Artisan Tomatoes and a Tomato Addiction
A fascination with unusual tomatoes grows into an addiction, and a business. We chat with Teresa Zohorsky from Solana Garden.
Heirloom and Unusual Tomato Varieties
We chat Teresa Zohorsky from Solana Garden in Ontario.
What started as a fascination with unusual tomato varieties grew into an addiction! Teresa specialized in heirloom and unusual tomato varieties, and now sells tomato transplants and fruit.
We talk about:
Top varieties
Resources for finding and researching tomato varieties
Selecting tomato varieties suited to the growing conditions
Tips for people who want to get started growing heirloom and unusual tomatoes
Connect
@solana_garden in Instagram and Twitter
Want More on Tomatoes?
Dwarf and Unusual Tomatoes
Some tomato variety ideas for your 2023 garden. (Yes, a tomato plant you can bring indoors for winter!)
Tomato expert Linda Crago talks with Emma about some dwarf and unusual tomato varieties.
A Tomato Variety to Bring Indoors for Winter
Emma chats with tomato expert Linda Crago about the 'House' tomato, a compact tomato plant that some gardeners keep over the winter in the house.
They also talk about a few other unusual tomato varieties, including one of the ugliest tomato plants you'll see: 'Stick.'
More on Tomatoes
Top Crops and Seed Shopping
Horticulturist and vegetable-garden expert Donna Balzer talks about garden planning and shares her tips for seed shopping.
Garden Planning and Seed Shopping
Horticulturist and vegetable-garden expert Donna Balzer talks about garden planning and shares her tips for seed shopping.
Horticulturist and vegetable-garden expert Donna Balzer talks about garden planning and shares her tips for seed shopping.
We talk about:
Favourite early spring greens crops
Making a vegetable garden plan
Succession crops
Storage Crops
Where to get seeds
Testing seeds for viability
Seed Lingo
Connect
Donna’s website: donnabalzer.com
Want More Planning Ideas?
Find out about vegetable-crop spacing in this article.
Interested in Heirloom Seed?
Hear Jere Gettle from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds talk about his journey into seeds.
Electric Saws and Giant Pumpkins
Norman Kyle joins us to talk about growing giant veggies — and about his 1,659-pound pumpkin.
It Takes an Electric Saw...to Get Seeds from this 1659-Pound Pumpkin
Norman Kyle with his 1,659-pound pumkin, which will be on display at the 2022 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto
We chat with giant vegetable grower Norman Kyle from Ennismore, Ontario.
Kyle will have a number of his giant vegetables on display at the 2022 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, November 4-13.
We talk about:
His 1,659-pound pumpkin — a personal best
Tips on growing giant vegetables
How to grow giant pumpkins
Getting seed
Want to See a Great Display of Giant Veg?
Go to the 2022 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, November 4-13.
If you’ve never been to the Royal – go. There are veg displays, a honey competition, agricultural competitions, and ideas and products from people who are passionate about food.
Want More on Giant Vegetables?
Hear Phil Hunt talk about a giant pumpkin that looked like a Volkswagen Beetle as it grew in his garden.
75 Frost-Free Days and Bird Song Just After Midnight
Gardening north of 60° with Arlin McFarlane. She’s an artist, filmmaker, and gardener in Whitehorse, Yukon, and the producer of the gardening show The Curious Gardener.
Gardening in Whitehorse, Yukon
Arlin McFarlane from Whitehorse, Yukon, talks about gardening in the north and her show, The Curious Gardener.
We chat with artist, filmmaker, and gardener Arlin McFarlane in Whitehorse, Yukon about gardening in cold climates.
McFarlane produced the gardening show The Curious Gardener, about Yukon farmers and gardeners.
We talk about:
Gardening when there are only about 75 frost-free days in the growing season
Gardening on poorly developed soils
How to grow tomatoes in the far north (spoiler alert: Arlin grows tomatoes!)
