Shows
Down The Garden Path PodcastGrow Olives Where You Think You Can't with Steven BiggsThis week, Joanne speaks with horticulturist and author Steven Biggs about his latest book, Grow Olives Where You Think You Can't: How to Grow an Olive Tree in a Pot. About Steven Biggs Steven was recognized by Garden Making magazine as one of the "green gang" making a difference in Canadian horticulture. His home-garden experiments span driveway straw-bale gardens, a rooftop kitchen garden, fruit plantings, and an edible-themed front yard. He's a horticulturist, award-winning broadcaster and author, and former horticulture instructor with George Brown and Durham Colleges in Ontario, Canada. His books include Grow Lemons...
2025-05-3027 min
Finding Genius PodcastCultivating Flavor: Unveiling the Secrets of Figs with Steven BiggsIn this episode, we're joined by horticulturist, journalist, and the award-winning host of Food Garden Life, Steven Biggs. Get ready for an insightful journey into the world of horticulture and a deep dive into the delicious realm of growing figs. Biggs shares his childhood memories of only having dried figs and how a summer working at a UK nursery with a national fig collection transformed his perspective. Discover his excitement about growing figs and his dedication to teaching others the art of cultivating these delectable fruits. Learn about the ins and outs of growing and...
2025-05-0929 min
Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingToo Cold for Tender Fruit? Hear What this Prairie Grower DoesThink your climate is too cold to grow tender fruit? Find out how this grower harvests peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, and more…despite winter temperatures that can dip to -38°C (-36°F) and a short summer.In this episode, Donna and Steven chat with Saskatchewan fruit grower Dean Kreutzer. We talk about:Fruit adapted to cold climatesUsing unheated greenhouses to grow tender fruit, grapes…and figsHeat sinks and insulated tarpsCapturing heat from the ground—without an elaborate geothermal heating systemKreutzer and his wife run Over the Hill Orch...
2024-06-0632 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingNot Enough Space? Fit in More Crops With These IdeasDo you have more seeds and plants than you can fit into your garden?It’s a common problem for the enthusiastic food gardener!In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about finding more growing space so that you can fit more crops into the same space.Get ideas for:Growing in ungardenable spaces…like the root-infested space next to hedgesReducing space used by pathwaysTiering crops in a gardenUsing paved areas, decks—and stairs!If you’re looking for more on garden planning, check out these 7 vegetable garden layout i...
2024-05-3021 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingTips for Growing Great TomatoesWant to grow great tomatoes? With the right transplanting and care, your tomatoes will be off to a great start.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about:Transplanting tomato seedlingsProtecting transplants from cold spring weatherHow to stake, train, and support tomato plantsPruning tomato suckersWatering and feedingTomato challenges, including pests, diseases, and blossom end rot.If you’re looking for more on how to support tomato plants, check out this article. -->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of hom...
2024-05-2331 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingIt’s the May 24…Wondering What Veg to Plant?Wondering when to plant vegetables? Not sure what to plant first?You don’t need to plant everything at once.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about when to plant vegetables, and the Canadian tradition of planting the garden over the Victoria Day (May 24) weekend.(Sometimes it makes sense…though not for all crops in all zones.)If you’re looking for more on planting vegetables, check out this article on direct seeding. ***-->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home...
2024-05-1616 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHow to Harden Off Seedlings: Simple Steps So Your Seedlings Survive TransplantingYour vegetable seedlings can look great indoors. Then fall like dominoes in the garden.If they’re not hardened off.But if you harden off seedlings, they stand a much better chance once you plant them in the garden.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about:What hardening off meansWhy harden off seedlingsHow to harden off seedlingsWhen to harden off seedlingsHarden off seedlings in a greenhouseIf you’re looking for more on growing vegetables from seed, check out post on how to direct seed vegetables. -->Join the 5...
2024-05-0925 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingSaskatoon Berries: Tough as Nails (as this Zone 2 Grower Explains)Wondering about fruit to grow in a cold climate?Today we head to Alberta, to find out how to grow saskatoon bushes. Arden Delidais grows in Zone 2—and doesn’t get any winter dieback on her saskatoon berries.Delidais’ orchard and winery, DNA Gardens, has a number of cold hardy crops including saskatoon berries, apples, plums, rhubarb, currants, and haskaps.Saskatoon bushes (Amelanchier alnifolia) are native to North America. (South of the border you might hear them referred to as juneberry or shadbush.)Delidais tells Steve and Donna about:How to pru...
2024-05-0238 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingSkip the Transplants? How to Direct Sow SeedsHave you tried direct sowing but didn’t get good results? Wondering how to direct sow seeds?Direct sowing—a.k.a. direct seeding or direct planting—is when we sow seeds straight into the garden. We skip starting transplants indoors.It gives better results for some crops—because there’s no transplanting shock. And that’s great, because it saves you the hassle of growing transplants.But some crops need extra growing time…and that’s where transplants make sense. Or sometimes, hot summer weather causes spotty germination outdoors, meaning transplants are a better option...
2024-04-2534 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingVegetables in Pots: How to Ace Your Container GardenWant to harvest more veg from the same amount of space? You can get lots more from a small space by growing in containers. (If you get it right…but that’s not difficult!)If you get these 4 things right, you’re on the road to container gardening success: The right containerGood soilA suitable locationProper careIn this episode, Donna and Steven share top tips for container gardening success, including choosing pots, selecting soil, finding a suitable spot, and caring for your container vegetables.If you’re looking for more...
2024-04-1836 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingFigs not Winter Hardy? Here are Creative Ways to Grow Figs in Cold ClimatesDon’t miss out on fresh figs just because you’re gardening in a cold climate.There are many cold-climate fig growers who defy zone boundaries with creative overwintering techniques.Figs can take quite a bit of cold. Not the extreme cold. A creative gardener gets figs through the winter by moderating the extremes.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about fig-growing tactics for cold climates so that you can harvest figs—even if you have zone envy!If you’re looking for more cold-climate fig-growing tips, drop by our fig home...
2024-04-1122 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingPeople go Bananas for This Fruit! How to Grow a Pawpaw TreeCan’t get enough pawpaw fruit? Want to grow a pawpaw tree?If you haven’t tried pawpaw fruit, many people describe the flavour of its silky, yellow flesh as tropical.While it’s the largest fruit native to North America, it’s difficult to find the fruit for sale. Yet it’s easy to grow.That’s why many gardeners and small farmers plant pawpaw trees.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk with pawpaw expert Adam D’Angelo to get tips on growing pawpaw trees. We talk about:
2024-04-0436 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingIs Your Soil in Overdraft? Find Out How to Amend SoilWhen you make only withdrawals—no deposits—you eventually end up in overdraft. It works that way at the bank, with friendships—and with soil.And growing crop after crop in a garden is like making withdrawal after withdrawal. The crops use nutrients. Working the soil affects its structure.Amending soil is like putting money back into the bank. Soil amendments can improve soil structure, soil chemistry, and return nutrients to the soil.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about practical ways home gardeners can improve soil quality with soil amendments. We di...
