School Garden Kicks Off with Celebrity
Sonya Harris joins us to talk about school gardens, gardening with kids, and The Bullock Garden Project
Taking Math to the Garden
Sonya Harris’ from The Bullock Garden Project on bringing the garden to the classroom.
It started with a math lesson. A very boring math lesson.
Educator Sonya Harris was trying to get a concept to stick. And the thing that got it to stick was the garden.
A non-gardener, she saw how it could help kids take in ideas. But she wasn’t sure where to start once she got buy-in from the principal to make a garden.
So she did it with a fun celebrity event.
We talk about:
Launching the school garden with a “yard-crashing” event featuring an HGTV star
Bringing the classroom to the garden — and the garden to the classroom
Creating The Bullock Garden Project to help other educators start gardens
Funding the non-profit project with a for-profit seed company, Garden Teachers Yard
Resources for educators who want to incorporate gardening into the curriculum
Joining the board at KidsGardening.org
Connect
Bullock Garden Project: bullockgardenproject.org
Garden Teachers Yard: gardenteachersyard.com
Kids Gardening: kidsgardening.org
Want More on Gardening with Kids?
We have lots of inspiring interviews with educators, and a series of kids-gardening videos that Emma did when she was younger
How to Prune Fruit Trees + Apple Tasting 101
Susan Poizner talks about how to have your own apple-tasting event, and explains how to prune fruit trees.
Discover the Next Great Apple
Susan Poizner from Orchard People talks about how to have your own apple-tasting event, and explains how to prune fruit trees.
Susan Poizner, founder of Ben Nobleman Community Orchard in Toronto, talks about the upcoming apple-tasting fundraiser event for the orchard. Poizner is a college instructor, author of Grow Fruit Trees Fast and Growing Urban Orchards, and the founder of Orchard People.
At the virtual apple tasting, participants are guided through characteristics such as:
Smell
Flavour
Texture
The apples in the tasting were bred in Ontario — and have not yet been released.
An apple tasting event is something you can do yourself! Poizner shares tips on how to host your own apple-tasting event.
Pruning Fruit Trees
We also talk about how to prune fruit trees:
Why prune fruit trees
How to prune fruit trees
Winter vs. summer pruning
Water sprouts
When to cut off healthy branches
Whip cuts
Connect
Orchard People: orchardpeople.com
Ben Nobleman Community Orchard: communityorchard.ca
Want More on Growing Fruit?
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.
Potted Lemons for Cold-Climate Gardens
Steven Biggs talks about why lemon trees are a good plant to start with if you’re thinking of growing citrus in a cold climate.
Why Lemons are a Good Citrus Plant to Start With
Steven explains why lemons are his top citrus choice for cold climates.
Steven explains why lemons are his top citrus choice for cold climates.
He talks about:
How cold lemon trees can get
How cold the fruit can get
Fruiting and flowering
Using lemon leaves in the kitchen
How big potted lemon plants will get
His favourite lemon for growing in a pot in cold climates
Want to Learn More about Lemons?
Book About Growing Lemons in Cold Climates
Ever wondered about how to grow a lemon tree in a pot? Or in the ground if you’re in a borderline hardiness zone?
This book explains how to grow a lemon in a pot and enjoy your own homegrown lemons.
Grow Spices + How to Store Food
In this episode: Grow your own spices with Tasha Greer, and food storage and preservation with Steve Maxwell.
Talking about growing spices with Tasha Greer, author of Grow Your Own Spices.
Grow Your Own Spices
In the first part of the show, we chat with Tasha Greer about how to grow your own spices. She’s the author of the book Grow Your Own Spices.
We chat about:
The difference between a herb and a spice
Spice-growing ideas for this time of year
Seed-grown spices
“Underground” spices
Spices that might already be in your landscape
Spices that a patio gardener can grow in containers and overwinter indoors
Feed Yourself for a Year
Homesteader, cold cellar, and food storage expert Steve Maxwell talks about food storage.
In the second part of the show we talk with homesteader, cold-cellar, and food-storage expert Steve Maxwell for ideas about food storage – even if you’re an urban dweller. He’s the creator of the online course Feed Yourself for a Year: Select & Store 365 Days of Food.
He talks about:
The reason for having a supply of stored food
The advantage of preserving your own food vs. kits
Ideas for urban dwellers to store food
The importance of stored water
Making basement root cellars
Making a roothouse
Smoking food
Attractive Food Gardens, Scrappy Plants, and Outreach
Adina Oosterwijk, the Community Greening Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, Australia talks about community outreach and home food gardens that are productive and aesthetically pleasing.
