If you’ve ever dreamed of starting your own garden but didn’t know where to begin, The Beginner’s Garden is the perfect resource to get you growing! Created by Jill McSheehy, the website is a treasure trove for beginners who want to learn how to cultivate their own food without the struggles of trial and error and endless research.
Jill’s gardening journey started in 2013 as a practical way to reduce her family’s grocery expenses. What began as a cost-cutting endeavor quickly evolved into a passion for growing and preserving most of the vegetables, herbs, and fruits her family consumes each year. In the early days of her gardening, Jill realized how tough it was to find simple, beginner-friendly advice and information, so—as she learned what worked well and what didn’t—she decided to become a resources for others, to make gardening less overwhelming and a lot more fun.
At The Beginner’s Garden, you’ll find everything from helpful articles and downloadable guides to in-depth courses and live online workshops. Jill also authored a book, Vegetable Gardening for Beginners available on Amazon, for those who love learning with a hands-on approach. “The Beginner’s Garden Podcast” offers easy-to-understand resources, tips, and information to help novice gardeners optimize their gardening experiences. Between the podcast and Jill’s YouTube channel, there are over a decade’s worth of tutorials and virtual conversations or workshops with Jill, serving as a wealth of knowledge and proven tools.
If starting or expanding your own homegrown crop is one of your goals for 2025, be sure to subscribe to The Beginner’s Garden on whichever platform you prefer. Our team has already learned so much from Jill, and we know you will too!
About This Recent Project
Brand Audit and Design
During our discovery process with Jill, she noted for us the details she liked about her current branding as well as elements she would like to improve. As the first step of our work together, Karen performed a brand audit to offer professional design input and recommendations for improving The Beginner’s Garden overall brand presence. Upon review of the audit, Jill opted to have Karen refine and polish the full brand kit and style guide per the adjustments and tweaks we recommended.
Karen fine-tuned shades of green and turquoise to be more to Jill’s liking, refined the use of the gardening icons throughout the brand, and offered a detailed style guide for use-case scenarios. Noticing a few sub mark options were missing from Jill’s existing brand kit, we ensured the updated package included a stacked logo design and a circular emblem variation that can be used as a watermark or for printed materials and merchandise.
Website Design and Development
The updated branding made the aesthetics of the new website much simpler. However, the greater challenge for the redesign was the organization of all of the amazing information Jill provides through the site. We held several conversations with Jill and her team to be sure we properly prioritized calls to action as well as her highest converting products and resources.
The home page was the starting point for our website roadmap, combining eye-catching design with the functionality of a landing page or visual menu to all of the website’s offerings. From the home page, we strategically created pathways through the site for seasonal guides, podcast episodes, educational courses, and online products, keeping all key areas of interest at the site visitor’s fingertips.
Jill had digital products scattered between a variety of eCommerce platforms, including WooCommerce, Shopify, and Teachable. During the development steps of the project, Mandy and Karen streamlined all digital and tangible products into a new on-brand Shopify store and created opportunities for easy upsells and additional revenue for Jill. We also created an intentional design for the Courses page of the website to keep all courses accessible and easily searchable for visitors.
Finally, we converted the traditional blog post page into a searchable index of all of Jill’s articles. Visitors can view posts by topic or season, or use the search option to locate helpful tips, resources, and how-to’s in the archives.
The end result of this website project is a responsive, user-friendly, and intentionally designed online home for all The Beginner’s Garden followers and readers. We enjoyed working with Jill and her team to bring this new space to life!
What Jill had to say…
“Thank you so much! It all looks so beautiful!! I love so many of the little design details you included!”
Services Included in this Project
- Brand Audit and Refresh
- Custom WordPress Website Design and Development
- eCommerce Setup and Design in Shopify
- Podcast Connection and Import from Libsyn
- SEO Optimization and Setup of Subdomains
- Training Videos for WordPress, the Block Editor, and WooCommerce
- Site Care and Ongoing Tech Support
Team Members Involved
Karen Lewis
Mandy Roberson
Find out more about these ladies and the rest of the team here at MRM: Meet the Team
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