2024-03-2838 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingWhere to Grow Herbs: Herb Garden Layout and Design IdeasLooking for herb garden layout ideas? If you’re planning a herb garden, there are many ways to add herbs to the landscape. You can have a stand-alone herb garden, a herb lawn, herbs mixed with paving, use herbs as bedding plants, weave them into a perennial border, or make a herb container garden on a patio, deck, or paved space.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about ideas for using herbs in home garden landscapes and share their favourite perennial herbs, annual herbs, and exotic herbs.If you’re looking for more...
2024-03-2134 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingPlanting Greens for a Continuous Harvest: Crops + Tips for Growing GreensLeafy greens fizzle out in the summer? Does your lettuce bolt too soon?Find out how to grow more leafy greens in your garden and how to extend your harvest so you can pick fresh salad greens as long as possible.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about crops ideas for leafy greens, how to plant leafy greens in a home garden or edible landscape, choosing greens crops for ongoing harvest, how to hurry up your spring harvest, and how to slow down bolting—even in hot weather. If you’re looking for m...
2024-03-1445 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGrow an Indoor Lemon Tree + MORE Exotic Potted Citrus TreesTried growing a potted lemon tree but it didn’t thrive? Citrus expert Byron Martin has the solution. And it’s not difficult.AND he also has recommendations for other unusual potted citrus trees. We talk about finger limes, blood limes, pomelo, sweet lemon, sunquat, kumquat, citron, and more.For all of these citrus trees in pots, proper watering is the key to success. We hear how to water—and what to expect from potted citrus trees in the fall. (Spoiler alert: If your lemon tree drops leaves when you bring it indo...
2024-03-0746 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHands-Off Crop: Growing Raspberries (they do FINE without your help!)Don’t have time to spend on fussy fruit crops? Then growing raspberries is something to think about. You can prune raspberries and manage the crop to maximize production. But this is one of those bulletproof crops that can do quite nicely without your help.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about planting raspberries, how raspberries grow, how to prune raspberries, and how to care for them.If you’re looking for more on raspberries, tune in to our chat with Conrad Richter from Richters Herbs about the genus rubus (and learn about...
2024-02-2935 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingEdible Flowers: Flowers You Can Eat (and how to use them)Wondering which flowers you can eat? There’s a wide variety of edible flowers that are easy to grow.You might already have some and just aren’t using them.Edible flowers often come from well-known vegetable, herb, and fruit crops. But there are many that come from ornamental plants too. Even some shrubs and trees.Find out which flowers are edible—and how you can use them to spice up your cooking and have fun with your culinary creativity. In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about their favourite edible flowers...
2024-02-2230 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingVegetables to Grow: Choose What’s Best for Your Vegetable GardenWondering which vegetables to grow? Or how to pick suitable varieties for your vegetable garden? If you put some thought into your choices, you can avoid harvest-time disappointments.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about crops they find worthwhile, along with some favourite varieties. The choices for Donna’s cold prairie garden aren’t always the same as for Steven’s milder growing zone. Start to narrow down the top choices for your vegetable garden with ideas on crops and varieties for:A reliable harvestSimplicitySuitability for your gardenIf you’re looking for more...
2024-02-1549 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHow to Grow Tomatoes from Seed: When and How (+ Top Varieties!)Growing tomatoes from seed? Get the right combination of timing, soil, light, and containers, and you can grow great tomato seedlings at home.There’s more than one way to raise tomato plants from seed. And that means you can do it in a way that fits your growing space.AND make sure to pick a variety you’ll love—because that’s a big reason for growing tomato seedlings. Some of the best tomato varieties are only available as seeds.In this episode, Donna and Steven chat with Gen Z tomato grower Emma Big...
2024-02-0830 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingWinter harvest: Which vegetables to grow in winter and how to do itDo you shut down your garden for the winter? Wondering what vegetables to plant in the winter? If you’re in a northern climate, to grow vegetables in winter you need to give them heat and light…and that usually means high-input greenhouse growing.But there’s another way to approach winter vegetable gardening. And it’s low-tech.The idea is to choose hardy crops and grow them big enough before light levels take a dive. Then keep those hardy crops alive in a protected space—and keep harvesting through the winter.
2024-02-0132 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingNot Sure When to Start Seeds Indoors? Here’s how to Pick Seed-Starting DatesWondering when to plant your seeds indoors? Started too early and grown in pots too long before moving to the garden, your seedlings might run out of gas. They stall. But started too late, your seedlings might be midgets when it’s time to plant them in the garden.The right time to start seeds indoors—and have plants that aren’t too big or too small— depends on your crops and your location. It varies from place to place, but there’s a simple way to choose seed-starting dates.In this episode, Donna and Steven tal...
2024-01-2543 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingPrevent Leggy Seedlings and Grow Transplants Like an ExpertGot seedlings that look like stilt-walkers? Are your seedlings leggy? Leggy seedlings don’t have as much chance of success once you transplant them into the garden…if they even make it that far.The best way to solve the problem of spindly seedlings is to prevent them from getting that way in the first place.Set up your seed-starting area so you can give seedlings good light, an appropriate temperature, a suitable potting soil, and good containers.In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about best practices so that you can grow comp...
2024-01-1824 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingSeed Smarts: Lingo and Tips for Seed Shopping (Is that untreated seed organic?) Seed catalogues are arriving already! Find out what you need to know to make good seed-shopping choices. In this episode, Steven and Donna share seed-shopping tips and talk about common seed-related terms.Not sure if untreated seed is organic? Wondering what "heirloom" really means? Tune in to find out about seed terminology and crop related lingo.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the...
2024-01-1137 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingDamson Plums: This Forgotten Fruit Combines Dry, Sweet, Spicy, and Bitter (and makes great gin!)Damson plums: Sometimes they're simply called damsons. Their rich flavour makes them a culinary gem. Even though they're not difficult to grow, the fruit is rarely available commercially.Find out how to grow damsons.Sarah Conrad Gothie, Author of Damsons: An Ancient Fruit in the Modern Kitchen joins us to talk about the history of damsons, how to grow damsons, and how to use them in the kitchen. (Spoiler alert: They make a marvellous gin!)
