Teachings to Guide Gardeners
Isaac Crosby talks about how he uses the 7 grandfather teachings to guide his gardening.
Isaac Crosby, Urban Agriculture Lead at Evergreen Brickworks
Today on the podcast we hang out here in Toronto to speak with Isaac Crosby. Isaac is the Urban Agriculture Lead at Toronto’s Evergreen Brickworks.
During our chat, Isaac told us that, “Part of wisdom is not keeping it to yourself.”
He shares with us wisdom that has come to him through Ojibwa teachings. Isaac is from the Ojibwa of Anderdon, a small farming community In south-western Ontario. He takes the seven grandfather teachings and explains how we can interpret them when gardening.
His advice for new gardeners? “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, because that’s where you learn.”
The 7 Grandfather Teachings
The 7 Grandfather teachings are about:
Humility
Honesty
Respect
Bravery/Courage
Love
Truth
Wisdom
Make a Potager Garden
Landscape architect Jennifer Bartley talks about how to make a potager
Landscape architect and author Jennifer Bartley talks about how to make a potager garden.
Today on the podcast we head to Ohio to find out more about potager gardens. Jennifer Bartley tells us about this traditional kitchen garden style from France, and how to create the same sort of food-producing garden with seasonality and a sense of intimacy at home.
Bartley writes, “The potager is more than a kitchen garden; it is a philosophy of living that is dependent on the seasons and the immediacy of the garden.”
Bartley is a landscape architect, whose firm, American Potager, designs gardens inspired by the grand French kitchens.
She is also the author of The Kitchen Gardener’s Handbook and Designing the New Kitchen Garden: An American Potager Handbook.
About Potagers
“Jardin potager” is French for kitchen garden. The traditional potager garden is a seasonal kitchen garden with vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers for cutting. Meals change as crops in the garden change with the seasons.
Bartley explains that there is a long tradition of this style of gardening in France. Potager gardens combine beauty and accessibility, and are often enclosed within walls in view of the residence.
The garden can be a place of restoration and refuge, says Bartley. It can be a destination—somewhere close to the kitchen that feels like it’s own spacial place.
She says that where she grew up, in Ohio, the tradition is to make gardens with rows, not unlike the surrounding agricultural fields. These gardens are often situated in a rarely seen part of a yard. “If you put it in a remote part of your landscape, you don’t go there, you don’t see it, and you don’t maintain it,” says Bartley.
Tips to Make a Potager
Borrow part of an existing wall to help create the sense of enclosure, e.g. part of a building, the back of a garage, or even a hedge
Think of sunlight for sun-loving crops
The potager can be a “tasting garden” with a progression of different crops being ready as the season moves along
Make it in a place you pass by daily
Choose bed dimensions for ease or reaching, e.g. 4 feet wide
Make pathways wide enough for a wheelbarrow, e.g. 3 feet wide
Bartley says that Chateau Villandry in France has gardens that inspire her.
Civil Disobedience with Vegetables
Les Urbainculteurs in Quebec City grow change and food through gardens.
Marie-Hélène Jacques from Les Urbainculteurs joins us to talk about moving the needle on growing food in Quebec City
Today on the podcast we head to Quebec City to talk about civil disobedience: Civil disobedience with vegetables.
Marie-Hélène Jacques from the not-for-profit organization Les Urbainculteurs – which translates into urban growers – joins us to talk about moving the needle on growing food in Quebec City.
The urban agriculture scene in Quebec City is hot right now. Jacques says, “It’s not like a wave of interest that’s happening now in gardening — it’s a tsunami of interest.”
Civil Disobedience with Vegetables
Jacques says that it was only in 2019 that growing vegetables in front yards became legal in Quebec City.
Back in 2013, when I was on a garden writer’s tour of Quebec City, we visited an installation of vegetables growing right in front of the National Assembly building in the centre of the city.
Jacques explains that Les Urbainculteurs was able to get around the rules and grow vegetables in front of the building because of a technicality … the official address of the building is on another street.
She says this project got a lot of notice, adding, “It was a game-changing moment for urban agriculture in Quebec City.”
A Rooftop Garden
Jacques talks about the former Lauberivière garden, which was on the roof of a soup kitchen in the city core.
This diverse garden of vegetables and small fruit consisted entirely of fabric pots. The harvest went to the soup kitchen below…about 1 metric tonne of it a year.
Jacques says that one of the magical aspects of the Lauberivière garden was the way it brought together people who might otherwise have never met or spoken: She recalls seeing teenagers learning French speaking to stroke victims and to people doing community work.
The closing of the rooftop garden in 2016 left a big hole in the organization. “It was one of our most meaningful projects,” says Jacques.
An Urban Farm in the Port
The challenge was to find a new location that was centrally located, accessible by bike, transit, and walking. Jacques says they waited for a suitable site—even turning down some possible sites.
