At 7 years old, Kendall Rae Johnson is the youngest certified farmer in the state of Georgia. She talks about her favourite crops and teaching other kids to grow food.
Kitchen Scrap Gardening: From Avacado to Ginger to Citrus
School Garden Kicks Off with Celebrity
Sonya Harris joins us to talk about school gardens, gardening with kids, and The Bullock Garden Project
Helping Kids Understand Light...with Skittles!
The Garden Life and Mud Pies
Ornamental Edibles, Hort Therapy, Kids Gardening
Talking about gardening in wind, horticultural therapy, ornamental edibles, and gardening with children with Charlie Dobbin and Perla Sofia Curbelo.
Making Change One Garden at a Time
Emily Murphy talks about gardening for community, health, and the environment; and Sunday Harrison talks about making change through urban school gardens.
School Food Gardens Open Career Horizons
Allison Eady from Waterloo Region School Food Gardens talks about garden-based learning and introducing students to the food system
Urban Farm Camp for City Kids
City Farm School
Youth and Gardening
Green Thumbs Growing Kids
We chat with Sunday Harrison, the founder and executive director of Green Thumbs Growing Kids, a Toronto non-profit organization that provides hands-on garden and food education to urban school children.
How it Started
Harrison says that she started the program as an after-school program in a local Toronto park, but after hearing students say, “I really want a garden at my school,” she began to partner with local schools.
Now in its twenty-first year of operation, the program has grown to include placements for post-secondary students, many of whom get their first exposure to gardening.
Her top tip for those thinking of starting a program: “Start small and do it well.” She says that this attracts other people.
Sunday Harrison, Executive Director of Green Thumbs Growing Kids
The Disconnect between Gardens and the School Year
She finds that one of the key challenges with school gardens is that there is a disconnect between the school year and summer gardening season. That means that there is often nobody to look after school gardens over the summer.
Green Thumbs partners with community organizations over the summer so that the gardens are in continuous use.
On Garden Education
Harrison feels that the education system places a lot of emphasis on memorization. Having gardens rounds out the education experience because gardens teach students how to observe.
Connect with Green Thumbs Growing Kids
Website: greenthumbsto.org
Facebook: greenthumbsto
Twitter: greenthumbsto
Instagram: greenthumbsto
Additional Resource
Connect with The Food Garden Life Show on Social Media
New Book for Northern Gardeners
Community Compost Exchange Program Makes Food Accessible
Paige Lockett from PACT talks about garden-based experiential learning.
We chat with Paige Lockett, the director of operations for The PACT Urban Peace Program in Toronto about garden-based experiential learning for at-risk you and about a Community Compost Exchange Program.
Garden-Based Experiential Learning
Through its Grow to Learn partnership with the Toronto District School Board, PACT provides experiential garden-based learning at three gardens and one orchard located on school properties.
The gardens are used to teach subjects as diverse as English as a second language to carbon sequestration. Lockett says that the vermicomposting program is especially popular.
Community Compost Exchange Program
The community compost exchange program provides participants with bags in which they can contribute home kitchen waste for composting. In exchange, they are given “PACT dollars” that can be used to purchase fresh produce at the PACT produce market.
Connect with PACT
Website: pactprogram.ca
Instagram: pact_growtolearn
Connect with the Food Garden Life Show on Social Media
REWIND: Growing Giant Pumpkins and Giant Tomatoes
Phil and Jane Hunt
In this interview that first broadcast live on the radio show in 2018, we chat with Phil Hunt from the Giant Vegetable Growers of Ontario (GVGO) about growing giant pumpkins and giant tomatoes.
Hunt and his wife, Jane, grow giant vegetables near Lindsay, Ontario.
We first spoke with them when they shared giant-pumpkin-growing tips for our book Gardening with Emma. After seeing them on the news in 2018—for growing a record-breaking giant pumpkin—we invited them onto the show to share tips.
After showing their giant pumpkins at competitions, they collect seeds from them, and then put them on display on their front lawn when neighbours can see them. Hunt says they carve the pumpkins for Halloween—and there are local children who have come years after year to see their carved giant pumpkins.
Grow Giant Pumpkins and Tomatoes
Hunt says that the first thing to think about is getting the right seeds. He recommends joining a club.
The Hunts’ pumpkin plants start off outdoors in tunnels, with ground heated by heating cables.
In the heat of summer, plants can require 75-100 gallons of water per day!
They hand-pollinate the flowers, covering flowers to prevent insects from pollinating.
“Every pumpkin we do is hand pollinated.”
Phil Hunt’s Top 2 Tips for New Giant Vegetable Growers
Get seeds with good genetics
Speak with giant vegetable growers who can give you guidance
“There’s no stupid questions.”
Connect with GVGO
Website: gvgo.ca
Facebook: GVGO-140780926101331
Twitter: gvgogrowers
Connect with The Food Garden Life Show on Social Media
A Community Pulls Together to Save a Garden
Nathan Larson, Director, Cultivate Health Initiative
We chat with Nathan Larson, Director of the Cultivate Health Initiative in Madison, Wisconsin.
A Community Space
When we visited Madison in summer 2019 to attend the National Children and Youth Gardening Symposium, Larson gave us a tour of a wonderful community garden—the Troy Community Garden.
