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

Jul 23, 2020 · 25 min
REWIND: Practical Ways to Grow Fruit in Cold Climates, PART 1
In this portion of a program first broadcast live on the radio show in 2018, we 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 with his
Jul 21, 2020 · 30 min
A Passion for Slow Food Grows into a Rooftop Garden
We chat with Laura Luciano, a graphic designer from Long Island. She loves to find the stories behind locally produced food and the people who grow it. Her passion for local food grew into her own blog (http://outeastfoodie.com), a column in Edible Long I
Jul 16, 2020 · 19 min
What's New in the Garden, Q+A, Figs
In our mid-July garden check-in, we talk about what’s new in our garden.
Jul 14, 2020 · 28 min
Teaching Life Skills in a Garden Classroom
School garden educator Shannon Stewart thinks of herself as an emerging seedling amongst old growth forests. Stewart, who teaches in San Diego, California, says that this is her second career—and as a “seedling” in the the field of school gardens. She use
Jul 9, 2020 · 48 min
REWIND: An Engineer Grows Figs in NJ
In a program first broadcast live on the radio show in 2018, we chat with Bill Muzychko of Bill’s Figs in Flemington, New Jersey. Muzychko grows over 180 varieties of figs—all in containers—and all in zone where they would not normally survive without wi
Jul 7, 2020 · 30 min
Building Community with a Brewery Rooftop Garden and CSA
We chat with Max Meighen, owner of Avling Kitchen & Brewery, and Danette Steele, the Farm Manager for the rooftop garden.Steele grows a wide variety of crops on the roof., including greens, tomatoes, herbs, flowers for pollinators—and “flavour crops.”
Jul 2, 2020 · 59 min
Ornamental Fruit Trees and Bushes
In an episode that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, Lee Reich, author of Landscaping with Fruit, joins us to talk about landscaping with fruit. Reich is the author of many books, including Uncommon Fruit for Every Garden, and, mos
Jun 30, 2020 · 19 min
Creating Change with Fruit Trees
Virginie Gysel joins us to talk about transforming the grounds of a neighbourhood church into an orchard and food garden.It started when she approached the church about growing vegetables on the property in exchange for looking after the flower gardens. S
Jun 25, 2020 · 29 min
Blending Art and Garden Activism...and Jersey Tomatoes
We chat with Jeff Quattone about his work bringing seed libraries to New Jersey, plant propaganda (not propagation!), and the Jersey tomato. Quattrone is an artist, lifelong gardener, and marketing professional. He founded LIbrary Seed Bank in 2014. He ta
Jun 23, 2020 · 33 min
Tomato and Food-Garden Q+A with Ontario Backyard Plant Growers
We dig into tomato and food gardening questions from members of the Ontario Backyard Plant Growers group on Facebook.The Ontario Backyard Plant Growers Facebook Group is a group that shares information about growing plants in Ontario. It's a passionate gr
Jun 18, 2020 · 23 min
Suburban Farm and Sunken Greenhouse Build Community
Annalisa Pedraza joins us from Bozeman, Montana, where she manages the Spring Creek Community Garden. “Right now we have 30 members and that feeds about 25 households.”Spring Creek Community Garden was founded by Richard Weaver after he inherited 3 acres
Jun 16, 2020 · 16 min
Ways Gardeners Share
We’ve been talking a lot about our neighbor Joe over the past couple of days. Joe and his wife, Maria, are amazing neighbours. They always stop to chat. They share their garden harvest. And they send cookies for the kids. But the reason we’ve been talking
Jun 12, 2020 · 23 min
Start a Summer Vegetable Garden
It's not too late to grow vegetables this year. We chat with Carol Michel and Dee Nash about starting a summer vegetable garden. Michel and Nash are vegetable gardeners Indiana and Oklahoma who joined forces to produce The Gardenangelists podcast and shar
Jun 9, 2020 · 21 min
Weave Habitat Restoration into Food Gardens
Ever wondered if growing food and and growing native plants are mutually exclusive? Our guest Ryan Godfrey talks about his sixth-floor balcony garden where he weaves together edible and native plants—all in containers.Godfrey’s balcony container garden in
Jun 4, 2020 · 59 min
Nourish Community and People with Gardens—and Soup!
In this episode that originally broadcast live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with Susan Antler, the Executive Director of the Compost Council of Canada. Susan talks about using gardening and food to make change, the Plant·Grow·Share a Row pr
Jun 4, 2020 · 11 min
Francesco’s Fig Tree
The Story of a Fig Tree that Brought Together a Community Excerpt from The Food Garden Life Radio Show, June 2020 In the Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven is joined by author Helena Moncrieff, who shares the story of a Toronto gardener whose fig tree became
Jun 2, 2020 · 38 min
Growing People, Networks, and Food
Atlanta urban farmer, food system thinker, educator, changemaker, and worm whisperer Maurice Small joins us to talk about growing people, growing community, and growing food.Small talks about what got him into growing food, the urban agriculture scene in
May 28, 2020 · 37 min
Neighbourhood Foraging for the Wild Food Gourmet
Robin Henderson joins us to talk about foraging. As he was growing up, he heard family stories about the foraging of previous generations. Then, as urban growth engulfed the area where he lived, he discovered the many edible plants growing in his own neig
May 26, 2020 · 25 min
Fruit in the Urban Foodscape
Helena Moncrieff, author of The Fruitful City: The Enduring Power of the Urban Food Forest, talks about the fruit that grows in cities.Fruit plants often reflect the history of an area. Grape vines are common in neighbourhoods where a lot of residents hav
May 21, 2020 · 12 min
Grow Meyer Lemon in Containers
Emma made Meyer lemon sorbet yesterday. She made it with home-grown Meyer lemons, picked in Toronto in the month of May.Steven has grown lemons since the 1990s—but it was a visit to Bob Duncan at Fruit Trees and More Nursery in British Columbia that inspi