Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible Landscaping (Steven Biggs: Horticulturist and edible landscaping expert.)

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

In 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 a forager, interested in food forests, or want to grow nuts, this is a fun chat.

Our chestnut guide is Ron Casier, chair of the Canadian Chestnut Council.

We talk about:

• The American chestnut, and the place it held in the ecosystem
• Chestnut blight, and its effect on chestnut populations
• The “Canadian” American chestnut
• Breeding disease-resistance American chestnut varieties

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Got 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 compact, healthy vegetable seedlings at home.

If you’re looking for more information on seed-starting, vegetable gardening, and growing food at home, drop by the website and grab the free guide, 20 Small-Space Food-Garden Hacks.

And say hi—we love to hear from what you think. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

When 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 discuss different types of manures, making compost, using leaves, wood chips, and common products such as bone meal, peat moss, and blood meal.

If you’re looking for more on soil, check out this post about how and when to use wood ash in the garden.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Oregano 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. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

How to Grow and Cook Medlar

Jane 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 medlar
• Steward’s journey into planting a medlar orchard and starting a food-processing business 
• How to “blet” medlar 
• Medlar rootstock
• Medlar fruit in Turkey and around the Caspian Sea
• (Spoiler alert: we also hear about medlar gin and a delicious medlar chutney)

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 varieties
• Support for tomato plants
• Mulch
• Asparagus
• Microgreens
• Lemons
• Artichoke
• Squirrels
• What to do about bolting lettuce

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 works
• Using vermicompost (a.k.a. worm castings or worm wompost)
• Large scale vs. home-scale vermicomposting
• Top 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) 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

In 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) fruit
• Cold-tolerance of haskap
• How to care for haskap
• How to prune haskap
• Cold-tolerant cherry varieties from University of Saskatchewan

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Niki Jabbour on how to Make and Use Mini Tunnels

Less 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.

We talk about:

• What mini tunnels are
• Mini tunnels and weather
• Mini tunnels and pests
• Materials to make mini tunnels
• Getting an early start in the spring garden
• Turbo-charging heat loving crops with mini tunnels

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Leafy 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 more on leafy greens, check out this guide to 5 heat-tolerant salad greens.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Growing Quince

Quince 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 quince
• How to use quince fruit
• The use of quince trees as rootstock for pear trees
• Quince varieties
• Quince cold hardiness
• Quince diseases

Delectable Root Vegetable Recipes

Cookbook author and professional home economist Jennifer MacKenzie joins us to talk about cooking root vegetables and shares recipes from her book The Complete Root Cellar Book. 

We talk about:

• Shopping for root veg
• What to look for if you're planning to store root veg
• Spiced roasted turnip and beet batons
• Beet and carrot slaw
• Root cellar medley soup
• Parsnip and pear soup

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Emma 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.'

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Think 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 climates
• Using unheated greenhouses to grow tender fruit, grapes…and figs
• Heat sinks and insulated tarps
• Capturing heat from the ground—without an elaborate geothermal heating system

Kreutzer and his wife run Over the Hill Orchards in Saskatchewan.

If you’re looking for more on cold-hardy fruit, check out this post on Saskatoon Berries. 

***

-->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-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

 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.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Grow 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)
• Things for kids to do in the garden in early spring
• Kids Garden Month

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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!)

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Wondering 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 talk about when to start seeds indoors so that your vegetable transplants are a good size for transplanting into the garden. They also discuss direct-sowing dates for garden vegetables.

If you’re looking for more information on seed-starting, vegetable gardening, and growing food at home, drop by the website and grab the free guide, 20 Small-Space Food-Garden Hacks.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Looking 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 on planning a kitchen garden, check out this post on kitchen garden planning.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Have 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.

To ace your direct seeding, you need to know which crops it works with—and how to do it.

In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about:

• Why and when to direct sow
• When it makes sense to grow transplants instead of direct sowing
• How to direct sow seeds
• What crops are best for direct sowing

If you’re looking for more ideas for planting your vegetable garden, here’s an article with 7 Vegetable Garden Layout ideas.    

