Favourite Vegetable Varieties with Donna Balzer: Tried-and-True and Something New
Vegetable Varieties
In this episode, I continue my cross-Canada tour to hear about top veggie varieties.
I’m joined by my former co-host, horticulturist, author, and longtime gardening educator Donna Balzer to talk all about her favourite vegetable varieties.
Donna shares her long-time favourite varieties—the ones she grows year after year—as well as varieties that have recently impressed her.
Donna and I wrote No Guff Vegetable Gardening together in 2011, and I’m a big fan of her approach to gardening. (If you’re looking for a copy of this Canadian classic, drop by Donna’s website.)
Whether you're planning your garden or interested in hearing about interesting varieties, this conversation will give you ideas for your 2026 garden.
Looking for Seeds?
Here are seed-shopping tips and sources to get you started.
The Wild & Free Garden: Rethinking Gardening, Community, and Creativity with Stephanie Rose
Sustainable Gardening
In this episode, I sit down with gardening expert and author Stephanie Rose to explore her new book, The Wild & Free Garden.
Need inspiration for your next gardening task or project? Need to reconnect with nature? Have a listen. Yes, this chat is rooted in gardening. But it’s also a thoughtful look at human nature, current culture, and psychology.
Stephanie shares a refreshing approach to gardening—one rooted in creativity, sustainability, and community connection. Instead of clicking “buy” for a next-day delivery, she encourages gardeners to tap into the sharing economy, repurpose materials, and collaborate with others to create beautiful, meaningful outdoor spaces.
This episode is perfect for gardeners, sustainability enthusiasts, and anyone looking to reconnect with nature—and with others—through their outdoor space.
Want Another Sustainable Gardening Idea?
Ditch the store-bought bedding plants in disposable pots. Grow beautiful food crops instead. Here’s a post all about using attractive edibles instead of store-bought bedding plants.
Growing Fruit in Cold Climates: Hardy Trees, Fruiting Hedges & Home Orchards with Véronique Alexandre
Hardy Fruit Trees
Growing fruit in cold climates might seem daunting, especially if you have a small home garden. But with the right trees and a creative mindset, it’s surprisingly achievable.
In this episode, we chat with Véronique Alexandre from Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery, a Canadian nursery specializing in fruit trees adapted to harsh northern winters.
Want a hedge on your property? Forget the cedar hedge, Véronique will tell you about a flowering, fruiting hedge.
She has many tips to help home gardeners succeed with fruit. We explore:
Fruit trees, bushes, and cultivars for cold zones
Growing a flowering and fruiting plum hedge
How to fit fruit trees into small gardens and suburban yards
What you need to know about ordering and planting bare-root fruit trees
A tough-as-nails apple that grows in zone 2 and even colder
A new cold-hardy, tasty, and bred-in-Quebec cold-hardy apple that stores very well
Whether you want a single apple tree, a productive backyard orchard, edible landscape, or a hedge that feeds your family, this episode will inspire you to start planting fruit—even in the coldest regions.
Fruiting Hedge
If you’re looking for more on edible hedges, check out this edible hedge guide.
Creating a Perpetual Food Garden That Sows & Grows Itself — with Charlie Nardozzi
Continuous Vegetable Garden
What if some of your vegetable garden crops came back year after year — with less digging, less fuss, and a continuous harvest?
In this episode, I’m joined by gardening expert Charlie Nardozzi, author of The Continuous Vegetable Garden, to explore how to design a self-sustaining food garden that produces continuously through the seasons.
Charlie shares practical strategies for succession planting, perennial crops, fruit, gardening in shade, and no-dig gardening. We also talk about vertical gardening and how to keep tomato and pepper plants from one year to the next—so you can have an extra-early tomato and pepper harvest.
If you’d like less maintenance and more of an ongoing harvest, this episode will inspire you to plant smarter — not harder.
Fruits and Vegetables to Grow in the Shade
If you’re looking for more on crops you can grow in the shade, check out this guide to fruits and vegetables for shade.
Growing Tomatoes Like a Pro with Frank Hyman (Insights from Ripe Tomato Revolution)
Tomato Growing Tips
Ever get to the end of the growing season and realize your tomato patch didn’t live up to the expectations you had when you planted it in the spring?