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing...
2024-01-0435 min
Finding Genius PodcastCultivating Flavor: Unveiling the Secrets of Figs with Steven BiggsIn this episode, we're joined by horticulturist, journalist, and the award-winning host of Food Garden Life, Steven Biggs. Get ready for an insightful journey into the world of horticulture and a deep dive into the delicious realm of growing figs. Biggs shares his childhood memories of only having dried figs and how a summer working at a UK nursery with a national fig collection transformed his perspective. Discover his excitement about growing figs and his dedication to teaching others the art of cultivating these delectable fruits. Learn about the ins and outs of growing and...
2024-01-0229 min
Better Lawns and GardensBetter Lawns and Gardens - Hour 2 How To Have An Apple Taste-Testing Party Steven Biggs October 28, 2023
Better Lawns and Gardens Hour 2 – Coming to you from Summit Responsible Solutions Studios, Garden expert, Teresa Watkins is intrigued by her guest, garden author and podcaster Steven Biggs, Food Garden Life who describes how to have a Fall Apple Taste-Testing Party. The Dirty Word of the Day are the secret plant ingredients for a Witches Brew. Garden questions include kinds of trees that provide shade, do Mexican Fencepost cacti need to be brought in during the winter, planting a small lemon tree, non-blooming amaryllis, and more. https://bit.ly3c1f5x7
How To Host An Apple Taste-testing Par...
2023-10-2939 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingSPRING Finale: How to Grow a Climate-Change Veggie GardenWe head to the UK to chat with homesteader Kim Stoddart about how to grow a resilient vegetable garden. We talk about:Top tips for growing vegetables when conditions are not predictableChoosing crops for a climate-change vegetable gardenPerennial vegetablesTips for veggie gardening in hot summersKim is an award-winning writer, journalist, and educator. Her new book is The Climate Change Garden: Down to Earth Advice for Growing a Resilient Garden.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. W...
2023-06-1534 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHarvest Rainwater for Your Garden and LandscapeBrad Lancaster is a permaculture and regenerative design consultant and educator. His specialty is sustainable landscapes. We chat with Brad about using the landscape to harvest rainwater. And about using the landscape as a living air conditioner. Brad also talks about a very inspiring project that he helped spearhead, a community food forest.We talk about: Using permaculture principles in landscapingHow to harvest rainwater in the landscapeThe connection between landscapes and coolingUsing the soil and "speed bumps" in the landscape to make it a living spongeSelecting plants to suit the landscapeThe Dunbar Spr...
2023-06-0831 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingNeed Space? Harvest More from the Same Plot with Vertical GardeningVertical vegetable gardening squeezes more plants into a limited space by making use of space above the ground.In today’s episode, Steve digs into vertical gardening.We talk about:Top crops for vertical gardeningThe benefits of vertical gardeningSupport structures in a vertical gardenMaterials to make your own trellises and support structures.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food...
2023-06-0139 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingSmall-Plot Intensive Vegetable Production (SPIN Farming)Wally Satzewich joins us from Saskatchewan to tell us about Small-Plot Intensive Farming (SPIN Farming.) Having studied psychology and ran a taxi franchise, Wally became interested in market gardening. So he bought a farm. But a conventional market garden wasn’t the right fit for him. That’s because a big operation requires hired help and capital outlay for equipment. So Wally and his wife Gail sold the farm—and moved back to the city. To farm—to farm other people’s yards.And in the process, Wally mapped out a system o...
2023-05-2534 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHow to Feed Soil and Plants with Worm Compost (Vermicompost)Andrew Huxsel joins us from St Placide, Quebec to tell us about worm composting. Also known as vermicomposting. Andrew runs Vermicbec, a company that sells worms and worm compost.We talk about:How vermicomposting worksUsing vermicompost (a.k.a. worm castings or worm wompost)Large scale vs. home-scale vermicompostingTop tips for home gardeners wanting to try worm composting (If you’ve tried it and had bug problems, Andrew tells you how to solve the problem)
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing idea...
2023-05-1825 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingEdible Garden Question and Answer (and what to do about Bolting Lettuce)It’s planting season here..and the gardening questions are pouring in. Here’s the Q + A from our latest live show. We talk about:Favourite tomato varietiesSupport for tomato plantsMulchAsparagusMicrogreensLemonsArtichokeSquirrelsWhat to do about bolting lettuce
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more about the Canada Gardener’s Journal: It’s a gardening journal, gardening l...
2023-05-1127 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible Landscaping7-Year-Old Certified Farmer Talks About Crops, Kids, and InsectsWe head to Georgia to chat with 7-year-old Kendall Rae Johnson and her mom, Ursula. Kendall is the youngest certified farmer in the state of Georgia. At her aGROWKulture Farm she grows her favourite crops and teaches other kids about gardening. Kendall has been on Good Morning America, The Ellen Show, and Sesame Street. Our own connection with Kendall is that we’re fans of the organization KidsGardening. Emma and Kendall were both involved in an event that KidsGardening hosted last year.
---Join the 5,000+ gar...
2023-05-0426 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingEquipment for Healthy Soil, Less Toil, Minimal Till (and no more Rototiller!)We chat with Zach Loeks, an educator and grower who specializes in edible ecosystem design. He talks about the two-wheel tractor, a versatile piece of equipment that he says can be used by backyard gardeners, homesteaders, edible landscapers, and in community gardens.(If you’re about to skip this episode because you don’t want more equipment…stay a while. Zach has insights into soil and tillage too.) In this episode we talk about:A look at the 2-wheel tractorHow it’s different from a rototillerHow home gardeners, landscapers, and homesteaders can use 2-whee...
2023-04-2737 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingThis Orchard Doesn't Look Like an Orchard (and it's full of Trios!)Permaculture OrchardWe chat with orchardist Stefan Sobkowiak who replaced an organic apple orchard with a permaculture orchard at Miracle Farms. We talk about:Why he prefers a permculture planting to a monoculture organic apple orchardHow can an orchard be a permaculture?The system of “trios” he uses as a basic design unitMinimizing external inputsUsing sheep in an orchardTimelines for establishing a permaculture orchardUsing fruiting shrubs under treesPlanting perennial flowers, herbs, and vegetables underneath fruiting shrubsWhen it comes to the idea of permaculture, Sobkowiak says, “It’s just applied common sense.”
---Jo...