-->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-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 Biggs, who has raised tons of tomato plants for her annual plant sale and seed business. They talk about how they grow tomatoes from seed and the varieties they love. (They each do it differently!)

If you want more on planting tomatoes from seed, check out the guide to growing tomato seedlings on the website.

And say hi—we love to hear what you think.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Homesteading as a State of Mind

We 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 them
• The idea of small-scale homesteads in urban and suburban areas
• Tips for aspiring homesteaders
• How to get started homesteading

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Do 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 hedges
• Reducing space used by pathways
• Tiering crops in a garden
• Using paved areas, decks—and stairs!

If you’re looking for more on garden planning, check out these 7 vegetable garden layout ideas.  

***

-->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-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Vertical 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 gardening
• The benefits of vertical gardening
• Support structures in a vertical garden
• Materials to make your own trellises and support structures.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

One 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 has both farmers and employees as members. 

The co-op helps its farmer members with different aspects of production:

• Understanding crop opportunities
• Setting up for a crop
• Growing the crop
• Processing opportunities

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Specialty Fruit Crops

We 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 buckthorn
• Highbush cranberry
• Hardy kiwi
• Bush cherries
• Chokecherry
• Agroforesty
• Tips for growers who want to grow specialty fruit crops

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Brad 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 landscaping
• How to harvest rainwater in the landscape
• The connection between landscapes and cooling
• Using the soil and "speed bumps" in the landscape to make it a living sponge
• Selecting plants to suit the landscape
• The Dunbar Springs Urban Food Forest

Brad is the author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond.  

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 rhubarb
• Conditions needed to force rhubarb over the winter
• Varieties of rhubarb for forcing
• Growing rhubarb roots for forcing
• Digging rhubarb roots for forcing
• Tips for growing rhubarb at home

(Spoiler alert: Brian tells us whether it's really necessary to harvest by candlelight, as it's traditionally done!)

To see photos of the rhubarb-forcing operation at Lennox Farm, see the blog post for this episode at Foodgardenlife.com.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Got a spot you’d like to use to grow food but not sure where to start?

In this episode, we tackle a bare space with hard clay, in zone 3.

Let’s not forget the deer and rabbits. Oh, and there’s a narrow “hell strip” that’s needs to be planted too.

The good news is that there are lots of ways to add edibles to a garden. The way to start is by choosing a creative direction, and then getting started.

We work through two entirely different approaches to this space.

First, we explore a low-maintenance “grazing” garden with perennials. Next, we think about how to use a potager style in this space.

For the plant palette we’re including options for:

·         Partial sunlight

·         Good cold tolerance for perennials (zone 3!)

·         Less attractive to deer

·         Plants that give options for adding colour, texture, and height

If you’re looking for fruits, vegetables, and other plants that you can grow in the shade, here’s a post to get you started. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Steven 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 wood
• Apple rootstock
• Supplies for apple tree grafting (spoiler alert: what you DON’T need to buy)
• Best grafts for beginners
• Solving common apple-grafting problems

Steven has a grafting video series on his YouTube channel.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We 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 predictable
• Choosing crops for a climate-change vegetable garden
• Perennial vegetables
• Tips for veggie gardening in hot summers

Kim 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. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Can’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:

• Where to grow pawpaw trees
• Pawpaw tree hardiness (yes, there are pawpaw growers in Canada!)
• Grafting pawpaw trees
• How to grow pawpaw from seed
• Pawpaw breeding
• What makes pawpaw a great fruit crop for home gardeners and small farmers

D’Angelo is the founder of Project Pawpaw, a crowd-funded pawpaw research and breeding program.

If you’re looking for more on pawpaw, tune into our interview with the Indiana Jones of pawpaw, Neal Peterson, and hear our chat with Toronto pawpaw expert Paul DeCampo. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We 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 orange
• Yuzu
• Sudachi
• Kumquat, and other citrus with kumquat lineage
• Ichang lemon
• Citrumello
• Mandarins
• Australian finger limes

Sam also shares tips about different ways to grow and protect citrus in cold climates.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Your 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 means
• Why harden off seedlings
• How to harden off seedlings
• When to harden off seedlings
• Harden off seedlings in a greenhouse

If you’re looking for more on growing vegetables from seed, check out post on how to direct seed vegetables. 