In this episode we chat with tomato expert Frank Hyman, author of the brand-new book Ripe Tomato Revolution. He shares his top tips to get lots of healthy, homegrown tomatoes—with less work. Frank has over four decades of hands-on experience, as both a farmer and a gardener. He shares a super practical way for home gardeners to prevent disease, along with his easy-to-make, easy-to-use homemade tomato cages. Whether you’re a first-time tomato grower or a seasoned gardener, get ideas to improve your tomato harvest from Frank’s down-to-earth tips and techniques.
Hear about:
Simple DIYs: tomato cages, and Frank’s “tomato house” concept to prevent disease
Creating conditions for tomatoes to thrive
Mulching like a pro
Ways to support tomato plants
Different types of tomato plants
Frank’s personal stories from years on an organic tomato farm
Perfect for: urban gardeners, backyard growers, sustainable farmers, and tomato lovers of all levels.
Listen now and let’s grow the best tomatoes you’ve ever tasted!
Tomato Cages and Trellises
If you’re looking for more on staking and supporting tomatoes…
Check out this great post about tomato cages and trellises
Look at this course about growing tomatoes
Prairie Plot & Lots of Tomatoes: A Manitoba Gardener’s Top Varieties and Growing Tips
Today we continue our cross-Canada tour, chatting with food gardeners, and sharing crop and variety ideas to help you as you plan your 2026 garden.
We head to Manitoba, just outside of Winnipeg, to chat with Brent Poole, an avid backyard veggie gardener who has been at it for over 45 years. Along with his own big suburban yard, Brent has a big garden across the street. He loves to experiment with new techniques and new varieties, something he attributes to his background in biology. Brent writes for and is on the board of The Prairie Garden, an annual publication that’s all about gardening on the Canadian prairies.
If you garden in a cold climate—or want to make the most of a short growing season—this episode is packed with practical, field-tested advice you can use right away.
Lawns into Lunch: Growing in Front Yards with City Street Farms (and top crops!)
We continue our cross-Canada tour, chatting with inspiring gardeners to hear about favourite varieties and top crops.
Today we head to Regina, Saskatchewan, to chat with Candace Benson, who runs City Street Farms. Candace tells us about how she turns grass into gardens in a city that has a lot of single-family homes—and a lot of front lawns.
She shares the story of her business, talks about her process to transform a lawn into a garden, and then talks about favourite veg and flower varieties.
You can find Candace online, at citystreetfarms.ca
A Journal, a Garden, and a Mother’s Love
We continue our cross-Canada tour. Today we’re joined by Helen Battersby, who talks about a gardening book that began as a coping tool. Helen tells us about Margaret Bennet-Alder, who turned to gardening during a difficult family chapter. Inspired by the homemade booklets her son used to manage appointments and medication while rebuilding his life, Margaret began tracking her garden the same way—seasonal tasks, plant sources, and hard-earned gardening lessons. The book, the Toronto Gardener’s Journal, was a shared project with her son. They started with 50 copies. Margaret and her son, and, later, sisters Helen and Sarah Battersby, grew the book into a nationally loved resource, with over 20,000 journals sold across Canada. This is a story about gardens—but also about resilience, care, and the healing power of gardening.
Top Vegetable Varieties for Home Gardens with Niki Jabbour
We continue our cross-Canada tour, chatting with inspiring gardeners to find out favourite varieties and top crops.
Today we chat with Niki Jabbour, a CBC radio gardening expert, one of the creators behind the gardening website savvygardening.com, and the award-winning author of The Year Round Vegetable Gardener, Groundbreaking Food Gardens: 73 Plans That Will Change the Way You Grow Your Garden, Veggie Garden Remix: 224 New Plants to Shake Up Your Garden and Add Variety, Flavor, and Fun, and Growing Under Cover: Techniques for a More Productive, Weather-Resistant, Pest-Free Vegetable Garden.
Niki shares some of her long-time favourite veg varieties, more recent additions to her favourites list, and some varieties with a Canadian pedigree. (Spoiler alert: including one that’s listed in the Slow Fook Ark of Taste.)