Connecting Gardens, People, and Food
Adina Oosterwijk, the Community Greening Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, Australia talks about community outreach and making attractive home food gardens.
We chat with Adina Oosterwijk, the Community Greening Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, Australia.
We talk about:
The Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, which has three different sites that each have different growing conditions and plant collections
Home food gardens that are productive and aesthetically pleasing
Garden outreach to vulnerable communities
Scrappy plants for tough growing conditions
A tomato festival
Home-Scale Forest Garden
Dani Baker, author of The Home-Scale Forest Garden, talks about planning, planting, and caring for a forest garden.
Making an Edible Landscape with a Forest Garden
Dani Baker, author of The Home-Scale Forest Garden, talks about planning, planting, and caring for a forest garden.
We chat with author and market gardener Dani Baker about forest gardening.
Baker has created a forest garden on her USDA Zone 4 farm. She shares her tips for making a forest garden, whether it’s an acre or just a few square feet.
We talk about:
Permaculture principles
Creating microclimates
Grouping plants in layers
Understanding your space
Matching plants to conditions
What you can do at this time of year to get started
Her new book is The Home-Scale Forest Garden: How to Plan, Plant, and Tend a Resilient Edible Landscape.
Scenes from Dani Baker’s Forest Garden
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
Garlic-Infused Vodka and a Cricket Rodeo
In this episode: Growing and cooking garlic, and the Toronto Garlic Festival with Peter McClusky, and chicken-keeping tips and ideas from Frank Hyman, author of Hentopia.
Talking about growing and cooking with garlic, with Peter McClusky, founder of The Toronto Garlic Festival.
Toronto Garlic Festival
In the first part of the show, we chat with Peter McClusky about garlic. He’s the founder of the Toronto Garlic Festival, now in its 12th year.
We chat about:
The hardneck garlic grown in Ontario, and it’s culinary properties
How to grow garlic at home
The festival, which includes seed garlic, prepared food, educational events, and music.
The festival is Sunday, September 25, 2022 at Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. here in Toronto.
Backyard Hens get Hentopia
Frank Hyman, author of Hentopia, talks about backyard hens.
In the second part of the show we talk about backyard hens with Frank Hyman, author of the book Hentopia.
Hyman’s approach to keeping chickens is that he aims to spend less time doing chicken-related chores than cooking eggs. And he sets up the coop so that he can go away for a couple of weeks at a time.
He tells us about:
Practical feed and feeder ideas
Creating practical water dispensers — even in cold climates
Making a pallet coop
(Spoiler alert: we hear about the cricket rodeo he gives his hens)
Trailer Video for Hentopia
Recipes in Bloom
Denise Schreiber, author of Eat Your Roses, tells us about edible flowers and shares recipe ideas, including rose-petal ice cream, roasted-red-pepper soup with nasturtiums, and lavender-flower biscotti.
Ice Cream, Sliders, Soups, and More with Edible Flowers
Denise Schreiber, author of Eat Your Roses, talks about edible flowers.
We chat with Pittsburgh author and horticulturist Denise Schreiber about edible flowers.
Schreiber is the author of the book Eat Your Roses.
We talk about:
Common edible flowers
Lesser-known edible flowers
Top tips for edible flowers
Edible-flower recipes, including rose-petal ice cream, pork sliders with nasturtium, roasted-red-pepper soup with nasturtium, lavender-flower biscotti
Helping Kids Understand Light...with Skittles!
Darryl and Aden Nelson talk about gardening under lights and teaching kids about light.
Bringing Light to a Children’s Science Camp
We chat with Darryl Nelson and his teenage son, Aden, about light and gardening under lights.
Darryl and Aden tell us how they taught children about light at a children’s event at a local museum. (Spoiler alert: it involved colourful Skittles candy.)
Darryl is an avid food gardener — and his specialty is light. His business, Just Led Us, specializes in lighting.
Land Conservation, Public Access, and Figs!
Jack Spruill joins us to talk about land conservation, public access — and figs!
Land Conservation
We chat with Jack Spruill, whose farm is on the shore of North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound, the largest freshwater sound in the world.
Spruill plans to donate the farm to an organization that will maintain public access, with the land used for low-impact farming, research, and education programs.
At the moment, some of the property is used for a community garden — and a community fig orchard.
Talking about land conservation, public access — and figs — with Jack Spruill.
