of plant material from which to meet diverse site conditions and client requests. This means I’m diving into something new almost every week. Currently, I’m working on refining our native plant selections to better serve clients who wish to reduce their landscape irrigation needs, as well as provide habitat for pollinators and support healthy local ecosystems.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about creating a successful garden to grow your own food. Can you help articulate a few reasons why people should be interested in making their own vegetable garden? For example, how is it better for our health? For the environment? For our wallet?
Personally, I find garding to be quite therapeutic! It’s an easy way to take in some fresh air and sunshine and connect with nature in your own back (or front) yard. If you have young children, as I do, it can also be a fun hobby to share. Kids are naturally curious and will marvel as seeds sprout from previously bare earth, and intently observe the various animals that buzz, crawl, and hop through the garden. It’s a lovely way to bond and foster their confidence as they complete simple tasks like watering, pulling weeds, and harvesting ripe veggies on their own.
Home gardening is also a very economical way to provide fresh herbs and veggies (especially considering the premium pricing of store-bought organic produce). For the cost of a packet of seeds you can grow dozens of heads of cabbage, bushels of beans, or way more tomatoes and zucchini than you could possibly eat (I barter surplus produce with my neighbors for their citrus and stone fruit, as my trees are still young and not heavily bearing). Additionally, if you grow heirloom varieties, you can save seeds year to year so you only need to purchase the seeds once. Perennial edibles such as asparagus, rhubarb, and berries also need to be planted only once, and many can be divided to increase their growing area or shared with friends to plant in their own gardens.
Growing and eating your own local, seasonal produce can drastically reduce your carbon footprint, as fossil-fuel intensive transport from far off farms (possibly from a different hemisphere for out-of-season produce) is eliminated in lieu of a short walk out your back door. If you choose to garden organically, you’re not relying on synthetic fertilizers which are a byproduct of the petrochemical industry. Synthetic fertilizers are also prone to moving through the soil profile quickly (out of reach of plant roots) and polluting ground water, as well as through surface runoff to local waterways and the ocean.
Over time, organic fertilizers and compost can improve soil structure, water-retentive properties, and foster a healthy soil biome, which in turn improves plant vigor and crop yields, and minimizes the need for additional nutrient inputs.
Where should someone start if they would like to start a garden? Which resources would you recommend? Which plants should they start with?
If you’re not sure where to start, or what or when to plant, your local university-affiliated Master Gardener program should have reliable info. Most publish planting calendars listing the recommended dates for sowing seed or planting starts, as well as recommended varieties that are tolerant of any specific local challenges such as late frosts, high humidity, or certain pests and diseases.
Start at a manageable scale based on your available space and time commitment. It’d be a shame to invest the time and effort to sow a large plot, only to have it overrun by weeds and pests if you’re unable to dedicate enough time each week to tend to it. Start small, and expand your garden each season to best suit your needs. Gardening is a lifelong journey and there’s not a one-size-fits all solution!
Containers are a great way to test the water. Herbs like thyme, basil, and chives work well in pots and don’t take up too much space. Strawberries can be grown in hanging baskets, which has the added benefit of keeping the ripening fruit out of reach of most pests (slugs are the bane of my own in-ground strawberry patch!). If you want to try your hand at planting seeds, radishes are super easy to grow — they germinate and ripen quickly to give you a nice sense of accomplishment and an easy gardening “win.”
Can you please share your “5 Things You Need To Know To Create A Successful Vegetable Garden To Grow Your Own Food”? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
- Location, location, location! Selecting a proper site for your vegetable garden is crucial to long term success. Sun exposure is perhaps the most obvious factor, but microclimates such as reflected heat from nearby hardscape, or cold air drainage due to a slope can also affect the growing conditions for your veggie bed.
- Most veggies thrive in full sun, which is six or more hours of direct sunlight per day. The best way to figure out how much sun different areas of your yard get is to do a basic sun study. This entails drafting a rough map of your property and noting the sun and shade patterns at various points throughout the day. At least three times (morning, midday, and late afternoon) is ideal, but the more data you capture, the more refined the resulting map will be. Keep in mind that the sun is lower in the sky during the winter, so shadows will be longer. Similarly, if there are deciduous trees nearby you’ll need to account for the shade they’ll cast when fully leafed out.
