How to Create a Cozy Garden

So you planted your garden, but how do you enjoy it all summer long? Today I’m sharing my top tips to create a cozy garden, big or small. You’re going to want to spend every extra minute in your cozy garden, even beyond the weeding and harvesting!

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How do you create a cozy garden?

One that’s not just blooming and providing, but gives you space to relax and enjoy being outside. It’s a very cozy hobby to garden and also to plan a garden layout.

I’m not an expert gardener by any means (that’s my husband’s job!) but I’m definitely learning.

I am, however, a cozy enthusiast.

Cozy finds its way into every corner of my life, from our hygge homeschool nook to my favorite hobby turned job, knitting!

So, naturally, our third summer into creating our farmhouse garden is the year I asked myself, how can I make the garden cozier?

And soon I was off down a rabbit hole of garage sale baskets and benches! And I wanted to share with you how we’ve made this the coziest garden we’ve ever had.

The garden

When we moved in, there wasn’t any sort of garden.

Research shows that our 1834 farmhouse was used for a lot of things, from cattle to farming to a wild asparagus takeover. But when we moved in, we had only wild woods and just a little bit of usable yard.

Once John and I laid out the garden on paper, we knocked down a couple of walnut trees that blocked the sun, set up a fence, and got to work on the garden beds.

With four kids under 6, this process has taken all three years. Just this summer, we’re still bordering all of our beds!

I’m not sure on the math, but homesteading with kids takes approximately 100 times longer than without.

But once the garden was set up and planted, I’m learning that’s where I come in. Like Joanna Gaines sliding in after Chip’s home demos, once John leads the charge on what to plant and when to get it in the ground, I get to come in with all my cozy enthusiast energy!

Now, before you think our garden is all fashion and no function, jump ahead to my tip where I share with you the purpose behind all of this gardening!

Watch my summer garden tour video below!

So let me share with you some of my favorite ways to create a cozy garden!

Bring life to the garden

Hopefully, things are growing in your garden, but there are other ways to bring in lots of life to create coziness and help those plants even further along.

While you don’t want certain animals hanging out in your garden (like rabbits and squirrels) bees, butterflies, and birds are both good for your garden and for your cozy ambience.

My favorite way to bring them in is with bird feeders, like our classic gazebo style one, or even a hummingbird feeder.

Using natural materials

We used a lot of logs, rocks, and woodchips in our garden.

At the time we did it to save money, but I’ve really come around to using the natural materials around us while building our garden.

The garden fence is all wood that I painted a clean white.

John needed to cut down some trees that were blocking essential sunlight to our garden. We ended up using the logs as borders for our garden beds!

You can also use rocks and stones if you have more of that in your area.

Mood lighting

You don’t have to wait until sunlight to enjoy your garden!

To prepare the space for our future chickens, we added some solar lights leading down the main walkway in our garden.

We also hung fairy lights in the trees just next to the garden, so it’s lit up nicely when we want to sit outside at night.

I’m hesitant to recommend tiki torches in a garden, so definitely stick with fairy lights and solar lights.

Sitting space

This is a big one! I always loved that Joanna Gaines added a picnic table to the corner of her garden, where they could eat dinner full of whatever they harvested.

Since we didn’t have the space for a farmhouse table, I created a cozy little garden nook using a bench made from old wooden beams.

John originally made this for inside the house, and it’s been used in the entryway and at the kitchen table, but was never quite right inside.

You know those pieces you love and just keep trying in new areas to see what works best? That’s this bench. But it’s found a lovely home here in the corner of the garden.

I’m training the pumpkin vines to grow up that way, and planted sunflowers behind the bench for a beautiful October photo op with the kids!

Focal point

Give your garden a cozy little focal point!

That could be a chicken coop, greenhouse, she shed, or even an antique windmill.

We decided to go with a chicken coop that John is building himself!

Having a focal point to draw your eye or physically lead you towards brings a sense of peace and grounds the space a little more than just an open space of vegetation!

Baskets

I went a little basket crazy at our church garage sale!

You can plant in them, tuck in some cut flowers, or just use them empty for decoration.

By using shepherd’s hooks and benches and little chairs, you add some interest to the eye. Baskets are the coziest decoration, because so many different things could be tucked inside!

Use the harvest

With all the time you put into planting and tending to (and enjoying!) your garden, make sure you do something with the harvest!

Cut flowers for indoor decorations or to gift (summer hostess gifts with homegrown cut flowers are the best!).

Use the veggies to cook with, can, freeze dry, or dehydrate to enjoy later.

And, something I’m diving into this summer: dye your yarn with what you grow in the garden!

Shade

The last element of a cozy garden is shade. Obviously you can’t shade the whole garden if, ya know, you want things to grow, but having some fruit trees nearby will give you somewhere to rest with a cold glass of sweet tea after all that weeding in July!

That’s it!

Those are the things that are making me feel the most cozy in our garden this summer! I hope that some of these ideas inspired you to cozy up your space, spend more time in and around your garden, and plot what you’re going to do with your summer