-->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-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 varieties
• Resources for finding and researching tomato varieties
• Selecting tomato varieties suited to the growing conditions
• Tips for people who want to get started growing heirloom and unusual tomatoes

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Wondering 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 harvest
• Simplicity
• Suitability for your garden

If you’re looking for more ideas to plan the perfect kitchen garden, check out these ideas. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 raspberry leaf tea!)

And here’s more on how to tip-layer blackberries and black raspberries. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Do 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.

The key to successes is the right combination of crops, varieties, and the spacing.

In this episode, find out how to you can harvest winter vegetables in cold-climate home gardens.

We’re joined by JM Fortier, co-author of the book The Winter Market Gardener. The books shares years of research at Ferme des Quatre-Temps.

Fortier is also founder of The Market Gardener Institute, which offers training for small farmers. He’s founder of the small-farm tool and accessory retailer Growers & Co.
 
---

If you’re looking for more information on seed-starting, vegetable gardening, and growing food at home, drop by the Food Garden Life website and grab the free guide, 20 Small-Space Food-Garden Hacks.

And say hi—we love to hear from what you think. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 tractor
• How it’s different from a rototiller
• How home gardeners, landscapers, and homesteaders can use 2-wheel tractors
• What can a 2-wheel tractor do beyond tilling (spoiler alert: they can blow snow and bale hay too!)
• Earthworks for swales, berms, and beds on contour
• Tillage: minimum till vs. no-till

Zach is the author of The Two-wheel Tractor Handbook.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Grow a Vertical Vegetable Garden

Space. 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 Laurel

Dave Hanson from The Grow Guide Podcast joins us to talk about growing the Mediterranean herb bay laurel. Steven and Dave are teaming up for a live online event on creating a Mediterranean Kitchen Garden in cold climates on March 14, 2023.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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, and how to use them.

If you’re looking for more fun crops, check out these edible perennials. (You might already be growing some of them!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 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-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

 -->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Want 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 container
• Good soil
• A suitable location
• Proper care

In 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 on container gardening, here are top container garden crops. 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 of best practices called SPIN farming (Small Plot Intensive farming.)

Today he tells us his journey, and what he’s learned along the way.

We talk about:

• Running the 20-acre market garden
• Downsizing and setting up in the city
• The SPIN model and variations on it
• Comparing SPIN farming to commodity farming
• Using the SPIN model in small towns
• Top tips for new urban and SPIN farmers

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Want 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 seedlings
• Protecting transplants from cold spring weather
• How to stake, train, and support tomato plants
• Pruning tomato suckers
• Watering and feeding
• Tomato 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 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-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We 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.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Permaculture Orchard

We 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 orchard
• How can an orchard be a permaculture?
• The system of “trios” he uses as a basic design unit
• Minimizing external inputs
• Using sheep in an orchard
• Timelines for establishing a permaculture orchard
• Using fruiting shrubs under trees
• Planting perennial flowers, herbs, and vegetables underneath fruiting shrubs

When it comes to the idea of permaculture, Sobkowiak says, “It’s just applied common sense.” 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Don’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 page.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 prune saskatoon bushes
• Saskatoon varieties
• Saskatoon pests and diseases
• How to propagate saskatoon berries
• How to use saskatoon fruit

If you’re looking for more on saskatoons, here’s a guide to growing them. 

-->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-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Oklahoma 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 gardens
• Making ornamental and elegant edible gardens
• Design elements such as enclosure
• How to design your own potager-style garden

Linda'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 more about their model, which solves a common challenge of school gardens: Summer.   

We talk about: 

• Why working with a cluster of schools helps with summer care 
• Summer community involvement
• A project that gets kids growing trees from seed

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Tried 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 indoors, you’re not alone!)

We also find out about Byron’s favourite rootstock for citrus grafting.

If you’re looking for more on indoor lemon trees, here’s a guide to growing a lemon tree in a pot (that actually fruits!) 