- Feed the soil. Everytime you harvest crops, or otherwise remove biomass through pruning or culling spent plants, you’re removing nutrients from the soil. Over time, this will deplete the specific nutrient profiles of the crops you grow, which can be especially detrimental if you grow the same crops in the same soil year over year. Crop rotation can help with this, but you will still need to supplement the soil by periodically adding nutrients back into the system. I prefer to use my own compost, made from decomposed kitchen scraps and yard trimmings. This adds organic matter to the soil, which improves its nutrient- and water-holding capacity, reducing the need for supplementing both. When nutrients are required (made evident by tell-tale signs in leaf color, size, and reduced yields), I opt for organic fertilizers, which are usually based on various animal manures and byproducts, such as feather and bone.
- Grow what you like to eat. There’s no point in growing Brussels sprouts if no one in your house will eat them. Growing your family’s favorite herbs and veggies will ensure your hard-won crops do not go to waste. If you end up with more than you need (anyone who’s grown zucchini likely knows what I’m talking about!), try pickling or canning, trading/gifting to neighbors, or donating to a local food pantry.
- Choose species and varieties suited to your climate. Rather than struggle to grow crops with drastically different needs than your climate affords, stick with tried-and-true varieties that thrive in your area. Ask local gardeners what they’ve had success with, and lean on your local Master Gardener resources. Their recommendations are based on research and local trials so will be better tailored to you than generic info from most books or websites.
That said, don’t be afraid to experiment! If you’re not sure you can successfully grow a particular crop, give it a try! Worst case, you can use the experience as a learning opportunity for what to try differently next time (different cultivar, more/less sun, different water regimen, etc).
What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a garden? What specifically can be done to avoid those errors?
I think one of the most common pitfalls for inexperienced gardeners is underestimating the mature size of plants and allocating too little space for them to grow. For instance, there are very few things I would consider growing in anything smaller than a 12” diameter pot (perhaps just smaller herbs like thyme or chives). The limited soil volume in smaller containers can make it difficult to keep plants adequately watered, especially during warm weather. This can lead to fluctuations in soil moisture, drought stress, and issues with nutrient uptake.
Having plants go dry because you missed your watering window by a day (or a few hours) can make gardening more stressful and lead to disappointment. Select a larger pot than you think you’ll need, and opt for a non- or less porous material, such as glazed ceramic, plastic, or resin, as this will result in less water lost through moisture wicking through the sides of the container and leave more available to plant roots.
Similarly, crowding plants too closely together can lead to another host of issues like reduced airflow, plants shading each other, and roots competing for moisture and nutrients. There’s an old gardening proverb: sow thinly and reap thickly; sow thickly and reap thinly! Heed the plant spacing listed on seed packets and plant labels, and use it as a minimum guideline for spacing plants in the garden — your plants will thank you with an abundant harvest.
What are some of the best ways to keep the costs of gardening down?
Grow heirloom varieties and save the seeds to plant year after year. Join local garden enthusiast groups (IRL or online) — they often host plant exchanges where you can swap seed, starts, cuttings, and crops. This can be an especially effective way to increase the diversity of home-grown veggies available to you, if you only have space for a few plants or types of edibles.
Don’t go in on every new fad or “must have” gardening tool. Humans have been cultivating food crops for millennia, without the use of bluetooth-enabled smart sensors that tell you when your plant is thirsty or needs fertilizer. A trowel, gardening gloves, and sturdy set of bypass pruners will get you plenty far!
Create your own soil amendment by composting kitchen scraps and yard trimmings. If you don’t have space for a compost pile or bin outside, consider vermicomposting which can be done indoors and has a smaller footprint.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Live your life like you’ll live forever. A lot of the choices we make become more real if we know we’ll have to deal with the long term consequences, rather than pawn them off to a subsequent generation to worry about. It can be much less compelling to make inconvenient choices in day to day life when we know we likely won’t have to endure the inevitable effects of climate change, rampant pollution, loss of biodiversity, and collapsed ecosystems ourselves. Make your choices count, today.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
During the pandemic, I discovered the BBC show “Big Dreams, Small Spaces” hosted by British horticulturist, Monty Don. In each episode, Mr. Don helps amateur gardeners reconcile their ambitious garden goals with their all-too-small yards. I love the positivity and can-do attitude he brings, as well as how he encourages the homeowners to engage with the design process themselves. He also empowers them to stay on top of upkeep through education and real-world maintenance tips. I would also love the opportunity to pick his brain to solve some particularly tricky planting design problems I’ve encountered!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I contribute to blog posts on the Yardzen website, and we also have a very active Instagram account. Edible gardens are one of our most common client requests, so there are plenty of examples across various styles featured in our feed.
Thank you so much for the time you spent on this interview. We wish you only continued success and good health.
Zolene Quindoy Of Yardzen: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create A Successful Vegetable Garden To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.