When a space in the port area of the city became available, they felt they had the right location. There had formerly been a farmer’s market on the site, and the community sorely missed having a focal point.
The new bio-intensive urban garden, started in 2020, consists of a series of long beds on concrete. “It’s really like a small farm,” she says.
Jacques says this new garden, Louise Basin Gardens, is an intersecting point of food security, community, education, and growing.
Making Home and Corporate Vegetable Gardens
Urban Seedling in Montreal installs home and corporate vegetable gardens.
Shawn Manning from Urban Seedling talks about helping people grow vegetable gardens and using corporate gardens to foster food security.
Today on the podcast we head to Montreal to hang out with Shawn Manning from Urban Seedling. He tells us how, 10 years ago, he channelled his love of growing vegetables into a business specialized in creating vegetable gardens.
Along with helping people create and grow vegetable gardens, another goal was to improve food security in the city. He realized that installing gardens for people who can afford a gardener probably doesn’t move the needle much on food security…but he’s tweaked the business to include corporate gardens—and use that as a way to improve food security in Montreal.
The Business of Vegetable Gardens
The business has evolved to include home vegetable-garden installation, planting, a garden centre, seedling sales, and corporate gardens.
Manning says that when he started, he created, planted, and cared for home vegetable gardens. But he found that some people are not interested in gardening—they only want fresh produce. “They didn’t really care about the vegetable garden, they just wanted the vegetables,” he explains.
He decided this wasn’t what he wanted. He tells people who are not interested in gardening that it’s best to order a produce basket from a farm of a CSA. “What I want is people that will actually appreciate their garden,” he says.
As well as focusing on clients who want to garden, he now teaches clients how to care for the garden. Initially, he cared for gardens through the season. But he grew to believe that clients would have the best results if they checked their gardens daily. As a result, he stopped offering maintenance service.
Customers also receive videos and a newsletter with guidance about how to care for the garden.
Corporate Gardens
Last year he was involved in 45 corporate gardens. Manning says that food security has always been a central tenet of the business, but corporate gardens have proven the best way to contribute to food security in the Montreal.
There are a couple of different corporate-garden models. In one model, Urban Seedling installs the garden and helps to get it going—and then employees or volunteers tend the garden and donate the harvest to food banks. “It’s definitely a really, really well received concept,” he says.
In another model, the garden is for employees. “It gives them another reason to want to go to work,” he says.
Step-by-Step Vegetable Gardening
Joseph Tychonievich shares his top tips for new vegetable gardeners.
Garden expert Joseph Tychonievich talks about vegetable gardening, and about his new book,
In a broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with author, horticulturist, and plant breeder Joseph Tychonievich.
Tychonievich shares his top tips for new vegetable gardeners.
As an avid food gardener, he grows many different food crops. But every so often he focuses on a particular crop and grows as many varieties as he can. He recently emerged from a cucumber phase…and as a teenager, he went through a pineapple phase.
He gardens in his own yard, a neighbour’s yard, and even inside in a closet.
Tychonievich’s new book is The Comic Book Guide to Growing Food: Step by Step Vegetable Gardening for Everyone.
The Comic Book Guide to Growing Food, by Joseph Tychonievich.
Vegetable Gardening Tips
What to Grow
Tychonievich points out that a common recommendation for new gardeners is to grow radishes, because they are easy to grow. He hasn’t met a lot of people who love radishes, so he takes a different approach: Start with what you like to eat.
Garden Size
Start small. If you can handle it, do more next year; and if you don’t, do less.
Making Garden Beds
He suggests new gardeners start with raised beds because by starting with new, weed-free soil, there are fewer weeds.
Buying Plants
Tychonievich is a fan of independent garden centres with knowledgeable staff who can help new gardeners.
Crater Garden, Regenerative Farm and Family
This permaculture operation has neat features including a crater garden, food hedge, and chinampas.
Tim Southwell of ABC Acres in Montanna talks about a regenerative approach to farming, family, community—and about his crater garden.
“Our chickens know no boundaries.”
We head to Montana to chat with Tim Southwell of ABC Acres, the permaculture homestead he and his his wife Sarah created.
Southwell, who grew up in suburban Houston, explains that it was while living in Kansas City and growing a front-yard vegetable garden that he was introduced to permaculture and many of the concepts that he uses today on the farm.
In addition to livestock, they have a crater garden, a food hedge, chinampas, and a sunken greenhouse with citrus, bananas, figs, and papaya.
The unique microclimate created by the crater garden permits them to grow apples, peaches, plums, nectarines, and apricots in their harsh climate. He explains, “Every fruit tree we have, we build with it a microclimate.”
Crater Garden
Southwell says that the microclimate in the crater garden—a below-grade garden—is created by a number of things that work together:
The winter sun warms the south-facing slope of the garden.
Runoff from rain collects at the bottom of the garden, creating a pond—and the water in the pond collects heat that is then radiated at night.