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Excerpt from the radio show, April 2019

Tune in for a chat with Trish Crapo and Tom Ashley at Dancing Bear Farm in Leyden, Massachusetts. They got into figs by accident a decade ago—and now they sell fresh figs at farmers markets and sell fig trees to other cold-climate gardeners.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Excerpt from the radio show, May 2019

Tune in for a chat with Ross Raddi. Ross is a 27-year-old backyard orchardist in the Philadelphia area who is passionate about growing his own fruit and vegetables. Ross talks about what to do with figs trees in the spring, as they start to come out of dormancy.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Excerpt from the radio show, June 2019

Tune in for a chat with John Biberich, a greenhouse fig grower in Grove City, Pennsylvania.

John and his wife Sue started growing figs and citrus as they were looking for unique crops that give them a place in an industry that’s increasingly reliant on automation and dominated by discount and big-box stores.

It’s a neat idea to consider for people thinking of how to carve out a niche in horticulture.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Excerpt from the radio show, July 2019

Tune in for a chat with Sundae Horn, who helps to organize the Ocracoke Fig Festival on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina. This two-day festival takes place this year on August 16th and 17th, and celebrates figs through food, history, music, and all sorts of fig stuff. Find out more about the festival—and find the recipe for Ocracoke fig cake—on the website for the Ocracoke Preservation Society.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Excerpt 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.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Excerpt 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.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Hear about urban market gardening from Jessey Njau, who left a corporate job to make an urban farm his Toronto backyard. His operation, Zawadi Farm, has grown to include more yards, as neighbours see what he is doing and offer their yards. Jessey sells his produce to CSA subscribers and at local farmers markets.

In Emma’s Tomato-Talk segment, she shares some of her favourite tomato varieties.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Our first guest is Ciara Byrne, who tells us about the the organization Green Our Planet, which is training a generation of student “farmpreneurs.” Students operate farmers markets at schools—and, twice a year—there is a giant market with students from many schools setting up in one location. The next market will have over 700 fifth-grade students selling fruit and veg from school gardens.

In the second half of the show, we chat about rooftop gardens with Hilary Dahl from the Seattle Urban Farm Company. The Amazon campus rooftop garden is a collaboration with a not-for-profit organization that uses food harvested from the garden for community culinary training programs.
The building of many new multifamily dwellings in Seattle has given her the opportunity to be involved in a number of edible rooftop garden projects. She talks about rooftop challenges, and also considerations such as weight and irrigation.

In the Tomato-Talk segment, Emma chats with Colette Murphy from Urban Harvest seeds about tomato varieties with a story.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Excerpt 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.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

On 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 with natural beauty products expert and author Janice Cox about growing luffa (a.k.a. loofah), which can be used for personal care, as a natural sponge, to hold water in flower pots, for arranging flowers—and to eat! Janice’s latest book is, “Beautiful Luffa: A Guide and Workbook for Growing, Using, and Enjoying Sponge Gourds.”

In Emma’s Tomato-Talk segment she chats with Hanna Jacobs from Matchbox Garden & Seed Company in southern Ontario about some of Hanna’s favourite tomato varieties.

In the Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven chats with Will Pananes from south-central Pennsylvania about his innovative use of a heat column to overwinter fig trees.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Donna tells us about gardening on her very sandy soil, talks about how she uses a greenhouse to harvest year-round, and shares some of her favourite crops.

As well as being an avid gardener, Donna is a gardener, horticulturist, garden journalist. She is the co-author of No Guff Vegetable Gardening. Donna has a passion for soil and soil biology.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

With 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.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Food writer Signe Langford from Port Hope, Ontario talks about her passion for growing food, her food garden, cooking, and how her garden connects her with her community.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Horticulturist Joel Karsten, a pioneer of the straw-bale gardening technique, talks about the concept of straw-bale gardening. He explains how it works, where it can be used, and how to make it work well.