The importance of microclimates
The show The Curious Gardener
Connect
The Curious Gardener: thecuriousgardener.ca
Want More on Far-North Gardening?
Hear Suzanne Crocker talk about growing and eating only local food for a year, in Dawson City, Yukon.
2022 Tomato Roundup
Tomato Roundup. Steven and Emma talk about the 2022 tomato crop and top varieties.
2022 tomato roundup with Steven and Emma
2022 Tomato Roundup
Steven and Emma take a look at the 2022 tomato crop.
We chat about:
What’s new in the tomato patch
Growing methods
Top varieties
Tomato seed saving
Favourite tomato recipes
Summer in the Vegetable Garden and Hardy Apples
In this episode: Summer vegetable garden succession crops, growing in pots, and tomato support with Niki Jabbour; and hardy apples and growing apples in cold climates with Bob Osborne.
Talking about summer in the vegetable garden with Niki Jabbour.
Summer Vegetable Garden
In the first part of the show, we chat with vegetable gardening expert Niki Jabbour.
She shares tips about:
Summer vegetable garden succession crops
Growing vegetables in pots
Supporting tomato plants
Managing slugs
Jabbour is an award-winning author of four books: The Year Round Vegetable Gardener, Groundbreaking Food Gardens, Veggie Garden Remix, and Growing Under Cover. As well as hosting and producing The Weekend Gardener radio show, she is a CBC radio columnist. Her award-winning website is savvygardening.com.
Hardy Apples
In the second part of the show we talk about hardy apples with Bob Osborne.
He tells us about:
Choosing a location for apple trees
Apple rootstock
Tips for growing apples in cold climates
Apple varieties
Cider apple varieties
Osborne has over 40 years experience propagating and selling apples. He runs Corn Hill Nursery in New Brunswick, is a CBC radio columnist, and the author of the book Hardy Apples: Growing Apples in Cold Climates.
Weed-Free Bale Gardens and Mushrooms
Joel Karsten talks about straw-bale gardening and growing mushrooms on straw bales.
Joel Karsten joins us to talk about straw-bale gardens and growing mushrooms.
Straw-Bale Gardening
In this episode we speak with Joel Karsten about straw-bale gardening.
He is the author of Straw Bale Gardens Complete.
We chat about:
Straw bale gardens as a way to grow in very wet conditions
Making non-straw bales out of other available organic materials
Trellising for straw-bale gardens
Making raised straw-bale gardens
Growing mushrooms on straw bales (spoiler alert: then you can grow veggies afterwards!)
Four-Season Food Gardening
Misilla dela Llana joins us to talk about four-season food gardening.
Misilla dela Llana, author of Four-Season Food Gardening, joins us to talk about growing vegetables year-round.
Year-Round Food Gardening
In this episode we visit Misilla dela Llana in Washington State to talk about growing food year-round.
She is the host of the YouTube channel Learn to Grow, where she shares her passion for growing food.
In this episode we chat about:
Extending the growing season
Crops for season extension
Perennial food crops
Some of her top crops
Her new book is Four-Season Food Gardening: How to grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs year-round.
Food, Flowers, and Fun for Urban Gardens
Growing food and beauty in the city with Kathy Jentz and Teri Speight.
Urban gardeners Teri Speight and Kathy Jentz talk about creating gardens that are functional, productive, and beautiful.
Today we hang out with 2 urban gardeners who brainstormed 101 ways we can grow food and beauty in urban gardens.
Teri Speight and Kathy Jentz talk about creative ways that city dwellers can make productive, functional, and beautiful gardens.
Jentz is a journalist, editor, and frequent radio and TV guest. She is also the editor and publisher of Washington Gardener magazine.
Speight is a speaker, writer, and podcaster. She’s the former head gardener of the City of Fredericksburg, founding farmer of a CSA, and an estate gardener.