Lavender got Smoked by Cold? Plant Choices for the Prairies with Dave Hanson
We continue our cross-Canada tour of inspiring gardeners to find out favourite varieties and top crops.
Today we chat with Dave Hanson, co-host of The Grow Guide podcast, and owner of Sage Garden Greenhouses in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Dave shares some of his favourite veg varieties. He also talks about top herbs, one of his specialties.
Lavender get smoked in a harsh winter? Dave has a suggestion. And if you just can’t get enough cucs, hear what he does.
A Tomato that Sets Fruit When its Cold? Vegetable Varieties for a Cool Climate, with Linda Gilkeson
Leafy greens always seem to bolt too quickly? Can’t figure out why your broccoli isn’t forming heads? Choosing vegetable varieties suited to your climate helps avoid these sorts of frustrations.
In this episode, we get variety recommendations from gardening expert and entomologist Linda Gilkeson. Having spent much of her career on programs to reduce pesticide use, Linda is also an avid organic gardener who can garden year-round in her coastal climate.
Her books include Backyard Bounty: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Organic Gardening in the Pacific Northwest and West Coast Gardening: Natural Insect, Weed and Disease Control.
Linda gardens on Salt Spring Island, one of the Gulf Islands off the coast of British Columbia. She describes her growing conditions as coastal Pacific Northwest. Her variety recommendations are for these conditions.
But even if you’re not in the Pacific Northwest, I suggest you tune in. You’ll hear about tomato varieties that produce when it’s too cold for most others to set fruit. Did you know there are three broad groups of broccoli? And get Linda’s vegetable gardening words of wisdom.
Find Linda online at lindagilkeson.ca
Linda’s Variety List
Long-time favs
Onions: Red Tropeana Lunga, Sturon onion, Redwing F1, Ambition shallot, Ed’s Red shallot
Leeks: Unique
Squash: Robin’s Koginut Squash RKS, Lungo Bianco zucchini, Early golden (yellow) crooknecks
Peas: Super Sugar Snap
Roots: Berlicummer carrots, Detroit beets (Det Dk Red, Det Supreme—reselections)
Greens: Fordhook Swiss chard, Bloomsdale spinach (Long Standing or Savoy), Perpetual/Leafbeet, Lucullus (hardiest)
Winter Lettuce: Arctic King, Winter Density, Rouge d ’Hiver, Continuity, German butter lettuce
Summer lettuce: Angry Sea, Jericho, Red sails
Chinese cabbage: Joi choi, China Express
Cabbage: Greyhound (sweetheart type), January King, Copenhagen or Danish Ballhead
Tomato: Early Girl
Pepper: Gypsy, Carmen
Cucumbers: Straight 8, Slice More, Marketmore
Corn: Kandy King, Peaches and Cream
Beans: Musica Romano pole, Borlotti pole beans
Broccoli: Green sprouting Calabria, Red Spear PSB (winter)
Recent Favourites
Grundy Perfect Arrow peas, Dalvey peas
Dunja F1 zucchini
Purple Moon cauliflower
Deadon cabbage
Kalibos cabbage red
Badger Flame beets (better than any other golden beets I have eaten)
Lodi squash (OP very similar to RKS)
Aspabroc
Summer Dance cucumber
Charlotte strawberries
Suyo cucumber
Brilliant celeriac
Jester lettuce
Tango celery
Sadly Missed Varieties - no longer available
Partenon zucchini
Ambercup squash
Yellow Crooknecks with a long neck
Straight Arrow Peas
Narina bush beans
Varieties Suited to the Coastal Pacific Northwest
Hardy leafy greens: Mizuna, Namenia, Komatsuna, Osaka purple mustard
Summer broccoli: Green sprouting Calabria
Winter broccoli (various PSBs)and winter cauliflower (Galleon, Purple Cape)
Musica romano beans
Onions on the above list (many onions don’t)
Carrots, beets, lettuce
Varieties Linda has Only Because of Seed Saving
Unique leeks
Musica romano beans
German butter lettuce
Namenia
Red Spear purple spr. broccoli
Sturon onion
Long, Skinny Garden? Hear How We Tweak This Space
From Lush Ornamental Foliage to Lush Edible Leaves
Not sure what to do with a long, skinny, straight-edged garden beside a driveway, patio, or building?