Karsten, who grows vegetables in a 24-bale garden on his small residential property in Minnesota, grew up on a farm seeing healthy weeds growing in old, broken straw bales. When he bought his first house and decided to make a vegetable garden, he couldn’t—there was too little soil.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Linda Borghi from Farm-A-Yard joins us to talk about how she got into growing food, her first farm, her move into SPIN-Farming (small-plot-intensive), and her current work in communications with her Farm-A-Yard project.

Her mission is to teach others how to grow so that they can turn lawns into food gardens. To achieve this, she connects people with skills and information to help them succeed growing.

Coming from a business background outside of agriculture, Borhi has a strong interest in the business side of growing—and is keen to challenge accepted practices.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Ben Cohen, the author of Saving Our Seeds, joins us to talk about seed-saving, seed libraries, and the importance of community seed-sharing programs.

An author, herbalist, gardener, and educator, Ben farms with his family in Michigan.

They started Small House Farm when they realized that they wanted to to slow down and live a more simple life.

Ben is the founder of the Michigan Seed Library, a seed sharing initiative that has helped set up 70 seed library programs.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Rob and Chris Croley at Sentimental Farm in Niagara, Ontario, Canada grow about 70 per cent of the food they need on their 1/2 acre urban homestead.

An interest in self-sufficiency that started with growing vegetables has grown to include chickens, bees, mushrooms, goats, preserving, and making soaps and cosmetics.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Stephanie Rose has a passion for inspiring other people to grow and use plants. It’s a passion that began with her own journey of healing herself by taking up gardening.

Stephanie is a Vancouver-based award-winning author, speaker, and master gardener who teaches people how to grow and use plants. She weaves her knowledge of herbalism and permaculture into her work.

Stephanie talks about her own journey of recovery as she began to garden.

A parent, she has a lot of ideas for parents who want kids to garden. In her own yard, she opted for a play garden instead of a plastic swing set. Her 6-year-old son says that he wants to be a master gardener: When she runs kids gardening events, he likes to lead groups of kids on scavenger hunts.
Stephanie discusses ideas from her new book, Garden Alchemy, which is a guide for gardeners who want to make and do things themselves. The book covers a wide range of topics including fertilizers, soil amendments, sprays, and ideas to beautify the garden.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We check in with vegetable gardening expert Niki Jabbour in Nova Scotia to find out what’s new in her garden for 2020, and to see what favourites she is growing.

Niki is the author of Veggie Garden Remix, Groundbreaking Food Gardens, and The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener, and the host of The Weekend Gardener radio show.

We find out more about some of the crops in Veggie Garden Remix—and find out some of her other garden favourites.

Ever heard of hodge-podge? It’s an East Coast specialty that sounds delicious!

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Wendy Kiang-Spray, author of The Chinese Kitchen Garden, joins us to talk about about vegetable crops used in Chinese cuisine, Chinese intensive gardening, and her family’s gardening journey.

Her book weaves together stories and photos from three generations of her family.

While she started gardening as an adult when one of her own daughters asked to grow a garden, Wendy grew up immersed in gardening, in a household where gardening and cooking fresh garden produce was normal. Her father is an avid gardener, and both he and her mother love to cook.

The book includes many of her parents’ recipes for traditional Chinese dishes.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Mark Stewart and Kassie Miedema join us to tell us about a grassroots program encouraging people to grow food in front yards.

The idea is to produce more food locally—and to connect people around food.

Participants in the program can also put up a sign in the garden to raise awareness of the idea—and to stir up conversation.

What does success look like? A food street, with many neighbours growing up front.

Food Up Front is an initiative of Transition Toronto, a chapter of a global movement for change.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Cheyenne Sundance talks about how she started her urban farm, Sundance Harvest, when she didn’t see urban farms representing the diversity she felt they should.

A believer that independence is growing food, Cheyenne teaches and mentors youth, sharing her passion for growing food.

Liberating Lawns

An initiative that she started in the spring of 2020 is Liberating Lawns, a neighbourhood-centric yard-sharing program she hopes will help people reconnect with land and food.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

In 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 the Beaten Path Nursery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Bill is a chemistry teacher by day who spends his spare time educating people and challenging them to grow unusual fruit.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Growing 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.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We chat with pepper expert Claus Nader, owner of East York Chile Peppers in Toronto, Ontario.
Claus tells us about his urban hot-pepper container garden.