2023-04-2036 min
The One Way Ticket ShowMelissa Biggs Bradley - Travel Expert, CEO & Founder of Indagare Melissa Biggs Bradley is the CEO and founder of Indagare, a membership-based luxury travel agency and media company that combines curated content with high-touch service and leverages its global network to create extraordinary, meaningful experiences for sophisticated travelers. Since launching, the company has been named to Inc.'s Fastest-Growing Companies in the U.S. and to Crain's 50 fastest-growing companies in New York. Indagare believes that how you travel matters and its mission is to inspire and empower people to change their lives–and the world–through travel and to have a positive impact on the places they visit. ...
2023-04-1456 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingKitchen Scrap Gardening: From Avacado to Ginger to CitrusGrow What's in Your Kitchen!In this episode, we head to Vermont and get great ideas for what we can grow right now, in early spring, using what’s in the kitchen. We talk about kitchen-scrap gardening with Em Shipman, Executive Director at KidsGardening.Em also tells us about Kids Garden Month, with lots of fun activities and prizes for kids. We talk about:Growing small seeds from the kitchen (e.g. citrus)Growing large seeds (e.g. mango, avacado)Growing roots and tubers and rhizomes (e.g. ginger, sweet potato)Thi...
2023-04-0631 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingFiguring Out How to Bring Back a Lost Giant...the American ChestnutIn this episode, we dig into some history, a sad story – and hope.All this from a tree that was known as the redwood of the east. A towering tree prized for its wood. A tree pivotal to the forest ecosystem.And by the 1950s, it was thought to be extinct in Ontario.But it wasn’t extinct. And it’s not extinct now.We head to southwestern Ontario to find out what the Canadian Chestnut Council is doing to bring the American chestnut back to the landscape. Whether you’re...
2023-03-3035 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingAfraid of Late Spring Frost? Low-Tech Mini-Tunnels Are a Simple SolutionNiki Jabbour on how to Make and Use Mini TunnelsLess frost damage. Fewer bugs. Better growing conditions. Mini tunnels have lots of advantages, and they're easy to make and use. For this episode, we head to Nova Scotia to chat with vegetable gardening expert Niki Jabbour about how to make and use mini tunnels.She’s the author of Growing Under Cover: Techniques for a More Productive, Weather-Resistant, Pest-Free Vegetable Garden and the creator of the online course How to Build and Use Mini Hoop Tunnels in the Vegetable Garden.
2023-03-2331 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHow to Homestead and Live Sustainably in Your Community: Small-Scale HomesteadingHomesteading as a State of MindWe head to Minnesota to chat with small-scale homesteaders Michelle Bruhn and Stephanie Thurow.Both are urban homesteaders, and they’ve collaborated on a book to help small-scale homesteaders, Small-Scale Homesteading.We talk about:What homesteading means to themThe idea of small-scale homesteads in urban and suburban areasTips for aspiring homesteadersHow to get started homesteading
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the...
2023-03-1638 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingBig Harvests from a Small Space with a Vertical Vegetable GardenGrow a Vertical Vegetable GardenSpace. For many gardeners, there’s never enough of it. So in small spaces we train crops upwards instead of outwards. The term vertical gardening is often used to talk about adding the dimension of height to a garden.Today on the podcast we head to Vancouver Island to chat with vegetable gardening expert Donna Balzer about vertical gardening. Steven and Donna are teaming up to hold a live online event on Vertical Vegetable Gardening on April 4, 2023.Bay LaurelDave Hanson from The Grow Guid...
2023-03-0932 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingOutstanding Oregano + What to Produce Besides Crops on a HomesteadOregano that Tastes Like Oregano!We find out how to grow great Oregano with Dave Hanson from The Grow Guide Podcast. (No more bland orgegano that tastes like...hay!)Why Now is a Great Time to Homestead Homesteader Steve Maxwell talks about his journey from suburban Toronto to a rural homestead on Manitoulin Island.He tells us why he think there's more opportunity than ever for homesteaders today.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our w...
2023-03-0236 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible Landscaping5 Small Fruit Crops: Taste Sea Buckthorn (and Smell the Blue Cheese of Fruit)Specialty Fruit CropsWe continue our chat with agronomist Laurie Brown from Cultur'Innov. She talks about 5 more minor fruit crops, how to grow them, and the opportunities they present for growers. We talk about:Sea buckthornHighbush cranberryHardy kiwiBush cherriesChokecherryAgroforestyTips for growers who want to grow specialty fruit crops"It's the blue cheese of fruit: Tastes like a cranberry and smells like an old boot!"
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a be...
2023-02-2338 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingBerry Supports Theory that the Worse it Tastes, the Healthier it isOne is quite healthy but tastes awful. One is very juicy and suited to processing. And one is suited to eating fresh.In this episode we look at 3 fruit crops: aronia (a.k.a. chokeberry), elderberry, and haskap (a.k.a. honeyberry).Agronomist Laurie Brown from Cultur'Innov explains how to grow these minor fruit crops, talks about the opportunities for growers, and tells us where they’re at in terms of commercialization. Cultur'Innov is a co-op focused on lesser-known fruit, nuts, and forest crops such as ginseng and mushrooms. This Quebec multi-stakeholder co-operative ha...
2023-02-1634 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGraft Apple Trees at Home: Easily Make the CutSteven Edholm is a California homesteader who teaches a wide variety of self-reliance skills.He is passionate about grafting fruit trees. He's created trees that have over 100 varieties.In this episode, he explains how to graft apple trees at home.We talk about:Reasons to graft apple trees Apple trees with lots of grafts (Frankentrees!)Cutting and storing apple scion woodApple rootstockSupplies for apple tree grafting (spoiler alert: what you DON’T need to buy)Best grafts for beginnersSolving common apple-grafting problemsSteven has a grafting video series on his YouTube cha...
2023-02-0952 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingEdible Garden Artistry with Potager Gardens + School Gardens that don't FizzleOklahoma garden designer Linda Vater loves to create elegant edible gardens. Her work is inspired by the tradition of the potager garden. We talk about:Potager gardensMaking ornamental and elegant edible gardensDesign elements such as enclosureHow to design your own potager-style gardenLinda's new book is The Elegant & Edible Garden.In the second part of the show we catch up with Sunday Harrison from Green Thumbs Growing Kids in Toronto. We're big fans of this non-profit that brings gardening to school kids and communities in downtown neighbourhoods. We find out...