The water reflects light onto plants in the surrounding crater garden.
Because the garden is below grade, cold winds pass over top of it.
While frost normally settles into low areas, it does not settle into the crater garden because the thermal mass of the water creates convection, so the air keeps moving.
Large rocks are partially submerged in the pond to act as “battery chargers” in the pond, adding to the thermal mass.
Food Hedge
The food hedge, which Southwell calls the “fedge,” provides privacy, blocks wind, attracts birds, and keeps livestock where they are supposed to be. Food plants in the fedge include:
brambles
sand cherry
serviceberry
goji
aronia
josta
honeyberry
“My children will be outside grazing the food hedge.”
Chinampas
Southwell explains that he was inspired by systems used by Aztec famers to create “chinampas” on a boggy section of flood plain.
He placed cottonwood logs on the low-lying ground, and then capped them with old hay and leaves, which decompose to create a rich soil. Over time, the decaying, spongy cottonwood logs help to wick moisture upwards.
He says that in this sort of situation it’s important to grow plants that don’t mind moisture. Raspberries grow well for them.
Agritourism
Agritourism become an income generator on the farm in 2017. Southwell noticed a big appetite for opportunities to connect with farms, food production, and nature.
But he felt that farms, and the stories behind them, were poorly represented online. He and Sarah created the online platform yonder.com as a way for to connect people with nature.
No-Dig Gardening
No-dig gardening is good for the soil and for the environment. It’s also good for gardeners—who have less digging to do!
Garden expert Charlie Nardozzi talks about no-dig gardening
In a broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with Vermont garden educator and radio host Charlie Nardozzi.
Nardozzi discusses his journey into no-dig gardening—and why it’s good for gardeners, the soil, and the environment.
He also tells us about his new book, The Complete Guide to No-Dig Gardening.
Nardozzi hasn’t always been a no-dig gardener. He used to garden with a gas-guzzling tiller. He shares ideas for gardeners who want to create a new no-till garden, as well as ideas about how gardeners with existing beds can transition them into a no-till system.
No-Dig Gardening by Charlie Nardozzi
Benefits of No-Dig Gardening
Nardozzi says that a key benefit of no-dig gardening is getting more from the same amount of space. Then there’s the work: Once a no-dig bed is established, it requires less heavy digging by the gardener.
There are also other reasons to consider a no-dig approach:
Weed seeds remain buried where they cannot germinate
Carbon remains locked up in the soil
Healthy soil microbe communities feed plants by breaking down organic matter and releasing nutrients
Emma’s Tomato-Talk Segment
In Emma’s Tomato segment, we explore the topic of “keeper” tomatoes. We got quite a reaction on social media a short while back when we posted pictures of bruschetta made from tomatoes we harvested in October. We still have some of those tomatoes in our storage room—and it’s February. They’re not canned, not frozen…they’re keeper tomatoes that store very well.
Biggs-on-Figs Segment
In the Biggs-on-Figs segment, we head to New York State to chat with permaculture teacher and grower Jonathan Bates at Food Forest Farm. He grows figs in a in an old sheep barn that he calls his “figgery”—and uses a “figloo” within it.
Fig plants are trained as “stepover” figs, horizontal cordons low to the ground. After harvest, Bates prunes vertical branches back to the main horizontal trunk, then he makes a figloo over top for winter.
Bates also discusses varieties suited to his climate and growing method. Florea and St. Rita do very well for him.
Breeding Tomatoes for the "Holy Grail"
With a reputation for unusual and wildly popular tomato varieties, tomato breeder Brad Gates focuses above all else on flavour.
Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms on breeding tomatoes.
“I was looking for the holy grail that would have my customers come crawling back on their hands and knees.”
With a reputation for unusual and wildly popular tomato varieties, tomato breeder Brad Gates focuses above all else on flavour.
He didn’t start out working in tomato breeding. While working in the landscape industry, he was asked by a friend to help sell heirloom tomatoes at a farmers market. Gates loved the energy at the market—and he was fascinated with the unusual heirloom tomatoes.
So he started growing, and, eventually, breeding tomatoes.
Tomato Breeding
Gates says that flavour is always his top goal. Other important traits include:
pest and disease resistance
yield
shelf life
Tomato Flavour
Gates says, “Tomatoes have the potential of so many flavour aspects.” These include:
umami
richness
tartness
sweetness
He says that in general, he finds store-bought tomatoes are “one-dimensional.”
Looking Ahead
Heat and cool tolerance are traits that he has found in some of his varieties. For example,
Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye does well in cooler climates such as San Francisco, which is cool and foggy.
Lucid Gem has proven to be very tolerant of hot weather. In heat waves, when other varieties do poorly, Lucid Gem stands up well.
Gates says that he is currently working on small, two-foot-high tomato varieties that produce gourmet tomatoes.
