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Hi, I'm Jelle

Jelle Medema from Planty Gardening — *Yep, that's me 🙂*

(And it's pronounced 'Yell-uh' if you were wondering.)

I'm a designer, run my own company, play guitar, and like sports. And I have an awesome vegetable garden.

Almost everyone who hears that last part laughs.

"Really? A vegetable garden? What's that about?"

I get it. Because when you think of growing vegetables, you think of hours of weeding, digging, and watering. Messy wilted lettuce and bug-eaten beans. Hard work and not a lot to show for it.

Yeah, I'm not into that. I get tired just thinking about it.

For Jelle, growing a vegetable garden needs to be easy — *For me, growing a vegetable garden needs to be easy*

My vegetable garden is different

My garden is nothing like that. It's easy to manage and fun to do. It takes less time for me to take care of my plants than it does to wash the dishes.

And if you're thinking "Well, Jelle, you must be some kind of plant whisperer" - forget it. No green thumbs here. Before I started growing plants this way, I couldn't even keep a houseplant alive.

I'm the best proof that Planty Gardening works. If I can grow my own food, so can you.

80/20 principle

So, what I'm actually good at, is making things easy.

I'm a big fan of the 80/20 rule: if you master the basics well, you can get 80% success with 20% of the effort. That's how I learned to play guitar, draw, and design.

And the same goes for growing your own food - you get better results for less effort. If you use the right system.

Our elevated raised bed: the MM-Hero garden table — *The MM-Hero garden table: our garden box with legs and bottom*

How'd it all start?

I started in my hometown outside of Groningen, the Netherlands. It was 2007. I was 14. And lazy 😉

I loved plants, but a vegetable garden? Nah, too much work. I'd tried it as a little kid and that experience was, well, not good.

But then I came across Square Foot Gardening. I thought I'd give it a try. Its founder Mel Bartholomew says that growing your own food can be simple. He was right.

I made my first garden boxes and sowed some seeds.

A harvest from the Planty Garden — *From one harvest to the next*

It worked. I was shocked it was so easy.

But when I looked around, people were still digging up their gardens like crazy. They didn't seem to know: there's an easier way.

So, I made a website. I called it the Easy Vegetable Garden - De Makkelijke Moestuin in Dutch. It laid out a simple growing system with easy steps.

Long story short: the website was a hit, the Dutch media pounced, and lots of people made their own vegetable gardens using my step-by-step system.

Suddenly people saw me as some sort of vegetable gardening genius. But I hardly knew anything about plants, I was just having fun.

Still, it worked. My plants grew and grew. And I ate plenty - straight from the garden.

Years go by

I kept sharing my experience on the website.

Of course, I made mistakes. But every year I learned more about what worked and what didn't.

I wrote books. For adults at first, then later for kids. People are still buying them, so we keep making them. I just came out with a new one in 2021.

De Makkelijke Moestuin books — *Our books - only available in Dutch. For now🙂*

Inmiddels is er de Makkelijke Moestuin 2.0, dat boek is goed te gebruiken in plaats van de app. Maar ook als je de app wel gebruikt, is het een mooie aanvulling daarop. Je vindt het in de shop.

One thing led to the next

Readers asked me if I could send them what I'd been writing about: special soil mix, garden boxes, and good seeds. So I started to do that too, together with my mom, my best friend, and my brother.

But since I still don't consider myself a serious vegetable gardener, you might be wondering why I'm doing this.

Good question.

What do I want to do with Planty Gardening?

At first, I thought it would be fun to make a website. And I thought it was pretty cool to show that even with 0 expertise, you can grow your own food and be good at it.

Sure, somebody with years of training would have a great vegetable garden. But when you're a beginner, you don't expect that you can get those same results.

But if you see a total amateur - me - kicking butt at gardening, it's easier to feel like you can do it too. Believe me, it's not out of reach.

If I can do it, you can do it

Since 2007, this pet project has become a passion. Now, I'm a man on a mission:

I want to help as many people as possible grow their own food successfully and do it in an environmentally friendly, simple way.

Our Dutch company is still going strong. Now we're ready to reach more people with Planty Gardening.