2023-02-021h 00Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingDon't Feel Bitter about these Cold-Hardy CitrusWe chat with cold-hardy citrus expert Sam Hubert from One Green World Nursery. Sam's interest in citrus began when he realized he could grow trifoliate orange in New England. If you've tried trifoliate orange, you'll know it has true pucker power. But don't worry! Sam has lined up a mix of cold-hardy citrus: Along with fragrant and bitter citrus that add complexity to all sorts of recipes, he tells us about some eat-straight-from-the-tree cold-hardy citrus.We talk about:Trifoliate orangeYuzuSudachiKumquat, and other citrus with kumquat lineageIchang lemonCitrumelloMandarinsAustralian finger...
2023-01-2643 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingRare Red Stalk Tops Rhubarb (but is Rhubarb!)Forced rhubarb is a winter specialty that's quite different from rhubarb grown outdoors: It's milder, more tender, and brightly coloured. Brian French and his wife Jeannette run Lennox Farm in Dufferin County, in Ontario. Along with field-grown rhubarb, they force rhubarb indoors during the winter. Brian French explains how to force rhubarb:The difference between forced and field-grown rhubarbConditions needed to force rhubarb over the winterVarieties of rhubarb for forcingGrowing rhubarb roots for forcingDigging rhubarb roots for forcingTips for growing rhubarb at home(Spoiler alert: Brian tells us whether it's really necessary to ha...
2023-01-1921 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingIn Pursuit of Artisan Tomatoes (Yeah, it's Addiction!)We chat Teresa Zohorsky from Solana Garden in Ontario.What started as a fascination with unusual tomato varieties grew into an addiction! Teresa specialized in heirloom and unusual tomato varieties, and now sells tomato transplants and fruit.We talk about:Top varietiesResources for finding and researching tomato varietiesSelecting tomato varieties suited to the growing conditionsTips for people who want to get started growing heirloom and unusual tomatoes
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail...
2023-01-1229 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingOn the Scent of the Overlooked Quince + Root Veg RecipesGrowing QuinceQuince expert Joseph Postman joins us to talk about quince. This fragrant fruit is unknown to many in North America, and often relegated to use as a rootstock for pear trees.Postman is a retired plant pathologist and curator of the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, Oregon, where he helped develop a pear collection with cultivars and species from around the world.We talk about:What is quinceHow to use quince fruitThe use of quince trees as rootstock for pear treesQuince varietiesQuince cold hardinessQuince diseasesDelectable Root...
2023-01-051h 00Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingMove Over Blueberries, A New Fruit for the Northern GardenerIn this replay of a 2019 interview, we chat with Bob Bors, head of the fruit breeding program at the University of Saskatchewan.We talk about:Breeding haskap (a.k.a. honeyberry) fruitCold-tolerance of haskapHow to care for haskapHow to prune haskapCold-tolerant cherry varieties from University of Saskatchewan
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more about th...
2022-12-2921 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingDwarf and Unusual TomatoesEmma chats with tomato expert Linda Crago about the 'House' tomato, a compact tomato plant that some gardeners keep over the winter in the house.They also talk about a few other unusual tomato varieties, including one of the ugliest tomato plants you'll see: 'Stick.'
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more about the Canada Ga...
2022-12-2211 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingA Specialty Gin (and a New Orchard!) with a Fruit That's Making a ComebackHow to Grow and Cook MedlarJane Steward, author of Medlars – Growing & Cooking, talks about how to grow medlar, how to cook medlar, and shares some fascinating medlar facts. (Find out how medlar wood was used in Dutch windmills!)Steward planted a medlar orchard, holds the UK National Collection of medlars, and runs Eastgate Larder—a food business where she processes medlar.We talk about:How to grow medlar (Mespilus germanica)How to cook medlarSteward’s journey into planting a medlar orchard and starting a food-processing business How to “blet” medlar Medlar rootstockMed...
2022-12-151h 02Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingTop Crops and Seed ShoppingGarden Planning and Seed ShoppingHorticulturist and vegetable-garden expert Donna Balzer talks about garden planning and shares her tips for seed shopping.We talk about:Favourite early spring greens cropsMaking a vegetable garden planSuccession cropsStorage CropsWhere to get seedsTesting seeds for viabilitySeed Lingo
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the fr...
2022-12-081h 03Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingMeet Canada's GrapeDaniel Speck from Henry of Pelham winery talks about growing grapes, wine, and different types of wine grapes.We talk about:What makes Niagara an excellent grape-growing regionGrape vine careVinifera grapes, labrusca grapes, and hybrid grapesThe history of the Henry of Pelham wineryThe Baco Noir and Pinot Noir grapesFood pairings for Baco Noir wine“Baco is Canada’s Grape!”
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re makin...
2022-12-0151 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingApricots in Alaska!Mark Wolbers, president of the Alaska Pioneer Fruit Growers Association, talks about growing fruit north of 60.We talk about:The range of fruit that grows in AlaskaThe growing conditions in different parts of AlaskaUsing greenhouses and high tunnelsThe gardening culture in AlaskaThe advantages of growing in a northern areaOpportunities for monetizationA greenhouse-winery!“Snow is our friend!”
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place...
2022-11-2442 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGreat Herbs for Indoor Growing (Ditch the Scorched Rosemary!)Dave Hanson from Sage Garden Greenhouses in Winnipeg, Manitoba tells us about growing herbs indoors.Dave has joined us here on the show before to talk about exotic edibles. Along with Sage Garden Greenhouses, he co-hosts The Grow Guide podcast. We talk about:Herbs that can be moved indoors from the gardenSeed-growing herbs indoors over winter3 bullet-proof herbs for growing indoorsLesser-known herbs that are well suited to indoor conditionsIndoor herb care and feedingPotting soil for growing herbs indoorsControlling pests on indoor herb plants...
2022-11-171h 11Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingSchool Garden Kicks Off with CelebrityTaking Math to the GardenIt started with a math lesson. A very boring math lesson.Educator Sonya Harris was trying to get a concept to stick. And the thing that got it to stick was the garden.A non-gardener, she saw how it could help kids take in ideas. But she wasn’t sure where to start once she got buy-in from the principal to make a garden. So she did it with a fun celebrity event. We...
2022-11-1047 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHow to Prune Fruit Trees + Apple Tasting 101Discover the Next Great AppleSusan Poizner, founder of Ben Nobleman Community Orchard in Toronto, talks about the upcoming apple-tasting fundraiser event for the orchard. Poizner is a college instructor, author of Grow Fruit Trees Fast and Growing Urban Orchards, and the founder of Orchard People.At the virtual apple tasting, participants are guided through characteristics such as:SmellFlavourTextureThe apples in the tasting were bred in Ontario — and have not yet been released.An apple tasting event is something you can do...