Why small? Gates says, “Why grow one or two varieties when you can grow 10 or 15?”
More on Tomatoes
Harvest More With Garden Bed Covers
Find out how to use garden bed covers to harvest more and deter pests: row covers, cloches, cold frames, greenhouses.
Niki Jabbour, author of Growing Under Cover: Techniques for a More Productive, Weather-Resistant, Pest-Free Vegetable Garden, talks about using garden bed covers.
In a broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with vegetable gardening expert Niki Jabbour about using garden bed covers. She is the author of the new book, Growing Under Cover: Techniques for a More Productive, Weather-Resistant, Pest-Free Vegetable Garden.
Jabbour is a Halifax-based, award-winning author, host of The Weekend Gardener radio show, and one of the experts behind the gardening website Savvygardening.com.
She discusses the benefits of using garden bed covers, choosing covers suited to your situation, how to boost insulation of cold frames, tips for people thinking of a greenhouse, and greenhouse covering materials.
Why use Garden Bed Covers
Jabbour says that there are many reasons to use garden bed covers. “It’s about gardening smarter, not harder,” she says.
Reasons to use garden bed covers include:
Larger harvests
Better ability to control the growing environment
Year-round harvests
Including more “hyper-local” food on the menu
Reduced pest pressure
Creating conditions suited to exotic crops
Growing Under Cover, by Niki Jabbour
6 Ways to Boost Insulation of Cold Frames
In Growing Under Cover, she talks about six ways to boost the insulation of cold frames.
Line with foam
Add thermal collectors such as water-filled bottles
Surround with straw or boughs
Bury the cold frame in soil or mulch
Seal the cold frame with weatherstripping
Cover it on cold nights with carpet, old blankets, or some sort of insulating material
Types of Garden Bed Covers
Jabbour points out that not everyone has the space or money for a glass greenhouse. But there are many other options to provide cover for crops. These include:
Row covers
Cloches
Cold frames
Plastic-covered greenhouses
Mini hoop tunnels
Emma’s Tomato-Talk Segment
DO YOU EVER FEEL overwhelmed when trying to choose tomato varieties for your garden? In Emma’s tomato segment, she talks about choosing tomato varieties suited to your garden. She talks about:
Thinking about your own preferences
Days to maturity
Plant size
Disease resistance
Shipping costs
Biggs-on-Figs Segment
Melinda Myers talks about growing figs and artichokes in Wisconsin.
In the Biggs-on-Figs segment, we head to Wisconsin to chat with gardening expert Melinda Myers, who grows figs and artichokes in her USDA zone 4b garden.
A fig grower for over a decade, Myers says she also likes to include figs in her presentations because it gets people’s attention. “It always gets a second glace from anybody in the North or Midwest,” she says.
Find Myers online at melindamyers.com, where she is currently offering a number of free webinars.
Cultivate a Taste for Bitter Foods...and Cardoon Plants
Toronto chef and author Jennifer McLagan talks about how to cook bitter foods such as cardoon plants. Photo by Shane Reid.
Chef and author Jennifer McLagan joins us to talk about bitter foods, explaining what bitterness is, and how to effectively use bitter in the kitchen.
McLagan is the author of the book, Bitter: A Taste of the World’s most Dangerous Flavor, with Recipes.
The Loss of Bitter
McLagan recalls the grapefruit that her mother served her as a child. They had a slight bitterness—an “edge.” Her mother balanced that bitterness with a sprinkle of sugar on top.
McLagan says bitterness has been bred out of modern grapefruit. Now they’re sweet and pink…with no bitterness.
That loss inspired her book. “They don’t taste like grapefruit any more,” she says.
What is Bitter?
McLagan says that many people confuse bitter with sour. It is different from sour—one of the four basic tastes, along with sour, sweet, and salty.
“It adds a complexity and depth to the food,” says McLagan, explaining that using bitterness—like salt—makes food more interesting and less flat.
Cardoon plants are one of the bitter foods in Jennifer McLagan’s book, Bitter
She gives the example of crème brulée: The caramel topping has a bitter edge, which plays well with the sweet, rich pudding below.
Cooking with Bitter Foods
McLagan says that bitter is not as popular in North American cuisine as it is in other parts of the world. “The American palate is very geared towards sweet,” she explains.
Bitter pairs well with fat and with sweetness. “Bitter and fat are the two perfect things; one rounds out the other,” she says.
Here are ideas for using bitter in the kitchen:
McLagan talks about making turnip ice cream. She also suggests caramelizing turnips, which go well with baked apple or apple pie.
McLagan suggests cooking Belgian endive in butter (because fat and bitterness work well together) and then using that juice to make béchamel sauce, with added emmenthal cheese, to serve over top of the Belgian endives.
She has surprises in her book! There is a pannacotta with tobacco. McLagan says that small pieces of cigar give it a complex taste. A pannacotta is rich and creamy, and the bitterness from the tobacco comes through very gently at the back of the throat, making it a much more complex dish.
