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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

Find out more about The Canada Gardener’s Journal.

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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.) 

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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.

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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

SPRING Finale: How to Grow a Climate-Change Veggie Garden

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. 

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Need Space? Harvest More from the Same Plot with Vertical Gardening

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)

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

How to Feed Soil and Plants with Worm Compost (Vermicompost)

Worm Castings

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)

Edible Garden Question and Answer (and what to do about Bolting Lettuce)

Bolting Lettuce, Artichoke, Squirrels, and More!

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

Here’s an article about artichokes: Find out How to Grow Artichoke in Northern Climates

Equipment for Healthy Soil, Less Toil, Minimal Till (and no more Rototiller!)

2-Wheel Tractor

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’s books are:

• The Permaculture Market Garden

• The Edible Ecosystem Solution

• The Two-wheel Tractor Handbook.

Kitchen Scrap Gardening: From Avacado to Ginger to Citrus

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.

Em Shipman, Executive Director of Kids Gardening.

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

More Kids Gardening Ideas

We have lots of fun kids gardening ideas for you.

Check out our kids gardening section, with plans for a bug vacuum, and Emma’s videos about how to grow crops for kids.

Afraid of Late Spring Frost? Low-Tech Mini-Tunnels are a Simple Solution

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

How to Homestead and Live Sustainably in Your Community: Small-Scale Homesteading

Small-Scale Homesteading

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

Stephanie’s Rhubarb Shrub

Stephanie talked about her rhubarb shrub in this episode, and said she’d share the recipe. Here it is!

Yield: 2-3 cups finished shrub

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups rhubarb, chopped (fresh or frozen) – discard green leaves, as they are poisonous.

• 1.5 cups white granulated sugar

• Days later: 1.5 cups organic apple cider vinegar (or other drinking vinegar of choice).

Directions

Scrub rhubarb clean, chop and combine with sugar in a clean pint canning jar. Shake jar to mix sugar and rhubarb well. Wipe the rim of the jar with a clean dampened towel and apply the canning jar lid and tightly screw on the ring. Store the jar at room temperature, out of direct sunlight and allow the mixture to macerate over a couple days, until a thick syrup is made. A few times per day, vigorously shake the mixture to speed up the process (or you can use a clean spoon to stir well).

After 2-3 days, once the sugar has dissolved and a syrup is made, use a fine mesh strainer to strain out the solids, reserving the syrup in a measuring cup. Use the back of a spoon to push out any excess syrup. Once strained, measure the amount of syrup that was collected and add that same amount of vinegar to the syrup (it will be 1-1.5 cups of vinegar), stir well to mix. Store in a clean airtight jar and refrigerate. Enjoy within a few months for best flavor.

To serve

Mix about a shot of the shrub mixture with water, or carbonated water. Serve over ice. Shrubs also make delicious and unique cocktail mixers.

Side notes

You can also use brown sugar, coconut sugar, maple syrup or other sugar alternative in place of white granulated sugar.

This method of shrub making can be applied to any fruits and herb combinations. Strawberry shrub is my all-time favorite.

Don’t toss the strained-out fruit solids! They are delicious mixed into plain yogurt or oatmeal or blended into a smoothie.

This recipe was adapted from WECK Small-Batch Preserving (2018) with permission from Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

Michelle Bruhn and Stephanie Thurow

Michelle Bruhn

Stephanie Thurow

Big Harvests from a Small Space with a Vertical Vegetable Garden

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.

Donna Balzer

Dave Hanson

Edible Garden Artistry with Potager Gardens + School Gardens that Survive Summer

Potager Gardens bring Together Elegant & Edible

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, colour, and texture

• How to design your own potager-style garden

Linda's new book is The Elegant & Edible Garden.

School Gardens That Thrive over Summer

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

Sunday Harrison from Green Thumbs Growing Kids.

Want More on Landscape Design with Edibles?

Here’s an article to get you started with edible perennials, a great way to start your ornamental edible garden.

Here are a couple of interviews to give you ideas for landscape design using edible plants.

It's Rhubarb...but It's not Rhubarb

Forced Winter Rhubarb

Forced rhubarb is a winter specialty that's quite different from rhubarb grown outdoors: It's milder, more tender, and brightly coloured. 

Brian French and his wife Jeannette run Lennox Farm in Dufferin County, in Ontario. Along with field-grown rhubarb, they force rhubarb indoors during the winter. 

Brian French explains how to force rhubarb:

The French family at Lennox Farm. Brian French at right.

• 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!)

Pictures of Rhubarb Forcing

Connect

• website: lennoxfarm.ca

Want More on Rhubarb?