Grow in Containers
Deeper window boxes
Planting pockets
Succulents in a frame
Grow bags
Berries in containers
Make Gardens Fun and Beautiful
Fragrance freeway
Patchwork pavers
Make small spaces feel big through design
New Book: The Urban Garden
Jentz and Speight are authors of the new book, The Urban Garden: 101 Ways to Grow Food and Beauty in the City.
Raised Bed Gardening
CaliKim shares tips about growing vegetables in raised beds.
CaliKim joins us to talk about growing vegetables in raised beds.
Gardener and author CaliKim joins us from southern California to talk about growing vegetables in raised beds.
Grow Vegetables in Raised Beds
Raised beds can have a number of advantages:
Soil warms more quickly in spring
Less back and knee strain
A solution for locations with less-than-ideal soil
How to Make Raised Bed Gardens
CaliKim says that raised bed gardens don’t have to be a box or a square. “Think outside the box,” she advises.
A raised bed garden can be tailored to the yard and to the gardener. That could mean:
A shape suited to the location
Choosing materials that tie in to the style of the garden
A mobile unit to be place wherever there is available sunlight
“You have to make it fit your situation.”
Top Tip
CaliKim says would-be gardeners sometimes feel overwhelmed at the thought of making a garden.
Her top tip? Start small, but get started. “Just get started,” she says.
New Book
Her new book is Raised Bed Gardening: All the Know-How you Need to Build and Grow a Raised Bed Garden.
A Passion for Heirloom Vegetable Seeds
Jere Gettle from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds talks about heirloom vegetable seeds.
Jere Gettle from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds talks about heirloom vegetable seeds.
Heirloom Vegetable Seeds
Jere Gettle from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds joins us to talk seeds, seed saving, and seed collecting.
He loves meeting gardeners, chefs, and farmers who share old seed varieties and the stories behind them.
Lifelong Passion for Heirloom Seeds
Gettle started his seed business as a teenager, with a 12-page photocopied price list.
Today, the seed company tests over 4,000 heirloom seed varieties each year.
Gettle says that for a variety to make the cut for the catalogue, he’s looking for 3 things:
It’s beautiful
It tastes great
It grows well
Connect
Baker Creek Heirloom Seed: rareseeds.com
If this episode piqued your interest in seeds, tune in to the November 2020 episode entitled Creating New Tomato Varieties. Emma chats with heirloom seed saver and tomato expert Linda Crago about breeding tomato varieties.
Winter Vegetable Gardening with Wolfgang Palme
Wolfgang Palme talks about growing vegetables year-round and ways to grow vegetables through the winter.
Wolfgang Palme talks about winter-hardy vegetables and year-round growing. Photo Johannes Hloch.
Winter-Hardy Vegetables
Wolfgang Palme joins us to talk about winter-hardy vegetables and year-round growing. He is an agronomist, and head of the Research Institute of Horticulture in Austria.
Accidental Discovery
Palme’s journey into winter vegetable growing started by accident one year when autumn weather was unusually cold. Some of the test plots that he had not yet harvested survived, much to his surprise.
So he started to investigate cold-hardy crops.
He was surprised to find that that published frost hardiness recommendations are often incorrect.
Not New
Palme points out that growing cold-tolerant crops and using simple protective measures is nothing new. This knowledge has simply faded with the advent of large-scale, high-tech growing.
Low-tech, low-input approaches are often well suited to small farms and home gardeners. As well as costing less, there is a smaller environmental footprint.
“Keep it as simple as possible.”
Surviving Winter
Palme explains that frost is not the main challenge for overwintering greens: It’s moisture and disease.
A covering such as a hoop house, tunnel, or cold frame can keep leaves dry and reduce susceptibility to disease. In combination with a covering, good ventilation is important, to let humid air escape.
“We always think about the frost when we think about the winter season. But that’s not the main challenge for the plants.”