2022-11-031h 03
The Grow GuideInspiration For Adding Figs, Lemons and Olives to Your Northern Garden with Steven BiggsThank-you to this week's sponsor, West Coast Seeds. Today we chat with a returning Canadian guest, Steven Biggs. Steven is a Toronto-based gardening educator, blogger and podcaster who chats with The Grow Guide about the various Mediterranean edibles he grows in his garden. Get inspired to add figs, lemons and olives to your Northern garden next season. Find the full episode show notes with links to everything discussed on our website.
2022-11-011h 04Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingElectric Saws and Giant PumpkinsWe chat with giant vegetable grower Norman Kyle from Ennismore, Ontario.Kyle will have a number of his giant vegetables on display at the 2022 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, November 4-13.We talk about:His 1,659-pound pumpkin — a personal bestTips on growing giant vegetablesHow to grow giant pumpkinsGetting seedThe Giant Vegetable Growers of Ontario
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a bett...
2022-10-2724 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible Landscaping75 Frost-Free Days and Bird Song Just After MidnightWe chat with artist, filmmaker, and gardener Arlin McFarlane in Whitehorse, Yukon about gardening in cold climates.McFarlane produced the gardening show The Curious Gardener, about Yukon farmers and gardeners.We talk about:Gardening when there are only about 75 frost-free days in the growing seasonGardening on poorly developed soilsHow to grow tomatoes in the far north (spoiler alert: Arlin grows tomatoes!)The importance of microclimatesThe show The Curious GardenerConnectThe Curious Gardener: thecuriousgardener.ca
---Join the 5,000+...
2022-10-2027 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingPotted Lemons for Cold-Climate GardensSteven explains why lemons are his top citrus choice for cold climates.He talks about:How cold lemon trees can getHow cold the fruit can getFruiting and floweringUsing lemon leaves in the kitchenHow big potted lemon plants will getHis favourite lemon for growing in a pot in cold climates
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Sm...
2022-10-1314 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGrow Spices + How to Store FoodGrow Your Own SpicesIn the first part of the show, we chat with Tasha Greer about how to grow your own spices. She’s the author of the book Grow Your Own Spices. We chat about:The difference between a herb and a spiceSpice-growing ideas for this time of yearSeed-grown spices“Underground” spicesSpices that might already be in your landscapeSpices that a patio gardener can grow in containers and overwinter indoorsFeed Yourself for a YearIn the second part of the sho...
2022-10-061h 02Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingAttractive Food Gardens, Scrappy Plants, and OutreachWe chat with Adina Oosterwijk, the Community Greening Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, Australia.We talk about:Home food gardens that are productive and aesthetically pleasingA tomato festivalThe Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, which has three different sites that each have different growing conditions and plant collectionsGarden outreach to vulnerable communitiesScrappy plants for tough growing conditions
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the wo...
2022-09-2931 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHome-Scale Forest GardenWe chat with author and market gardener Dani Baker about forest gardening.Baker has created a forest garden on her USDA Zone 4 farm. She shares her tips for making a forest garden, whether it’s an acre or just a few square feet.We talk about:Permaculture principlesCreating microclimatesGrouping plants in layersUnderstanding your spaceMatching plants to conditionsWhat you can do at this time of year to get startedHer new book is The Home-Scale Forest Garden: How to Plan, Plant, and Tend a Resilient Ed...
2022-09-2238 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible Landscaping2022 Tomato Roundup2022 Tomato RoundupSteven and Emma take a look at the 2022 tomato crop.We chat about:What’s new in the tomato patchGrowing methodsTop varietiesTomato seed savingFavourite tomato recipes
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more about the Canada Gardener’s Journal: It’s a gardening journal...
2022-09-1542 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGarlic-Infused Vodka and a Cricket RodeoToronto Garlic FestivalIn the first part of the show, we chat with Peter McClusky about garlic. He’s the founder of the Toronto Garlic Festival, now in its 12th year. We chat about:The hardneck garlic grown in Ontario, and it’s culinary propertiesHow to grow garlic at homeThe festival, which includes seed garlic, prepared food, educational events, and music. The festival is Sunday, September 25, 2022 at Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. here in Toronto. Backyard Hens get HentopiaIn the second part of the show we talk...
2022-09-081h 01Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingRecipes in BloomWe chat with Pittsburgh author and horticulturist Denise Schreiber about edible flowers.Schreiber is the author of the book Eat Your Roses.We talk about:Common edible flowersLesser-known edible flowersTop tips for edible flowersEdible-flower recipes, including rose-petal ice cream, pork sliders with nasturtium, roasted-red-pepper soup with nasturtium, lavender-flower biscotti
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a ti...
2022-09-0125 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHelping Kids Understand Light...with Skittles!We chat with Darryl Nelson and his teenage son, Aden, about light and gardening under lights.Darryl and Aden tell us how they taught children about light at a children’s event at a local museum. (Spoiler alert: it involved colourful Skittles candy.)Darryl is an avid food gardener — and his specialty is light. His business, Just Led Us, specializes in lighting.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a bett...
2022-08-2517 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingLand Conservation, Public Access, and Figs!Land ConservationWe chat with Jack Spruill, whose farm is is on the shore of North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound, the largest freshwater sound in the world.Spruill plans to donate the farm to an organization that will maintain public access, with the land used for low-impact farming, research, and education programs.At the moment, some of the property is used for a community garden — and a community fig orchard.We talk about:The idea of public access, and how it scar...
2022-08-1835 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingFather and Son Brook Trout QuestTime Outdoors…and TroutYou probably never expected to hear about polar bears on The Food Garden Life Show.Today’s show is a bit of a departure from our usual focus on plants. We continue with our focus on food, the outdoors, and the human story.Time Outdoors…and FamilyMike Borger, lived some of his younger years as a self-described canoe bum, travelling northern waters in pursuit of brook trout. Today, he helps people plan trips to remote fishing destinations through his business Canada...
2022-08-111h 00Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingSeasonal Garden Tips + Wild and Specialty FoodsSummer in the GardenIn the first part of the show, we chat with landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing, hosts of the Down the Garden Path radio show and podcast.We talk about:Seasonal gardening tipsWhat to do in the garden nowTheir new book, Down the Garden PathForagedIn the second part of the show we talk about unique foods, foraging, and turning your passion into a career with Jack Hamrick from Foraged.He tells us about:
2022-08-041h 01Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingKitchen Gardening: Grow Leftover Greens, Stalks, SeedsKatie Elzer-Peters tells us about kitchen gardening. That is, gardening in the kitchen -- with leftover greens, seeds, and roots.We talk about growing:sweet potatocarrotslettucecelerybeetsgreen onionsleeksturmericgingerAnd saving seeds from squash and tomatoes.Katie's is the author of No-Waste Kitchen Gardening: Regrow Your Leftover Greens, Stalks, Seeds, and More.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a be...
