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

May 19, 2020 · 29 min
Grow a Food Garden You Love
Emily Murphy finds daily inspiration in her garden in Northern California. She describes her passion for gardening as, “A love affair.”Emily got an early start in gardening. “If you were around in the 70’s, I was the kid down the road whose family was gro
May 14, 2020 · 19 min
Connecting Food with Eaters
Backyard food gardener Dushan Batrovic tells us about his journey into food gardening.After growing up in a family that gardened, Dushan took a break from gardening. But when he started gardening again, the taste of fresh garden produce made him an advoca
May 12, 2020 · 22 min
An Urban Hot Pepper Container Garden
We chat with pepper expert Claus Nader, owner of East York Chile Peppers in Toronto, Ontario.Claus tells us about his urban hot-pepper container garden.He grows specialty peppers, saves seeds, and makes hot sauces, pickled peppers, jams, salsas, and dehyd
May 7, 2020 · 15 min
Off the Beaten Path with…Figs
Growing Unusual Fruit in PA Excerpt from The Food Garden Life Radio Show, May 2020 In The Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven talks with Bill Lauris, a chemistry teacher and nursery operator in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who loves growing figs and other unusual f
May 7, 2020 · 1 hr 2 min
Gardening Your Front Yard
In this broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, author and gardening expert Tara Nolan joins us to talk about front yard gardens and share ideas from her new book, Gardening Your Front Yard: Projects and Ideas for Big and
May 5, 2020 · 14 min
Urban Farming, Liberating Lawns, Building Community
Cheyenne Sundance talks about how she started her urban farm, Sundance Harvest, when she didn’t see urban farms representing the diversity she felt they should.A believer that independence is growing food, Cheyenne teaches and mentors youth, sharing her p
Apr 30, 2020 · 17 min
Create a “Food Street” with Food Up Front
Mark Stewart and Kassie Miedema join us to tell us about a grassroots program encouraging people to grow food in front yards. The idea is to produce more food locally—and to connect people around food.Participants in the program can also put up a sign in
Apr 28, 2020 · 23 min
Growing a Chinese-Style Kitchen Garden
Wendy Kiang-Spray, author of The Chinese Kitchen Garden, joins us to talk about about vegetable crops used in Chinese cuisine, Chinese intensive gardening, and her family’s gardening journey.Her book weaves together stories and photos from three generatio
Apr 23, 2020 · 26 min
New and Favourite Food-Garden Crops with Niki Jabbour
We check in with vegetable gardening expert Niki Jabbour in Nova Scotia to find out what’s new in her garden for 2020, and to see what favourites she is growing.Niki is the author of Veggie Garden Remix, Groundbreaking Food Gardens, and The Year-Round Veg
Apr 21, 2020 · 30 min
Gardens and Healing
Stephanie Rose has a passion for inspiring other people to grow and use plants. It’s a passion that began with her own journey of healing herself by taking up gardening. Stephanie is a Vancouver-based award-winning author, speaker, and master gardener who
Apr 16, 2020 · 27 min
Raising 70% on a Half Acre
Rob and Chris Croley at Sentimental Farm in Niagara, Ontario, Canada grow about 70 per cent of the food they need on their 1/2 acre urban homestead.An interest in self-sufficiency that started with growing vegetables has grown to include chickens, bees, m
Apr 13, 2020 · 30 min
Saving Seeds and the Stories Behind Them
Ben Cohen, the author of Saving Our Seeds, joins us to talk about seed-saving, seed libraries, and the importance of community seed-sharing programs.An author, herbalist, gardener, and educator, Ben farms with his family in Michigan.They started Small Hou
Apr 9, 2020 · 21 min
A Mission to Turn Lawns into Food Gardens
Linda Borghi from Farm-A-Yard joins us to talk about how she got into growing food, her first farm, her move into SPIN-Farming (small-plot-intensive), and her current work in communications with her Farm-A-Yard project. Her mission is to teach others how
Apr 3, 2020 · 34 min
No-Dig, No-Weed, No-Bend Gardening
Horticulturist Joel Karsten, a pioneer of the straw-bale gardening technique, talks about the concept of straw-bale gardening. He explains how it works, where it can be used, and how to make it work well.Karsten, who grows vegetables in a 24-bale garden o
Apr 1, 2020 · 1 hr 1 min
Farm the City, Garden with Grains
In this broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with farmer, author, and food system activist Micheal Abelman. Michael is a visionary of the urban farming movement. In addition to his family farm on Salt Spring
Mar 31, 2020 · 34 min
Hens, Hay, and How to Cook Cardoon
Food writer Signe Langford from Port Hope, Ontario talks about her passion for growing food, her food garden, cooking, and how her garden connects her with her community.
Mar 24, 2020 · 10 min
Choose The Right Tomato Varieties
With more than 10, 000 known varieties, how do you choose which tomato to grow? Host Emma Biggs talks about things to consider when choosing tomato varieties for your garden.Emma talks about:Days to maturity (DTM), growth habit, fruit type, flavour, appea
Mar 22, 2020 · 21 min
Sandy Soil and a Greenhouse on Vancouver Island
Donna tells us about gardening on her very sandy soil, talks about how she uses a greenhouse to harvest year-round, and shares some of her favourite crops.As well as being an avid gardener, Donna is a gardener, horticulturist, garden journalist. She is th
Mar 6, 2020 · 1 hr 6 min
Artistic Front-Yard Garden, Anti-Inflammatory Food, Grow Luffa
On this rebroadcast of an episode that aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with garden and wellness expert Shawna Coronado, who talks about getting community buy-in for her front-yard vegetable garden, and then turning that garden into
Mar 5, 2020 · 9 min
Heat Column to Protect Figs in Cold Climates
Excerpt from the live radio show, March 2020 In The Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven talks with Will Pananes, a fig grower in Pennsylvania who uses heat column to protect his figs over the winter.