He grows specialty peppers, saves seeds, and makes hot sauces, pickled peppers, jams, salsas, and dehydrated peppers.

Claus shares his approach to making hot pepper sauce: he thinks hot and sweet go well together.

Claus says, “It’s a really nice community, and we inspire each other, which is great.”

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Backyard food gardener Dushan Batrovic tells us about his journey into food gardening.

After growing up in a family that gardened, Dushan took a break from gardening. But when he started gardening again, the taste of fresh garden produce made him an advocate for backyard growing.

Dushan gardens in two raised beds, along with a garden on his shed roof. As he was making the shed, he thought, “Since I’m creating a roof here I might as well add a bit of real estate to my growing.”

Working in the tech industry, and seeing how he and other neighbours could harvest more of their favourite crops than they could use, he wondered about ways to share around excess harvests. Dushan created an app called SeedVoyage, which helps gardeners who have excess produce connect with eaters.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Emily Murphy finds daily inspiration in her garden in Northern California. She describes her passion for gardening as, “A love affair.”

Emily got an early start in gardening. “If you were around in the 70’s, I was the kid down the road whose family was growing potatoes in her front yard instead of a lawn,” she says.

Emily is a garden designer, educator, and author who weaves together her studies in botany, ethnobotany, environmental science, and ecology. In her teaching she brings together gardening and living.

Emily is the author of the book Grow What You Love, 12 Food Plant Families to Change Your Life, an inspiring guide to planning, making, and growing a garden.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Emma 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 Emma dig into growing lemons in colder climates—and why lemons are an idea container plant.

Did you know that in addition to the fruit, you can use lemon leaves in the kitchen?

There are many ways to keep lemon trees over the winter, even without a greenhouse or a bright south-facing window.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Helena Moncrieff, author of The Fruitful City: The Enduring Power of the Urban Food Forest, talks about the fruit that grows in cities.

Fruit plants often reflect the history of an area. Grape vines are common in neighbourhoods where a lot of residents have Mediterranean family roots; cherry trees are common in areas with large Ukrainian populations.

Moncrieff became interested in urban fruit and the people and stories behind it when her daughter joined Not Far From The Tree in Toronto, a fruit picking and sharing project.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Robin Henderson joins us to talk about foraging. As he was growing up, he heard family stories about the foraging of previous generations.

Then, as urban growth engulfed the area where he lived, he discovered the many edible plants growing in his own neighbourhood.

Henderson points out that many people think of “subsistence” foraging—foraging to fill the stomach. For him, foraging can be a lot more than subsistence—he’s a big believer in “gastronomic foraging.”

Henderson explains that it’s even possible to forage in winter, while there is snow on the ground.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Atlanta urban farmer, food system thinker, educator, changemaker, and worm whisperer Maurice Small joins us to talk about growing people, growing community, and growing food.

Small talks about what got him into growing food, the urban agriculture scene in Atlanta, using gardening as a way to build community, and youth leadership. “I had the desire to do what my father did with me, which was grow food, share food, propagate plants.“

Small also talks about helping customers understand what goes into food production. “They know that something might crawl out because we don’t spray,” he says.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

The 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.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

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 fig tree became an integral part of the neighbourhood. Moncrieff is the author of the book The Fruitful City.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Ever wondered if growing food and and growing native plants are mutually exclusive? Our guest Ryan Godfrey talks about his sixth-floor balcony garden where he weaves together edible and native plants—all in containers.

Godfrey’s balcony container garden includes habitat-themed containers:

• Alvar container garden
• Riverside container garden
• Boulder container garden
• Woodland container garden

Edible plants include woodland strawberries, Jerusalem artichoke, sweet grass, and Virginia mountain mint.

Godfrey also has an allotment garden plot where he grows both food and native plants. He says that his plot draws a lot of pollinators.