How to Cook Cardoon
For those who have never seen cardoon, McLagan describes it as “celery on steroids.” It has big, wide ribs. And it’s in the cover photo of her book.
The part of the plant that is eaten is the leaf rib. The rest of the leaf is discarded.
She describes it as having an artichoke-and-mushroom flavour—one that will seduce you once you appreciate the bitterness.
Here are McLagan’s tips for preparing and cooking cardoon:
Cut the cardoon stalks from the base.
Remove the spikes along the edge of the rib using a knife.
Next, remove the strings from the stalk (it’s like pulling the strings from a celery stalk).
McLagan finds a sharp knife works better than a vegetable peeler because there are a lot of strings and a peeler plugs up.
Once the stalks are prepared and you begin to chop them, you might find additional strings. If so, remove them.
Once chopped, place them immediately into water with lemon juice to prevent them from browning.
Cook in salted water until tender (the salt is important because salt helps pull out bitterness).
Drain.
Remove any remaining strings.
She says a great way to serve cardoon is with a cheese sauce. “When you put cheese on something, people love it,” she says.
MgLagan notes that the inner stalks are milder, with a better texture. They are less stringy, with a delicate silver-green colour and feathery leaves. She advises using stringy outside stalks for soup; and the more tender inside ones for a gratin or salad.
Here are the cardoon recipes she includes in the book:
Cardoon gratin
Cardoon soup
Warm cardoon and potato salad
Cardoon beef tagine
Cardoon cheese
Cardoon and bitter-leaf salad
Cardoon with braised bitter greens,
My daughter Emma with a cardoon flower. The plants have great ornamental value too.
Bitter in the Garden
One of the challenges—and delights—of growing new food crops in the garden is figuring out how to use them in the kitchen. Looking to add bitter to your garden? Here are ideas:
Arugula
Belgian endive
Cardoon
Citrus rind
Olives
Radicchio
Turnip
Tasty Tomatoes for Small Spaces: The Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project
Craig LeHoullier, author of the book Epic Tomatoes and one of the founders of the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project
We’re joined by tomato expert Craig LeHoullier to talk about the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project, preserving seed varieties, and to find out what’s new in his garden.
LeHoullier, an avid seed saver with a passion for saving and sharing heirloom tomato varieties, says that his seed collection contains somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 seed packets.
Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project
The project began in 2004. LeHoullier was getting a lot of questions about compact varieties at his annual tomato-plant sale.
He explains that dwarf tomato varieties, which grow vertically at approximately half the rate of other indeterminate tomato varieties, already existed at the time. But these dwarf varieties were obscure and hard to find.
He teamed up with a friend in Australia to start breeding new dwarf tomato varieties. That initiative soon grew into an open source, volunteer-run, worldwide breeding project. The goal was to breed stable, open-pollinated, dwarf tomato varieties from which gardeners could save their own seed.
The project began releasing dwarf tomato varieties to seed companies in 2010.
By 2020, 135 varieties had been released. And the project continues!
More on Tomatoes
Plant Partners: Science-Based Companion Planting
Jessica Walliser, author of Plant Partners: Science-Based Companion Planting Strategies for the Vegetable Garden
We’re joined by Pittsburgh-based horticulturist and author Jessica Walliser to talk about her new book Plant Partners: Science-Based Companion Planting Strategies for the Vegetable Garden.
There is a lot of folklore that finds its way into discussions about companion planting. Walliser explains that her hope is to reboot the term “companion planting” by looking at it through a scientific lens.
What is Companion Planting?
Walliser says that companion planting is purposely planting two or more plants close together to get some sort of benefit.
Companion planting does not have to mean putting two plants together at the same time, however; it can also mean growing plants in succession.
Common terms used in science that overlap with the idea of companion planting are:
Intercropping
Plant partners
Interplanting
Polyculture
Benefits of Plant Partners
In her book, Walliser has chapters on seven different benefits of using plant partners in the vegetable garden.
Soil preparation and conditioning
Weed management
Support and structure
Pest management
Disease management
Biological Control
Pollination
An example of pest management is using “trap crops” to lure pests away from other crops. Squash bugs prefer blue hubbard squash to other squash varieties—meaning it can be used as a “trap crop.”
A plant partnership that helps to control aphid problems on lettuce is to grow sweet alyssum as a partner. The alyssum flowers are a favourite of both predatory and parasitic insects that help to control aphids.
For weed management, there are cover crops that suppress growth of weed seeds the following season. Those same cover crops also build soil structure as they decompose.
Living trellises are functional and can be aesthetically pleasing. A good example is using corn with beans.
Ever Heard of “Biodrilling”
An example of a plant partnership to help prepare the soil is the use of deep-rooted forage radishes as “biodrills” on heavy clay soil.