Book
Connect
Vienna City Farm: www.cityfarm.wien
Grow Food Indoors + Regenerative Gardening
In this episode: Growing food indoors with Kim Roman, author of How to Garden Indoors & Grow Your Own Food Year Round; and regenerative gardening with Stephanie Rose, author of The Regenerative Garden.
Stephanie Rose talks about regenerative gardening and Kim Roman talks about growing food indoors.
Grow Food Indoors
In the first part of this episode we chat about growing food indoors with Kim Roman, a garden educator and square-foot-gardening instructor.
Her new book is How to Garden Indoors & Grow Your Own Food Year Round.
Regenerative Gardening
In the second part of this episode we find out about regenerative gardening from Stephanie Rose. She is a permaculture designer and herbalist.
Her new book is The Regenerative Garden.
Grow Epic Tomatoes, with Joe Lamp'l and Craig LeHoullier
Joe Lamp’l and Craig LeHoullier talk about different ways to grow tomatoes, and share tips for a better harvest,
Joe Lamp’l and Craig LeHoullier talk about how to grow tomatoes, and their new course, Growing Epic Tomatoes.
The Best Way to Grow Tomatoes
There’s more than one way to slice a tomato; there’s more than one way to grow a tomato.
Growing tomatoes is like many things in life…there are lots of ways you can tackle it.
Do you have a favourite way? Or a tomato-growing tip handed down in your family?
Different Strokes, Different Folks
In this episode, we take a deep-dive into growing tomatoes with two experts who have very different approaches to growing tomatoes.
Garden expert, author, and broadcaster Joe Lamp’l loves growing tomatoes. He’s met lots of gardeners using a wide range of tomato-growing techniques through his work as the host and producer of the Growing a Greener World television series, and through his podcast, The joe gardener Show.
World-renowned tomato grower Craig LeHoullier co-leads the Dwarf Tomato Breeding project, has named and popularized many well-known tomato varieties such as ‘Cherokee Purple,’ and is an expert on straw-bale gardening. He’s the author of the book Epic Tomatoes.
Tomato Talk
Lamp’l and LeHoullier talk about:
The tomato-growing methods they use in their own gardens
How their gardens differ
Tomato-growing ideas they’ve learned from each other
Favourite tomato varieties
Tomato-growing techniques they’ve seen in other gardens
They also share tips for new gardeners. “Don’t get hung up on the destination, but learn to love the journey,” says LeHoullier.
“Don’t get hung up on the destination, but learn to love the journey.”
More on Tomatoes
If this episode piqued your interest in tomatoes, tune in to the December 2020 episode entitled Tasty Tomatoes for Small Spaces: The Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project. In the episode, LeHoullier tells us about this citizen-science initiative to breed dwarf tomato varieties.
Attract Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden
Attracting beneficial insects to your garden with Jessica Walliser.
Jessica Walliser, author of Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden, talks about creating a healthy, balanced, and diverse garden that supports beneficial insects.
Beneficial Insects
If you’ve heard the terms beneficial insects, beneficial bugs, or biological control, these all relate to this ideas of letting some bugs help us deal with the challenges that other bugs cause for us.
In commercial horticultural production, beneficial bugs are big business. They’re used for some field crops, in greenhouses, in nurseries.
In Gardens
Beneficial bugs can help to control infestations of insect pests in gardens too. The gardener just needs to know where to look…and how to garden in a way that’s friendly to these beneficial bugs.
Pittsburgh-based horticulturist and award-winning author Jessica Walliser joins us to talk about attracting beneficial insects to gardens.
“Stop thinking of your garden as only a place to please you.”
The new second edition of Jessica Walliser’s book Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden.
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.
Charlie Dobbin and Perla Sofia Curbelo join us to talk about ornamental edibles, gardening in wind, horticultural therapy, and gardening with kids.
Today we talk about wind tunnels, horticultural therapy, landscaping with edibles, and gardening with kids.
Our guests today are professional garden educators who have an infectious love of gardening.