In a journey that started with vacuuming acorns as a child, Ryan went on to study biology and evolutionary biology. He says this makes him a “plant nerd,” a gardener who learned about plants outside of a garden context. It colours his approach to gardening.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

It's not too late to grow vegetables this year. We chat with Carol Michel and Dee Nash about starting a summer vegetable garden.

Michel and Nash are vegetable gardeners Indiana and Oklahoma who joined forces to produce The Gardenangelists podcast and share their love of gardening.

“I’m in zone 7, and she’s zone 5.” Michel and Nash talk about how they got into vegetable gardening, and then share their tips for starting a vegetable garden in the summer. It’s not too late!

“It is not too late. There are plenty of vegetables that you can sow seeds for right now.”

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We’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 seeds with us for our garden. Steven posted about Joe’s beans the other day on social media as he explored how gardeners share, for an event called Garden Days. The response has been inspiring. Tune in for great sharing ideas.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Annalisa Pedraza joins us from Bozeman, Montana, where she manages the Spring Creek Community Garden. “Right now we have 30 members and that feeds about 25 households.”

Spring Creek Community Garden was founded by Richard Weaver after he inherited 3 acres of land in the middle of a subdivision. He removed the grass to create an urban farm and a sunken greenhouse.

Unlike many community gardens, everything is shared. There are no individual plots; and members divvy up the harvest based on what they feel they have contributed.

The gardeners hold a weekly potluck dinner, using garden produce. Pedraza finds that the social interaction is an important part of gardening.

While she’d love it if these get-togethers encourage people to become community-garden members, what she would really like is if they inspire people to make more community gardens. “What we really hope is that they replicate that elsewhere.”

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We dig into tomato and food gardening questions from members of the Ontario Backyard Plant Growers group on Facebook.

The Ontario Backyard Plant Growers Facebook Group is a group that shares information about growing plants in Ontario. It's a passionate group with broad knowledge on propagating, growing and harvesting, and tools and amendments.

We tackle tomato and food-gardening questions.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We chat with Jeff Quattone about his work bringing seed libraries to New Jersey, plant propaganda (not propagation!), and the Jersey tomato.

Quattrone is an artist, lifelong gardener, and marketing professional. He founded LIbrary Seed Bank in 2014. He talks about his journey into seed saving and helping to set up seed libraries.

“The whole idea that food can go extinct was something that shocked me because I didn’t understand diversity.”

He is so passionate about Jersey tomatoes that he has a page devoted to them on his website. “I think I’ve grown just about every one of them and I love them all!” Quattrone explains that the traditional Jersey tomato was bred to be a 10-ounce, round, red tomato because of the canning industry in New Jersey.

As a marketing professional, he finds that people often have a negative impression of the word propaganda. He looks at the fine line between propaganda and branding—and talks about why he thinks garden propaganda is important.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Virginie Gysel joins us to talk about transforming the grounds of a neighbourhood church into an orchard and food garden.

It started when she approached the church about growing vegetables on the property in exchange for looking after the flower gardens. She didn’t have anywhere sunny to grow tomatoes in her own yard.

It led to an orchard on a south-facing hill and lots of community engagement. She gives bags of produce to church members, donates the harvest to those in need, as well as sharing the harvest amongst volunteers.

Gysel founded the volunteer-run project TreeMobile that supplies food-bearing trees and shrubs at a low cost to home gardeners.

Gysel says that this self-supporting program also gives grants to schools, church groups, and community groups.

“I just realized this is the most amazing job in the world.”

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

In an episode that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, Lee Reich, author of Landscaping with Fruit, joins us to talk about landscaping with fruit.

Reich is the author of many books, including Uncommon Fruit for Every Garden, and, most recently, The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden.

Reich is a serious food gardener, with a “farmden” in the Hudson Valley of New York. He explains that his farmden is more than a garden, less than a farm.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We chat with Max Meighen, owner of Avling Kitchen & Brewery, and Danette Steele, the Farm Manager for the rooftop garden.

Steele grows a wide variety of crops on the roof., including greens, tomatoes, herbs, flowers for pollinators—and “flavour crops.” She explains that the flavour crops are used in the brewing process. A recent example is pineapple sage, which was infused in a local honey. That infused honey was then used in brewing.