There are currently about 100 families growing food there…although at one point it looked as if the land on which the garden stands would be sold off for a housing development.
“It was a much-loved open space.”
Larson talks about how people and groups pulled together to find a way to save the space.
“It’s one of those inspirational stories of a group of neighbours that got together.”
The plot of land was reimagined to include:
community garden plots
an urban farm with a CSA
a kids garden
some housing
a tall-grass prairie restoration project
a food forest
Garden-Based Learning for Children
When we visited the Troy Community Garden, we were struck by signs for a “worm city” and the “mud pie kitchen.” Larson is passionate about garden-based education.
The garden now includes a pizza oven that is used for weekly nights, along with music.
He is the author of Teaching in Nature's Classroom: Principles of Garden-Based Education and serves on the advisory council for the School Garden Support Organization Network, along with the Wellness Advisory Council for the local school district.
Cultivate Health Initiative
The Cultivate Health Initiative is a joint public-health project of Rooted and the Environmental Design Lab at UW-Madison to grow and sustain the school garden network and movement in Wisconsin.
Resources
Larson recommends the following school and youth-gardening resources during the COVID-19 pandemic:
Connect with Nathan Larson and the Wisconsin School Garden Network
Website: wischoolgardens.org
Connect with the Food Garden Life Show on Social Media
Teaching Life Skills in a Garden Classroom
School Garden Educator Shannon Stewart
A Seedling
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 often turns to others for inspiration and ideas.
It Started with a School Garden
She explains that her involvement in school gardens started when the principal at her son’s school approached her about helping to start a school garden.
That project opened the door to a big life change: She took the leap from working as an exotic animal trainer to becoming a school garden educator.
Stewart says that while it’s a big change, both roles involve understanding and caring for living things.
Life Skills
The garden classroom presents an opportunity to teach more than just how to grow plants. Stewart uses it to teach:
health and nutrition
science
critical thinking
teamwork
and even public speaking
“That is the most powerful part of garden education, is giving kids that authoritative power to make decisions on their own.”
Keep it Moving
Stewart talks about engaging students with a pollination-sequence play, enacted to the music Flight of the Bumblebee.
“I’m all about getting the kids moving outside because they do not need to sit there and listen to me talk for 30 minutes.”
Using Stories of Animals While Teaching in the Garden
Stewart says that students love it when she includes animal stories in the lessons.
For example, when teaching about Japanese beetles (and the Japanese beetle grubs that eat plant roots) she shares the story of how a dolphin she was training was fascinated by the colourful beetles that she showed it—and how the curious dolphin then ate a beetle!
Connect with Shannon Stewart
LinkedIn: shannonstewartsandiego
Instagram: shannonstewartauthor
Connect with The Food Garden Life Show on Social Media
Gardens and Healing
Stephanie Rose, author of Garden Alchemy and writer and blogger at GardenTherapy.ca.
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.
“This is where I’m going to recover. I’m going to rehabilitate myself using the garden.”
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.
Using Gardens to Heal
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.
Garden blogger Stephanie Rose’s latest book, Garden Alchemy.
Garden Alchemy
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.
In the book she demystifies ingredients used to create soil and plant “elixirs.” There are recipes for homemade fertilizers, steps for building a compost pile, soil tests, and techniques for making foliar sprays.
“It’s a recipe book for your garden.”
Connect with Stephanie Rose
Website: gardentherapy.ca
Facebook: GardenTherapy
Twitter: garden_therapy
Instagram: garden_therapy
Pinterest: garden_therapy
Garden Financial Literacy, Rooftop Edible Gardens, Tomatoes with Stories
Gardening and Financial Literacy
Our first guest is Ciara Byrne from Nevada. She tells us how the organization Green Our Planet 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.
Ever thought that financial literary could be taught alongside gardening? Green Our Planet uses markets as an opportunity to teach more than gardening: they are an opportunity to discuss customer service, negotiating skills, and marketing.
Ciara is a documentary film maker who, in 2013, found herself working in Nevada. Green Our Planet was set up to use filmmaking as a crowdfunding platform for green projects. When Green our Planet successful funded a school garden project, Ciara saw the opportunity to help many more schools.
Green Our Planet has helped develop Nevada’s first STEM garden curriculum for schools (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Green Our Planet is now growing gardeners and entrepreneurs beyond Nevada. Ciara’s work was recently honoured by the Obama foundation.
“Making school fun is critical.”
Rooftop Food Gardens
In the second half of the show, we chat with Hilary Dahl from the Seattle Urban Farm Company. She combines a background in landscape architecture and urban planning with her passion for creating edible gardens.
Hilary has recently been involved in some inspiring rooftop garden projects in the Seattle area. One of these is the Amazon campus, where a collaboration with a not-for-profit organization means that food harvested from the rooftop garden is used for culinary training for community members.
Hilary explains that 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.
Hilary shares another interest with us: broadcasting. She hosts a fantastic podcast about edible gardening called Encylopedia Botanica.
“Every design I did had some sort of food element.”
Visit the Seattle Urban Farm Company website for more information.
Tomato Talk Segment
In the Tomato-Talk segment, Emma chats with Colette Murphy from Urban Harvest seeds about tomato varieties with a story.
Visit the Urban Harvest website for more information.