2022-07-2829 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingRooftop Veggie Garden and Figs in PittsburghContainer GardeningPittsburgh gardener Seth Finn talks about his container garden and the container garden on the roof of his daughter’s restaurant.The restaurant rooftop garden furnished the restaurant with fresh figs and shishito peppers amongst other things.We talk about:Wicking containersHow often to replace or top up the potting soilGrowing figs in wicking containers on the roofPlumbing together a series of containers to simplify watering
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on to...
2022-07-2127 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingRose Garden Rejig Creates BalanceA Rose Garden Re-ImaginedIn this episode we speak with Alex Henderson about the rejuvenated rose garden at Royal Botanical Gardens. Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, explains that the original rose garden, planted in 1967, was suffering from the combined effects of poor soil health, rose varieties susceptible to disease, and a ban on cosmetic pesticides. We chat about:Creating more ecological balance by having mixed plantings of roses and flowering perennialsChanging from overhead irrigation to drip irrigationSelecting rose varieties with improved genetics
...
2022-07-1435 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingLandmarks help Blind Gardeners + Gardening for BirdsGardening for the BlindChristine Nichols and Gord Johnston share ideas to help blind and low-vision people garden, and talk about the gardens at the Canadian Hellen Keller Centre, which serves the deaf-blind community. They talk about:Using landmarks in the gardenColours for low-vision gardenersSpatial awareness in the gardenVisual memoryBird GardeningSteven Price, past president of Bird Studies Canada, talks about how to attract birds to gardens and how to make gardens bird-friendly.He talks about:PlantsFeatures (e.g...
2022-01-061h 02
The Gardening with Joey & Holly radio show Podcast/Garden talk radio show (heard across the country)Segment 3 of S5E30 Guest Steven Biggs - The Gardening with Joey and Holly Radio showQuestions email Gardentalkradio@gmail.comCall 24/7 1-800-927-SHOWJoey and Holly radio show heard on 15 stations across the country and podcast replayIn show 30 of season 5 Joey and Holly Talk aboutSegment 3 guest Steven Biggs https://www.foodgardenlife.com/ of https://badevore.com/Shirts https://www.thatismyshirt.com/sponsors of the show in 2021March –Octhttps://thewisconsinvegetablegardener.com/radio-season-5/Email your questions to Gardentalkradio@gmail.comOr call 24/7 leave your question at 1-800 927-SHOWProplugger of https://proplugger.com/Rootmaker of https...
2021-09-3014 min
The Gardening with Joey & Holly radio show Podcast/Garden talk radio show (heard across the country)S5E30 Feed soil yard & Garden, Kitchen hacks, Guest Steven Biggs - The Gardening with Joey and Holly Radio showQuestions email Gardentalkradio@gmail.comCall 24/7 1-800-927-SHOWJoey and Holly radio show heard on 15 stations across the country and podcast replayIn show 28 of season 5 Joey and Holly Talk aboutSegment 1 Feeding soil in lawn and garden Segment 2 Kitchen hacks Segment 3 guest Steven Biggs https://www.foodgardenlife.com/ of https://badevore.com/Segment 4 gardening questions answeredShirts https://www.thatismyshirt.com/sponsors of the show in 2021March –Octhttps://thewisconsinvegetablegardener.com/radio-season-5/Email your questions to Gardentalkradio@gmail.comOr call 2...
2021-09-271h 01Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHow to Use Fig Leaves in the KitchenCoconut. Almond. Green fig.These are some of the flavours people use to describe what they taste when Chef David Salt serves something flavoured with fig leaves.Salt cooked with fig leaves in London, England, where he had a ready source of fig leaves in a nearby churchyard.Upon relocating to Toronto, he didn’t know where to find them.And that’s when host Steven Biggs received an enquiry that read:“I am looking for fi...
2021-09-0930 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGrow Herbs in ContainersIn a broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with herb expert Sue Goetz about growing herbs in containers. Goetz is an award-winning garden designer, writer, and speaker. Her motto is “Inspiring gardeners to create.” She gives us creative ideas for growing herbs in containers and for using herbs. Goetz also shares ideas from her new book, Container Herb Garden Complete: Design and Grow Beautiful, Bountiful Herb-Filled Pots.
Emma’s Tomato-Talk Segment
In Emma’s tomato segment, we talk about some of Emma’s top tomato-variety recommendations for 2021.
Big...
2020-12-031h 02
Down The Garden Path PodcastGrowing Figs in Cold Climates: Interview with Author Steven BiggsA new month begins a new topic here on Down the Garden Path. This month, we're speaking with gardening authors about their interesting and informative books. In this episode, we head to our bookshelves to take a closer look at Growing Figs in Cold Climates: 150 of Your Questions Answered by author and fellow radio personality, Steven Biggs. Steven Biggs is a food gardener, horticulturist, college instructor, and an award-winning writer who pigs out on homegrown figs in Toronto. He is the host of The Food Garden Life radio show and podcast. His articles have appeared in many m...
2020-11-041h 01
Trace Evidence130 - The Vanishing of Mikelle BiggsEleven year old Mikelle Biggs was waiting for the ice cream truck to come by with her younger sister, Kimber. Losing her patience and growing cold, Kimber went home. Immediately upon arriving, her mother sent her back out to tell Mikelle to come home too. In total she was gone less than ninety seconds, but in that short window of time, Mikelle had been abducted.All that was left behind was the bike Mikelle had been riding, the rear wheel still spinning. While a neighbor with a criminal past caught the eye of investigators they never had enough...
2020-09-2359 minThe Grow GuideTransitioning plants indoors, with Steven BiggsAward winning author and gardening educator Steven Biggs is our guest this week, here to help make the transition smoother for any plants that are coming inside for winter. Dave also takes on a listener question about growing peppers indoors and shares a "spritzy" plant of the week! Episode links: Find us on Facebook Find us on Instagram Connect with Dave Connect with Maggie Connect with this week's guest, Steve Biggs
2020-09-1535 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGreen Roofs for Healthy CitiesWe chat with Steven Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the Toronto-based industry association that supports the North American green roof and green wall industries. He talks about about what goes into a green roof, what’s new in green roofs, and how home owners can find out more about green roofs.The need for green roofs goes beyond creating more space to garden. Peck talks about the urban heat island effect, which can make urban areas up to 10°C warmer than rural areas. He explains that the effect is the result of the removal of...