Steele, who previously farmed in a rural setting in Nova Scotia, say that she is drawn to urban farming.

She explains that there is a strong community connection with the garden.

Meighen talks about the Avling Farm box, which includes meat and produce. Half of the produce for the boxes comes from the rooftop garden, half from new and small farms in Ontario. He believes in connecting the community with food producers. Earlier this year he hosted a meet-the-farmer night where customers mingled with farmers supplying Avling Kitchen & Brewery.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

In a program first broadcast live on the radio show in 2018,  we chat with Bill Muzychko of Bill’s Figs in Flemington, New Jersey.

Muzychko grows over 180 varieties of figs—all in containers—and all in zone where they would not normally survive without winter protection.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

School garden educator Shannon Stewart thinks of herself as an emerging seedling amongst old growth forests.

Stewart, who teaches in San Diego, California, says that this is her second career—and as a “seedling” in the the field of school gardens.

She uses the garden to teach:

• health and nutrition

• science

• critical thinking

• teamwork

• and even public speaking

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

In our mid-July garden check-in, we talk about what’s new in our garden.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We chat with Laura Luciano, a graphic designer from Long Island. She loves to find the stories behind locally produced food and the people who grow it.

Her passion for local food grew into her own blog, a column in Edible Long Island, and, eventually her involvement in the Slow Food movement.

Then it grew into an interest in growing her own food. So she created a rooftop garden.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

In this portion of a program first broadcast live on the radio show in 2018, we chat about growing fruit in cold climates with Dr. Ieuan Evans, a forensic plant pathologist and a former Provincial Plant Pathologist for Alberta Agriculture.

Along with his work in plant pathology, Evans is passionate about growing fruit in cold climates.

He talks about some of his favourite pear and apple varieties for cold climates—varieties that he says taste much better than store-bought apples or the apples from trees sold in local nurseries.

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

We chat with garden expert and author Niki Jabbour in Halifax, Nova Scotia to find out what’s new in her garden this summer, how things are growing, and for tips for new gardeners.

Her top advice for people who want to start growing food but haven’t started this year:  “There’s lots of things you can still plant, even in the coming weeks—so don’t think that you’ve missed the boat!”

Greenhouse versus Garden
Her greenhouse tomato plants are a good two weeks ahead—and far bigger than those growing in the garden

Straw-Bale Update
Niki grows in straw bales every year. They are doing well this year…the challenge is keeping them well watered

Fun Crops
Ever heard of ‘Itachi’ cucumber or ‘Black Kat’ pumpkin?

Succession Planting
Niki has lots of ideas for succession planting from this point onwards, including carrots, beets, and winter radishes

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

Toronto urban farmers Jessy Njau and Misha Shodjaee join us to talk about their journey into growing food and using food and farming as a tool for social change. Their farm, Zawadi Farm, began on land provided by a local garden centre.

They now farm Njau’s yard, other yards in their neighbourhood, as well as space at Toronto’s Downsview Park, which has land dedicated to urban agriculture.

Njau explains that he was deeply inspired by Vancouver urban farmer Michael Abelman, who uses urban farming as a way to build community and effect social change. Success for Shodjaee and Njau is growing an interest in food production—not growing the amount of space they cultivate.

“We want to be able to grow farmers.”

Short growing season? Not enough space? Sore back and knees?

Grow crops in containers for a longer season, to fit in more crops, and bend less.

If you want to up your game at container growing, or if you're new to gardening and need an inspiring primer, join us on April 14th for a live online class.

In part 2 of a program first broadcast live on the radio show in 2018, we continue our chat about growing fruit in cold climates with Dr. Ieuan Evans, a forensic plant pathologist and a former Provincial Plant Pathologist for Alberta Agriculture.

Along with his work in plant pathology, Evans is passionate about growing fruit in cold climates. In this segment, he talks about edible mountain ash, plums, pears, apples, damsons, and apricots. And we talk about how he grows figs in Edmonton.

“Growing fruit on the prairies is not a problem at all—you just have to take a new angle.”