These plants have long tap roots that penetrate heavy soil. The roots are left in the soil to decompose instead of harvesting them. Walliser explains that it’s like using a living drill instead of tilling the soil!
From Market Farming to Italian Seeds
Will Nagengast and Lynn Byczynski, talk about their family business Seeds from Italy, food, and market farming
We head to Kansas to speak with Lynn Byczynski and Will Nagengast about market farming, cut flowers, farm journalism, Italian culinary traditions, and seeds. Their family business is Seeds from Italy.
Byczynski founded Growing for Market, a magazine for market farmers. She is the author of Market Farming Success, The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers, The Hoophouse Handbook.
The Journey into the Seed Business
Byczynski says that when the farm wasn’t enough to support the family, she branched out into producing Growing for Market using her background in journalism and newspaper reporting.
She found that the writing and farming fed off of each other: While interviewing people for articles, she heard ideas that they could try on their farm; and things they were doing on their own farm could be shared with other farmers in Growing for Market.
Seeds from Italy
She says the hair on the back of her neck stood up when an advertiser for her Growing for Market newsletter told her that the sale of his Italian seed distribution business had fallen through. “I could just feel this was the next thing we were going to do,” she says.
The first thing that the family did after taking over Seeds from Italy was to take a trip to Italy to meet the owners of Franchi Seeds, the company whose seed they would be distributing in the United States.
Nagengast and Byczynski say that once home, they immersed themselves in the varieties they were selling by having weekly Italian-themed meals cooked with the Italian varieties they distribute.
Italian Seeds in North America
Italy has a varied climate, with many regional vegetable varieties. They list 23 varieties of zucchini! Most of these different varieties, they explain, are regional varieties.
For North American gardeners thinking about what Italian varieties are best suited to their gardens, they recommend looking to areas of Italy with a similar latitude.
Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project
Joseph Lofthouse
We speak with farmer and plant breeder Joseph Lofthouse in northern Utah about breeding tomatoes, and his work with The Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project.
Lofthouse focuses on breeding landrace crop varieties that are are locally adapted and genetically diverse.
Living in a mountain valley with cold nights and only gets 100 frost-free days, his work breeding tomatoes started out with the simple goal of breeding varieties suited to his growing conditions. “If I wanted to grow tomatoes, I basically had to breed my own tomatoes,” he explains.
He has found much more than cold tolerance.
The Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project
Lofthouse explains that when tomatoes were domesticated, most of the genetic diversity was lost. So his breeding work has focused on reintroducing wild tomato genetics, with the hope of finding desirable traits not found in domesticated tomatoes.
Along with cold tolerance, the his tomato breeding has produced tomatoes with novel flavours. He says that tropical flavours such as citrus, guava, and mango are appearing. So, too, are other flavours, including smokiness and umami. One chef described the taste of one of the tomatoes as resembling sea-urchin.
While domesticated tomatoes mainly self-pollinate, wild tomatoes, he explains outcross. They readily cross with each other. Hence the use of the word promiscuous in the project name.
Other traits he has encountered in the trials include:
Shrubby growth — something he thinks could offer interesting harvest opportunities
Dense foliage, which could be useful in shading the ground below to minimize week competition
Sprawling growth like a squash plant
More on Tomatoes
Growing Perennial Vegetables
Ben Caesar from Fiddlehead Nursery
We chat with Ben Caesar about perennial vegetables and salad greens. Caesar, who runs Fiddlehead Nursery, specializes in perennial edibles.
He says that in Western cultures, annual vegetable crops are the norm. But with a shift in thinking, it’s easy to incorporate perennial vegetables into the diet.
That shift to perennial vegetables is good because not only can they be easier for gardeners to manage—they require less soil tilling, which means less release of carbon that’s locked up in the soil.
Top Perennial Edibles from Caesar’s Garden in 2020
Seedless sorrel is his all-time favourite this year, a very productive green that he recommends as a “bombproof groundcover”
Caucasian spinach is a little-known vine with excellent ornamental properties
Cutleaf coneflower is a native perennial that produces edible greens in the spring, and 6’ tall flowers in summer
Oxeye daisy, a common roadside weed in Ontario, is a European perennial that has naturalized, with leaves that he says are delicious
Patience dock has leaves that can grow up to 2’ long, but he says to use them when about 1’ long, fresh, cooked—or as a wrap as is often done with grape leaves
Garlic chives are often grown as ornamentals…and he suggests eating leaves and flowers
Bronze fennel has greens with a sweet, anise flavour, and seeds that can be eaten as a palate cleanser and used in pickles
Honewort is a shade-loving native perennial with leaves that Caesar says are delicious
Tips to get Started with Perennial Vegetables
Caesar says that if you already have a perennial garden, chances are that you might already be growing edible plants. Here are common edible plants that he says many people already have in their gardens:
Hosta
Solomon’s seal
Daylily
Stonecrop sedum
Creating New Tomato Varieties
Tomato expert Linda Crago with Emma at a seed exchange.
