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

Apr 22, 2021 · 46 min
Teachings to Guide Gardeners
Today on the podcast we hang out here in Toronto to speak with Isaac Crosby. Isaac is the Urban Agriculture Lead at Toronto’s Evergreen Brickworks. During our chat, Isaac told us that, “Part of wisdom is not keeping it to yourself.” He shares with us wi
Apr 15, 2021 · 33 min
Make a Potager Garden
Today on the podcast we head to Ohio to find out more about potager gardens. Jennifer Bartley tells us about this traditional kitchen garden style from France, and how to create the same sort of food-producing garden with seasonality and a sense of intima
Apr 8, 2021 · 1 hr 2 min
Learning to be a Home Herbalist
In a broadcast that originally aired live on The Food Garden Life Radio Show, we chat with herbalist Bevin Cohen about using, growing, and foraging herbs. He talks about culinary, medicinal, and cosmetic uses. He also talks about his journey into the bus
Apr 1, 2021 · 38 min
Civil Disobedience with Vegetables
Today on the podcast we head to Quebec City to talk about civil disobedience: Civil disobedience with vegetables. Marie-Hélène Jacques from the not-for-profit organization Les Urbainculteurs – which translates into urban growers – joins us to talk about
Mar 25, 2021 · 38 min
Making Home and Corporate Vegetable Gardens
Today on the podcast we head to Montreal to hang out with Shawn Manning from Urban Seedling (https://www.urbanseedling.com/). He tells us how, 10 years ago, he channelled his love of growing vegetables into a business specialized in creating vegetable gar
Mar 18, 2021 · 37 min
Foraging as an Outdoor Classroom
We chat with forager and a wild-food educator Mike Krebill in Iowa. Krebill shares foraging tips, his insights into teaching, his approach to outdoor education—and stories from the years he spent teaching a grade seven elective course on foraging. Krebi
Mar 11, 2021 · 36 min
Forest Gardens and Fruit
We chat with forest garden designer and edible landscaper Mark Lord in south-western Germany.“A garden should be a holistic experience, feeding all of your senses, and your mind,” says Lord. He believes food gardens can be about more than just eating—that
Mar 4, 2021 · 1 hr 1 min
Step-by-Step Vegetable Gardening
We chat with author, horticulturist, and plant breeder Joseph Tychonievich (https://www.josephgardens.com/). Tychonievich shares his top tips for new vegetable gardeners. As an avid food gardener, he grows many different food crops. But every so often h
Feb 25, 2021 · 40 min
Backyard Urban Farming in Toronto
We chat with Arlene Hazzan Green and Marc Green, co-owners of The Backyard Urban Farm Company (BUFCO) in Toronto about their mission to help people grow food at home. They are edible landscapers who help people plan, plant, and maintain food gardens. The
Feb 18, 2021 · 40 min
Hunger Relief through Growing
We head to San Diego, California to chat with Mim Michelove and Nan Sterman, who share a love of growing food and involvement in food activism. As unemployment in their community grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as the local food supply became shak
Feb 11, 2021 · 49 min
Crater Garden, Regenerative Farm and Family
We head to Montana to chat with Tim Southwell of ABC Acres, the permaculture homestead he and his his wife Sarah created. Southwell, who grew up in suburban Houston, explains that it was while living in Kansas City and growing a front-yard vegetable gard
Feb 4, 2021 · 1 hr 1 min
Harvest More with No-Dig Gardening
We chat with Vermont garden educator and radio host Charlie Nardozzi (https://www.gardeningwithcharlie.com/), who discusses his journey into no-dig gardening—and why it’s good for gardeners, the soil, and the environment. He also tells us about his new b
Jan 28, 2021 · 38 min
Youth and Gardening
What inspires youth and children to garden? In today's show we speak with a 15-year-old on a mission to inspire other teens to garden, and find out about an organization helping people garden with children. We speak with 15-year-old gardener Vivien Wong
Jan 21, 2021 · 29 min
Breeding Tomatoes for the "Holy Grail"
With a reputation for unusual and wildly popular tomato varieties, tomato breeder Brad Gates focuses above all else on flavour. He didn’t start out working in tomato breeding. While working in the landscape industry, he was asked by a friend to help sell
Jan 14, 2021 · 33 min
Home and Community Cold Cellars
What’s old is new: Cold cellars are back. Transition Guelph launches an initiative to build local food-storage capacity through cold cellar education and installations. We find out what they’re doing—and get tips to help you make a home cold cellars. W
Jan 7, 2021 · 1 hr 5 min
Harvest More With Garden Bed Covers
We chat with vegetable gardening expert Niki Jabbour about using garden bed covers. She is the author of the new book, Growing Under Cover: Techniques for a More Productive, Weather-Resistant, Pest-Free Vegetable Garden. Jabbour is a Halifax-based, awar
Dec 29, 2020 · 26 min
Raspberry-Leaf Tea and other uses of the Genus Rubus
It’s an astringent. And it might already be growing in your yard or nearby. Today we take you beyond eating raspberry fruit to explore the herbal and medicinal properties of the plan...
Dec 23, 2020 · 42 min
Cultivate a Taste for Bitter Foods...and Cardoon Plants
Chef and author Jennifer McLagan (https://www.jennifermclagan.com/) joins us to talk about bitter foods, explaining what bitterness is, and how to effectively use bitter in the kitchen. McLagan is the author of the book, Bitter: A Taste of the World’s mos
Dec 17, 2020 · 31 min
Tasty Tomatoes for Small Spaces
We’re joined by tomato expert Craig LeHoullier to talk about the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project, preserving seed varieties, and to find out what’s new in his garden. LeHoullier, an avid seed saver with a passion for saving and sharing heirloom tomato varie
Dec 15, 2020 · 32 min
Farming Cold-Hardy Citrus in South Carolina
The Johnny Appleseed of cold-hardy citrus, Stan McKenzie, joins us to talk about how to grow citrus in cold climates. McKenzie talks about how he became a "citraholic" and started down the path of growing citrus on his USDA Zone 8 farm and nursery in Sout