We talk about:
The idea of public access, and how it scares some organizations
Mechanisms for land conservation
Tips for bringing people together around food and gardening
The community fig orchard
Connect
Spruill Farm: spruillfarm.org
Tales of Polar Bears and Brook Trout
Mike Borger from Canada Fishing Guide talks about adventures in pursuit of brook trout, and shares fishing tips.
Talking about brook trout and fishing with Mike Borger from Canada Fishing Guide.
Time Outdoors…and Trout
You probably never expected to hear about polar bears on The Food Garden Life Show.
Today’s show is a bit of a departure from our usual focus on plants. We continue with our focus on food, the outdoors, and the human story.
Time Outdoors…and Family
Mike Borger, lived some of his younger years as a self-described canoe bum, travelling northern waters in pursuit of brook trout. Today, he helps people plan trips to remote fishing destinations through his business Canada Fishing Guide.
We learned of Mike Borger when a friend sent us a link to a video of a great family trip: A Dad who takes his 10-year-old son on a spring brook-trout fishing trip into Algonquin Park – and they get the mother lode of fish.
In today’s show, my son Quinn, an avid angler, joins in our chat with his fishing questions.
We talk about:
Travelling northern canoe routes (and a polar bear encounter!)
Mike’s passion for brook trout
His epic brook trout fishing trips to Algonquin Park with his son, Brendan
Favourite tackle
Reading a lake when fishing for brook trout
Tips for new anglers
How he created a business doing what he loves
Connect
Canada Fishing Guide: canadafishingguide.net
Seasonal Garden Tips + Wild and Specialty Foods
In this episode: Seasonal tips with Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing; and foraging and specialty foods with Jack Hamrick.
Talking about seasonal gardening activities with Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing from Down the Garden Path.
Summer in the Garden
In the first part of the show, we chat with landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing, hosts of the Down the Garden Path radio show and podcast.
We talk about:
Seasonal gardening tips
What to do in the garden now
Their new book, Down the Garden Path
Foraged
In the second part of the show we talk about unique foods, foraging, and turning your passion into a career with Jack Hamrick from Foraged.
Jack Hamrick from Foraged talks about specialty foods and connecting foragers and specialty producers with consumers.
He tells us about:
How a chat with a forager and some Chicken of the Woods mushrooms set him on the path to creating an online marketplace for foraged and specialty foods
The journey of building a business
Top tips to get started with a food business
Unique foods he loves on Foraged
Kitchen Gardening: Grow Leftover Greens, Stalks, Seeds
Katie Elzer-Peters tells us about kitchen gardening. That is, gardening in the kitchen -- with leftover greens, seeds, and roots.
Katie Elzer-Peters tells us about kitchen gardening.
Katie Elzer-Peters tells us about kitchen gardening. That is, gardening in the kitchen -- with leftover greens, seeds, and roots.
We talk about growing:
sweet potato
carrots
lettuce
celery
beets
green onions
leeks
turmeric
ginger
saving seeds from squash and tomatoes
Katie's is the author of No-Waste Kitchen Gardening: Regrow Your Leftover Greens, Stalks, Seeds, and More.
Rooftop Veggie Garden and Figs in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh gardener Seth Finn talks about the rooftop garden where he grows veg and figs.
Fig plants on the roof of Dinette restaurant in Pittsburgh.
Container Gardening
Pittsburgh gardener Seth Finn talks about his container garden and the container garden on the roof of his daughter’s restaurant.
The restaurant rooftop garden furnished the restaurant with fresh figs and shishito peppers amongst other things.
We talk about:
Wicking containers
How often to replace or top up the potting soil
Growing figs in wicking containers on the roof
Plumbing together a series of containers to simplify watering
Rose Garden Rejig Creates Balance
Alex Henderson from Royal Botanical Gardens talks about creating a new rose garden, a mixed garden with ecological balance.
Alex Henderson from RBG talks about creating a rose garden with ecological balance.
A Rose Garden Re-Imagined
In this episode we speak with Alex Henderson about the rejuvenated rose garden at Royal Botanical Gardens.
Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, explains that the original rose garden, planted in 1967, was suffering from the combined effects of poor soil health, rose varieties susceptible to disease, and a ban on cosmetic pesticides.
We chat about:
Creating more ecological balance by having mixed plantings of roses and flowering perennials
Changing from overhead irrigation to drip irrigation
Selecting rose varieties with improved genetics
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!)
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.
