Food Garden Life Show: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible Landscaping

Steven Biggs: Horticulturist and edible landscaping expert.

Want to grow your own food but need creative ideas so you can get the most from your space and your growing zone? Our passion is the edible garden.

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.

There are many ways to approach edible landscaping. Find out how to harvest enough fruit, vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers. Get top tips for exotic crops. And learn how to garden in a way that suits any situation.

Host Steven Biggs was recognized by Garden Making magazine as one of the “green gang” making a difference in Canadian horticulture. His home-garden experiments span driveway straw-bale gardens, a rooftop kitchen garden, fruit plantings, and an edible-themed front yard. He's a horticulturist, award-winning broadcaster and author, and former horticulture instructor with George Brown and Durham Colleges in Ontario, Canada.

Get started with one of our fan favourites. Season 6, Episode 10: Big Harvests from a Small Space with a Vertical Vegetable Garden.

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268 episodes
Updated Thursday

Episodes268

Newest first

Oct 1, 2020 · 16 min
Figs: A Taste of Home in a Country of Immigrants
We chat with Montreal fig enthusiast—and fig tourist—Michal Hacio. Hacio says that his passion for growing figs and meeting other fig growers started when he spent time living in Vancouver, where an Italian neighbour introduced him to fig growing.Hacio sa
Sep 29, 2020 · 28 min
A Zone-4 Garden in St. Paul, Minnesota
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 Gardene
Sep 24, 2020 · 47 min
Grow Exotic Edibles in Cold Climates
We chat with Winnipeg-based garden educator Dave Hanson, co-host of The Grow Guide Podcast, and founder of Sage Garden Greenhouses.Hanson, who spent time in his youth in a tropical climate, has been growing herbs and spices since his childhood, eventually
Sep 22, 2020 · 37 min
Get 5 Harvests by Growing Your Own Garlic
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
Sep 17, 2020 · 25 min
Create a Lifestyle: Starting a Regenerative Farm and Homestead
We chat with Ryan Cullen, co-owner of City of Greens (https://cityofgreens.square.site/) in Bowmanville, Ontario, about starting a regenerative farm and homestead. Cullen, who joined us for the last episode to talk about the food-forest garden at Durham C
Sep 15, 2020 · 25 min
Grow a Food Forest
We chat with Ryan Cullen, the field supervisor at Durham College, about the newly planted food-forest garden at the college’s Whitby campus. Cullen explains that the idea behind the food forest is to grow a mix of food-producing species, layered in the sa
Sep 10, 2020 · 22 min
Green Roofs for Healthy Cities
We chat with Steven Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the Toronto-based industry association that supports the North American green roof and green wall industries. He talks about about what goes into a green roof, what’s new in green roof
Sep 8, 2020 · 17 min
Growing and Sharing Figs in a Community Fig Orchard
We chat with Jack Spruill in North Carolina about the community fig orchard on his family farm and about his work developing a conservation project to protect the farm from future development.Spruill explains that the farm grows very good figs. They were
Sep 3, 2020 · 1 hr 1 min
Grow Heirloom Melons, Grow Heirloom Tomatoes
In a broadcast that originally aired on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with author Amy Goldman about growing melons, growing tomatoes, her passion for seed-saving, and about her research when writing her books The Melon and The Heirloom Tomato.T
Sep 1, 2020 · 15 min
Garden-Based Experiential Learning...with Compost
We chat with Paige Lockett, the director of operations for The PACT Urban Peace Program in Toronto about garden-based experiential learning for at-risk you and about a Community Compost Exchange Program.Through its Grow to Learn partnership with the Toron
Aug 27, 2020 · 20 min
REWIND: Growing Giant Pumpkins and Giant Tomatoes
In this interview that first broadcast live on the radio show in 2018, we chat with Phil Hunt from the Giant Vegetable Growers of Ontario (GVGO) about growing giant pumpkins and giant tomatoes. Hunt and his wife, Jane, grow giant vegetables near Lindsay,
Aug 25, 2020 · 25 min
A Community Pulls Together to Save a Garden
We chat with Nathan Larson, Director of the Cultivate Health Initiative in Madison, Wisconsin.When we visited Madison in summer 2019 to attend the National Children and Youth Gardening Symposium, Larson gave us a tour of a wonderful community garden—the T
Aug 20, 2020 · 22 min
A Garden Space Built for Sharing
We check in with Sarah Dobec, the co-ordinator of the Carrot Green Roof, an inspiring rooftop garden that we visited for the first time earlier this year. Dobec explains that this unique community space was originally imagined by architects and landscaper
Aug 18, 2020 · 23 min
Tantalizing Tomato Harvest Recipes
We get an update from gardener, chef, and author Signe Langford on her hay-bale garden, and then talk about tips for using fresh tomatoes in the kitchen.Langford suggests using fat to soften the acidity of fresh tomatoes. She likes mayonnaise, olive oil,
Aug 13, 2020 · 27 min
A Passion for Growing Food in Philadelphia
We chat with Millennial gardener Ross Raddi in Philadelphia. He balances a very intensive approach to food gardening with the need to share the yard with his family—who want grass. Raddi has previously joined us on the Food Garden Life Show to talk about
Aug 11, 2020 · 21 min
Luay's Urban Farm and Kitchen
We talk with Luay, from Urban Farm and Kitchen in Toronto, about how he started growing food, his gardens, some favourite recipes, failure, and tips for new gardeners.His day job in the engineering industry is hectic and includes lots of travel. Gardening
Aug 6, 2020 · 1 hr 1 min
Growing Food and Urban Gardening with Kevin Espiritu
In this episode that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we talk with urban gardener, author, podcaster, and YouTuber Kevin Espiritu from California. Espiritu, who did not grow up gardening, explains how, after studying business, he
Aug 4, 2020 · 20 min
REWIND: Grow Fruit in Cold Climates, PART 2
In part 2 of a program first broadcast live on the radio show in 2018, we continue our chat about growing fruit in cold climates with Dr. Ieuan Evans, a forensic plant pathologist and a former Provincial Plant Pathologist for Alberta Agriculture.Along wit
Jul 30, 2020 · 25 min
Urban Farming to Grow Social Change
Toronto urban farmers Jessy Njau and Misha Shodjaee join us to talk about their journey into growing food and using food and farming as a tool for social change. Their farm, Zawadi Farm, began on land provided by a local garden centre. They now farm Njau’
Jul 28, 2020 · 26 min
Summer Vegetable-Garden Check-in with Niki Jabbour
We chat with garden expert and author Niki Jabbour in Halifax, Nova Scotia to find out what’s new in her garden this summer, how things are growing, and for tips for new gardeners.Her top advice for people who want to start growing food but haven’t starte