Tomato expert Linda Crago joins us to talk about how to create a new tomato variety.
At her Tree and Twig Heirloom Vegetable Farm in the Niagara Region of Ontario, she raises hundreds of varieties of tomatoes.
This past summer, Emma grew a couple of tomato varieties that Crago released. She tells us what she did to get them—and shares tips on creating new tomato varieties.
Accidental Crosses
“One was an accidental cross and I was delighted to see it,” says Crago as she talks about ‘TT Baby Blue.’
‘TT Baby Blue’ appeared on its own, from a tomato plant that self-seeded in one of her fields. She thinks that it’s a cross between a blue tomato and one of the currant-type tomatoes.
Crago says that she saved seeds from it and grew the seeds the following year, keeping seeds only from tomatoes that resembled the parent. She did this for six years, which she says is often how long it will take before a new variety becomes “stable.”
De-hybridizing a Hybrid Tomato
Crago says that a lot of people don’t save seeds from hybrid tomatoes because there is no knowing what those seeds will grow into. “You might get somethign you like,” she says.
A few years ago she saw a very interesting tomato at her local grocery store. She bought is so that she could save seeds from it. Those seeds gave her quite a great variety of plants. “I got multiple varieties; not many looked like the original tomato,” she says.
But one of those plants had tomatoes with a peanut-like shape that caught her eye. She grew and selected for that peanut shape for a number of years. Once it was stable, she named the variety ‘Zemoltt.’
More on Tomatoes
Downtown Rooftop Edible Garden Gives a Breath of Fresh Air
Saskia Vegter, Urban Agricultural Co-ordinator at 401 Richmond
We’re joined by Saskia Vegter, the Urban Agricultural Co-Ordinator at 401 Richmond, a former industrial building that has been transformed into a cultural hub in a dense downtown Toronto neighbourhood.
Vegter, who previously worked in event management, felt drawn to work in horticulture.
"I just remembered the feeling of connection when my hands were in the soil.”
401 Richmond
401 Richmond is a former industrial building, built in 1899. Vegter explains that the currant owner restored the building to transform it into a cultural hub for artists and creative entrepreneurs.
Tenants currently include art galleries, a book publisher, a film festival, artists with studios, and a daycare.
The Rooftop Gardens
401 Richmond rooftop garden
The rooftop has three garden areas:
A deck-patio area, which includes trees and shrubs in containers
An extensive sedum green roof
The “mini farm,” which has fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers for cutting growing in containers
Tenants use the rooftop for meetings, lunches, to meditate—or just to get a breath of fresh air, says Vegter.
Children from the daycare often spend time on the rooftop, which provides the opportunity for activities such as herb tasting.
Rooftop Crops
Ultra-dwarf apple trees grow in the same containers as the chums (cherry-plums), with strawberry plants at the base
Luffa grows up the pergola
Planters with edibles are planned for edibility AND colour, using plants with ornamental properties
New to the garden this year is a fig tree
Wildlife on the Rooftop
Despite being on a rooftop in a downtown neighbourhood, Vegter says that there are lots of visitors. She laughs as she talks about the squirrel that left her gifts of half-eaten tomatoes during the summer.
She says that other wildlife includes swallowtail caterpillars, hummingbirds, honeybees, and ladybugs.
Getting Ready to Shop for Seeds
Heirloom vegetable grower and tomato expert Linda Crago joins us to talk about seed lingo, saving seeds—and sharing seeds.
An avid seed-saver, she concedes that she has a whole freezer dedicated to seeds alone.
Crago operates Tree and Twig Heirloom Vegetable Farm in the Niagara Region of Ontario. She also organizes an annual Seedy Saturday seed swap and event in her community.
Linda Crago with Emma at a Seedy Saturday
Crazy for Tomatoes
Every spring gardeners from far and wide trek to her farm for her annual Tomato Days sale—where she has transplants for over 500 tomato varieties.
Crago says there’s lots happening in the world of tomatoes—and that in the past 10 years there has been more change since people started growing them to eat.
Seed Lingo
Hybrid: Crago explains that hybrids can occur naturally. While some hybrids are known for disease resistance, hybrid varieties are not the best choice for home gardeners who want to save seed. That’s because seeds from hybrids won’t be like the plant they came from.
Heirloom: She says that heirlooms are varieties with a history and a story. They have been around for a long time; 50 years is a common guideline when calling a variety an heirloom.
Open Pollinated: These are stable varieties that give seeds like the parent plant (as long as they have not cross-pollinated with a nearby plant.) While all heirlooms are open pollinated, not all open-pollinated varieties are heirlooms.
Artisan: These are newer open-pollinated varieties with special taste or unique appearance.