In this episode, we take a long, slender ornamental garden and reimagine the space with edible plants.
The garden we’re thinking about is actually a little sliver of the Joan of Arc Garden in Quebec City. But these same ideas work well in in many home-garden situations.
We talk about:
Crop ideas (kales, Thai basil, borage, shiso, and fern-leaf parsley)
Groupings vs. individual plants
Urns for adding height an interest in this skinny space
Plants that last into the fall vs. plants that fade with fall weather
If you’re looking for more on edible flowers like borage, check out this article about edible flowers.
Picture of the Space
Want to Switch Out Your Annuals? Try These Herbs Instead
From Coleus to Culinary Herbs
Do you have a garden where you use traditional annuals, but you want to switch it up for something edible?
Herbs are one option.
In this episode, we look at a space that has a tidy, slightly formal feel.
We replace the tightly clipped shrubs with edible alternatives.
And then we change out the annuals for herbs.
If you’re looking for more on using edible plants instead of traditional bedding plants, check out this post.
Picture of the Space
Hear How We Tweak a Public Space to Keep the Aesthetic but Add Edibles
A Container Garden Makeover
Wondering about adding edible plants to an existing gardening without spoiling the aesthetic?
With the right plant choice, along with an understanding of how the space is used, you can add edible plants without spoiling the looks.
In this episode, we take a public space and reimagine it with edibles.
It’s a big space, with lots of lawn. We talk about plant choice for this shady spot, and about plant placement that doesn’t interfere with how this space is used. We include:
Edibles as bedding plants
Using height to make a focal point
Edibles for colour
Edible perennials
Fruit for shade
If you’re looking for more on crops for shade, check out this post.
Picture of the Space
From Geranium Glut to Playful Herb Planter Box!
A Container Garden Makeover
Thinking of veggies for your container garden? Or planter boxes with herbs?
In this episode, we look at a patio surrounded by planter boxes that are filled with red geraniums...nothing but red geraniums.
Our goal? Transform this linear container garden from a continuous line of red into something varied, colourful—playful—and edible.
Hear two different approaches to reimagining the planter boxes so that they’re a low-maintenance edible container garden.
If you’re looking for more on the sub-irrigated planters from this episode, find out more here.
Pictures of the Space
Potager Style or Grazing Garden?
The Challenge
In this episode, the challenge is coming up with a creative food-gardening concept for a zone 3 garden.
Right now, the space is bare ground. It’s hard clay soil.
The garden space is nestled between a pathway and a retaining wall. There are nearby spruce trees, so there’s only morning sun.
There’s also a “hell strip” on other side of pathway, with a skinny little band of ground between the pathway and a greenhouse.
Challenges (apart from cold winters) include deer and rabbits.
Tune in below to hear me share two completely different concepts for this space!
Pictures of the Space
The main growing space, located between a low stone retaining wall and a pathway, with spruce trees on one side.
Looking at the main space from another view. Note the “hell strip” on the right, between the pathway and the greenhouse.
Approaching the space, which is just around the corner on the pathway.
SPRING Finale: How to Grow a Climate-Change Veggie Garden
Climate-change vegetable gardening with Kim Stoddart.
Making a Vegetable Garden More Resilient
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.
Harvest Rainwater for Your Garden and Landscape
Harvesting rainwater with Brad Lancaster.
Rainwater Harvesting and Natural Air Conditioning
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.
Need Space? Harvest More from the Same Plot with Vertical Gardening
Harvest more from the same space with these vertical-vegetable-garden ideas and vertical gardening crops.
Grow a Vertical Garden
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.
Small-Plot Intensive Vegetable Production (SPIN Farming)
Wally Satzewich talks about small-plot intensive farming, a.k.a. SPIN farming.
Worm Castings
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
Hi, We’re Steve and Emma!
We help people grow food on balconies, in backyards, and beyond—whether it’s edible landscaping, a vegetable garden, container gardens, or a home orchard.