We start in Prince Edward County in Ontario, chatting with consultant and horticulturist Charlie Dobbin about using edible plants in ornamental gardens, gardening in windy areas, and birds in the garden.
Then we head to Puerto Rico to chat with Perla Sofia Curbelo about horticultural therapy, gardening and wellness – and about gardening with kids!
Passive Solar Greenhouses with Rob Avis
Rob Avis from Verge Permaculture talks about passive solar greenhouses.
Rob Avis from Verge Permaculture talks about passive solar greenhouses.
Rob Avis from Verge Permaculture shares tips on passive solar greenhouses.
Balance
Avis says a key consideration when designing a passive solar greenhouse is whether to optimize the design for light or for thermal efficiency. He says it’s a trade off between light and heat.
Knowing the balance between light and heat will help inform design choices such as glazing material and the amount of glazing surface.
Grow Bamboo in Cold Climates
Bamboo expert Fred Hornaday on bamboo for cold climates.
Fred Hornaday talks about how to grow bamboo in cold climates, the many uses of bamboo — and its potential as an agricultural crop.
Fred Hornaday is bullish about bamboo and it’s many uses. From fuel to food to fibre, he sees it as a versatile crop with environmental benefits.
He shares his passion for bamboo through his bambubatu website, which has information about bamboo, how to grow it, how to use it, and its lore.
Many Uses of Bamboo
Bamboo is an extremely versatile crop that be be made into:
fabric
flooring
fuel
paper
food
mats
cutting boards
Bamboo in Cold Climates
There are many types of bamboo that survive in cold climates. Many of these cold-hardy bamboos are in the gemus Phyllostachys or Fargesia.
Bamboos in the former are “running” bamboos. Hornaday says most cold-hardy bamboos are running bamboos…those fast-spreading types that gardeners either love or hate.
But the Fargesia bamboos are clumping, making them desirable for gardeners not interested in containing their bamboo patch.
Bamboo as an Agricultural Crop
Hornaday is hearing from a lot of people interested in farming bamboo commercially in North America. At the moment, he says, there’s a need for processing infrastructure. Farmers growing bamboo for commercial processing could also harvest shoots as a specialty food crop.
As a perennial crop that can grow on marginal land, it can be used to stabilize soil.
Grow and Cook Bamboo
Wendy Kiang-Spray on how to grow and cook bamboo.
Wendy Kiang-Spray, author of The Chinese Kitchen Garden, talks about how to grow and cook bamboo.
Wendy Kiang-Spray’s children don’t recognize canned bamboo shoots. That says a lot about the difference between fresh bamboo and its canned cousin.
Kiang-Spray, author of The Chinese Kitchen Garden, grew up eating fresh bamboo, one of the many crops her father grows in his large garden.
She talks about growing, harvesting, and cooking bamboo.
Grow Bamboo
There are two groups of bamboo:
Running bamboos spread quickly by underground rhizomes.
Clumping bamboos grow in clumps.
Kiang-Spray points out that running bamboo might not be suited to small yards—at least not without measures to contain it. “It would be a big mistake in my suburban backyard; all my neighbours would hate me,” she says, as she talks about how quickly running bamboos can spread. A running bamboo spread to her yard from a neighbour’s yard over 100 feet away…not exactly a slow-growing plant.
To keep running bamboo in check she suggests:
Grow in containers
Plant on high berms (new shoots coming out the side will be easy to spot)
Instal a metal, plastic, or concrete barrier, buried to a depth of approximately 30 inches
Harvest Bamboo
Bamboo is harvested in the spring. Kiang-Spray says to use a knife — or to simply kick it over. “They should snap really easily,” she says, likening it to asparagus.
After harvest, cut shoots lengthwise and remove the edible “heart” by scooping it out with a thumb.
Fresh bamboo must be boiled prior to use to denature toxins. Boil uncovered for 30 minutes before use.
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.