Hybrid Heirlooms: This term is used by some seed companies to refer to hybrids that look like an heirloom. Crago explains that heirlooms are always open pollinated, making this a misleading label.
Crago points to newer open-pollinated varieties such as some of the blue tomatoes…they’re not heirlooms now, but who knows, maybe they will be in 50 years.
Saving Seeds
Crago says that it’s not necessary to buy new seed every year. Seeds for some crops, such as parsnip, do have a shorter life, but she says that with proper storage, it’s usually possible to get more than one year from a batch of seed.
If in doubt, she recommends doing a seed viability test. Simply put seeds in damp paper towel within a sealed bag, in a warm location. After a few days, check to see how many of the seeds have germinated.
“One of the ways we keep open-pollinated varieties in existence is by growing and eating them.”
Seed Exchanges and Seed Libraries
Crago says that the first seed library in Canada was in the nearby Grimsby Public Library.
She says it’s not uncommon to hear stories at seed exchanges: seeds often come with the story of how they were brought from another country by a relative—and the people sharing them are hoping that someone will keep the variety going.
“The stories are the best and the varieties you get are the best.”
A Zone-4 Garden in St. Paul, Minnesota
Minnesota gardener Mary Schier
We head to Minnesota to chat with Mary Schier, the editor of Minnesota State Horticultural Society’s magazine, Northern Gardener—a magazine dedicated to gardening in USDA Zones 3 and 4.
Schier is a Minnesota gardener and the author of The Northern Gardener, From Apples to Zinnias, 150 Years of Garden Wisdom.
She gardens in St. Paul, where she crams as many plants as possible into her urban lot. Schier says that St. Paul is an urban heat island, so creative gardeners often try to push zone 4 limits.
Her new podcast, called Grow it, Minnesota, features interviews with northern gardening experts.
Tips for Cold Climates
Schier says that when it comes to growing fruit, it’s very important to take the time to research varieties well suited to cold zones.
For example, the Evans Cherry does very well in Minnesota. Sweet cherries do not. (CLICK HERE to tune into our chat with Dr. Ieuan Evans, in a previous episode, where he talks about finding this cherry.)
Another important tip in cold zones is not to start seeds indoors too early. Schier only plants out her tomato transplants on June 1—so she works back from that date and starts her transplants later than gardeners in warmer zones.
Weaving History into Horticulture
Schier’s book, The Northern Gardener, From Apples to Zinnias, 150 Years of Garden Wisdom weaves together gardening tips and historical snippets for cold-climate gardeners.
The historical tidbits are gleaned from the pages of the journals and magazines of the 150-year-old Minnesota State Horticultural Society.
Schier explains that there is a strong tradition of horticultural research in Minnesota. In the early days, many “trial stations” were set up (often, these stations were home gardens with gardeners who were willing to make observations and record what they saw for the State Horticultural Society.)
Get 5 Harvests by Growing Your Own Garlic
Pittsburgh garden expert Doug Oster joins us to talk about growing garlic, getting 5 harvests—and the recipes from his Garlic is Love presentation
Ever thought you could get five garlic harvests from your garden?
Today on the podcast, garden expert Doug Oster joins us from Pittsburgh, PA to talk about growing and cooking with garlic.
Oster, who loves growing and cooking with garlic, shares his love of garlic by taking seed garlic to friends…earning him the nickname “Dougy Garlic Seed.”
Oster recently gave two presentations about garlic at the Virtual Tomato and Garlic Days hosted by Phipps Conservatory:
How to Get Five Harvests from Growing Your Own Garlic
Garlic is Love
5 Garlic Harvests
Oster explains that there are 5 possible harvests when growing garlic.
Garlic greens in the spring (he says that his family is alerted to their arrival because they can smell it on his breath when he comes in from the garden)
Garlic scapes, which grow on hardneck garlic varieties (these are removed so that the plant directs energy to the bulb—and make a great pesto)
The small bulbils, which grow at the end of the scapes (Oster doesn’t leave the scapes on the plant; he explains that scapes that are picked and left continue to grow the bulbils…so he leaves a few in the garden and snacks on bulbils while working in the garden)
Uncured fresh garlic, which he harvests before the papery husk is fully developed
The main garlic harvest
Garlic is Love
In his Garlic is Love presentation, Oster prepared two recipes—in which he used 100 cloves of garlic!
Garlic Elixir, which has 50 cloves of garlic, lemon juice, and chopped olives
Ultimate Garlic Linguine, which has 25 roasted garlic cloves, 25 sauteed garlic cloves, olive oil, and herbs
Doug Oster’s Tips for Growing Garlic
Start with the right garlic: either seed garlic or garlic from a local farm (not store-bought garlic, which might be a variety better suited to another area—or might be treated with something to inhibit growth)
Plant at the right time for your area (if planted too soon, it might sprout too early)
Amend soil with a generous amount of compost
Cover with a thick layer of straw in the fall to prevent sprouting
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.
