Happy Place

When warm weather arrives, there’s only one spot Katie Jacobs and her young family want to be— their lively garden in Brentwood, Tennessee

- BETSY WATSON

COME SUMMERTIME, Katie Jacobs' yard is something of an Eden. Tall rows of corn and sunflowers reach toward the sky, raised beds burst with candy-colored zinnias, and climbing vines hang heavy with miniature green-striped watermelons. But that wasn't the case four years ago. "We couldn't grow grass behind our garage because it gets full sun there, so it was this dead area," recalls the author and stylist.

Frustrated, she and her husband, Brent, shifted their efforts to crafting something that would thrive in the abundant sunshine: a vegetable garden. There was just one catch. Despite their familial legacies (he hails from cattle-farming folk, and her mother and grandmother cultivated flowers), the couple had absolutely no gardening know-how of their own.

They started small with four raised beds, fencing them in to keep out deer and other wildlife. "We brought in some gravel and dirt and unloaded every shovel of it ourselves. We didn't want to spend a lot of money because we weren't sure if it was going to work or not," she recalls.