2020-09-1022 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingWays Gardeners ShareWe’ve been talking a lot about our neighbor Joe over the past couple of days.
Joe and his wife, Maria, are amazing neighbours. They always stop to chat. They share their garden harvest. And they send cookies for the kids. But the reason we’ve been talking about Joe these past couple of days is that Joe is an amazing gardener. We learn something new every time we drop by to visit. AND Joe shares with all the neighbourhood gardeners.
The yard is surrounded by a wall of pole beans. Joe shared his favourite bean...
2020-06-1617 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingNourish Community and People with Gardens—and Soup!In this episode that originally broadcast live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with Susan Antler, the Executive Director of the Compost Council of Canada. Susan talks about using gardening and food to make change, the Plant·Grow·Share a Row program and the Soupalicious festival. “Gardening can change the world,“ she says.In Emma’s Tomato Talk segment, she talks about blue tomato varieties, tomato training methods, and transplanting tips.In the Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven is joined by author Helena Moncrieff, who shares the story of a Toronto gardener whose fi...
2020-06-041h 00Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingFrancesco’s Fig TreeThe Story of a Fig Tree that Brought Together a Community
Excerpt from The Food Garden Life Radio Show, June 2020
In the Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven is joined by author Helena Moncrieff, who shares the story of a Toronto gardener whose fig tree became an integral part of the neighbourhood.
Moncrieff is the author of the book The Fruitful City.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one ga...
2020-06-0411 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGrow Meyer Lemon in ContainersEmma made Meyer lemon sorbet yesterday. She made it with home-grown Meyer lemons, picked in Toronto in the month of May.Steven has grown lemons since the 1990s—but it was a visit to Bob Duncan at Fruit Trees and More Nursery in British Columbia that inspired him to write his book Grow Lemons Where You Think You Can’t.Victoria has a mild climate, so Bob grows lemons espaliered on the side of his house. Over the winter, he used incandescent light strings and row-cover fabric to protect the lemon trees.Steven and E...
2020-05-2112 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingOff the Beaten Path with…FigsGrowing Unusual Fruit in PA
Excerpt from The Food Garden Life Radio Show, May 2020
In The Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven talks with Bill Lauris, a chemistry teacher and nursery operator in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who loves growing figs and other unusual fruit. Bill runs Off the Beaten Path Nursery.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more ab...
2020-05-0716 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGardening Your Front YardIn this broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, author and gardening expert Tara Nolan joins us to talk about front yard gardens and share ideas from her new book, Gardening Your Front Yard: Projects and Ideas for Big and Small Spaces.
In the Tomato-Talk Segment, Emma chats with Trish Crapo and Tom Ashely at Dancing Bear Farm in MA. Trish and Tom joined us on the show in April 2019 to talk about figs…but they are tomato-crazy too!
In the Biggs-on-Figs Segment, Steven chates with Bill Lauris from Off th...
2020-05-071h 03Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingFarm the City, Garden with GrainsIn this broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with farmer, author, and food system activist Micheal Abelman. Michael is a visionary of the urban farming movement. In addition to his family farm on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, he’s the co-founder and director of Sole Food Street Farms in Vancouver, an urban agriculture business that provides employment to people managing poverty and addiction. The farm covers 4 acres of land, producing 25 tons of food annually.
The author of many books, his most recent book is Farm The City: A...
2020-04-011h 01Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingChoose The Right Tomato VarietiesWith more than 10, 000 known varieties, how do you choose which tomato to grow? Host Emma Biggs talks about things to consider when choosing tomato varieties for your garden.Emma talks about:Days to maturity (DTM), growth habit, fruit type, flavour, appearance, disease resistance, and seed type.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more about the Ca...
2020-03-2410 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingArtistic Front-Yard Garden, Anti-Inflammatory Food, Grow LuffaOn this rebroadcast of an episode that aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with garden and wellness expert Shawna Coronado, who talks about getting community buy-in for her front-yard vegetable garden, and then turning that garden into a work of art. Her most recent book, Stacked with Flavour: An Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook with Dairy-Free, Grain-Free & Low-Sugar Recipes, was inspired by her struggle with severe degenerative osteoarthritis. She talks about that journey, along with practical, flavourful, anti-inflammatory cooking ideas that have helped her manage pain.In the second part of the show, we chat...
2020-03-061h 06Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingHeat Column to Protect Figs in Cold ClimatesExcerpt from the live radio show, March 2020
In The Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven talks with Will Pananes, a fig grower in Pennsylvania who uses heat column to protect his figs over the winter.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more about the Canada Gardener’s Journal: It’s a gardening journal, gardening log, and garden planner—with an all-C...
2020-03-0509 minThe Grow GuideGrowing Figs Across All Grow Zones with Steven BiggsA new year is right around the corner and Maggie and Dave have tons of exciting announcements to end off 2019, including the opportunity for listeners to join the November Seed Club as well as get their hands on some new Grow Guide merch. Dave shares his "garden geek" news about rosemary officially being classified as a a sage. Maggie shares about the enjoyment she's getting from sprouting seeds indoors for both herself and the chickens. Then Steven Biggs joins the show to talk all about figs — from bringing them indoors, overwintering outside, fertilizing and selecting the right variety for yo...
2019-11-2647 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGrowing Figs in the MountainsExcerpt from the radio show, November 2019
In The Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven talks with Tony Christini, a fig grower in West Virginia whose focus is hardy and early-ripening fig varieties suited to his mountain growing conditions.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more about the Canada Gardener’s Journal: It’s a gardening journal, gardening log, and garden...
2019-11-0710 minFood Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible LandscapingGrow Figs in SeattleExcerpt from the radio show, October 2019
In The Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven talks with Ben Nguyen from Seattle Garden & Fruit Adventures about growing figs in Seattle and about Ben’s Ultimate Fig Breba List.
---Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.Find out more about the Canada Gardener’s Journal: It’s a gardening journal, gardening log, and garden planner—with an al...
2019-10-0309 min
Down The Garden Path PodcastGrowing Lemons with Steven BiggsIn our weekly podcast, we often talk about the ever-growing trend of growing your own fruit and vegetables. This week on Down the Garden Path, we look at the challenge of growing lemons, a fruit which can be difficult to grow here in the GTA. Author Steven Biggs joins us to discuss his book Grow Lemons Where You Think You Can't. Steven and his daughter Emma are the Garage Gardeners and have co-authored Gardening with Emma. Steven's previous books include Grow Figs Where You Think You Can't and No Guff Vegetable Gardening. During...
2019-08-2156 min