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

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

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.

Publisher

Steven Biggs: Horticulturist and edible landscaping expert.

Category

arts · leisure

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Apr 2019

Latest episode

15 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

271 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   15 Oct 2026

   Wicking Beds: Watering from the Bottom Up

   Get practical food-gardening ideas in your inbox with Food Garden Life News (https://www.foodgardenlife.com/). It’s free, and you’ll hear about new articles, classes, and events too. - - What if you could water your vegetable garden from below instead of above? Wicking beds have a built-in water reservoir beneath the soil. Water moves upwards through capillary action, supplying moisture to plant roots. In this episode, Steven Biggs talks with Alberta permaculture designer Rob Avis about how wicking beds work, how to build them, and where they make sense. Rob shares lessons from building wicking beds in his own garden and for community projects. He also talks about their limitations, including the risk of keeping soil too wet and the extra attention needed to maintain soil fertility. The conversation takes a fascinating turn into the bigger picture of water management, soil health, and soil carbon. In this episode: How wicking beds use capillary action to move water upwards The advantages of watering from below Where wicking beds make sense, including small urban gardens Why it's important to let soil dry out between waterings Building tips, including reservoirs, liners, fill pipes, and overflow drains Soil mixes, compost, and maintaining fertility in raised beds Lessons from a large community-garden wicking-bed project How water management and soil carbon are connected Resources From the Bottom Up: A DIY Guide to Wicking Beds (https://vergepermaculture.ca/guide-to-wicking-beds/) by Rob Avis, Verge Permaculture. Includes diagrams, photographs, and construction guidance. Fifth World (https://5thworld.com/): Rob's landscape design and ecological restoration work. Rob also offers a data-based Land Inspection service (https://5thworld.com/land-inspection/) through 5th World, using maps and environmental data to help property owners and prospective buyers understand drainage, soils, sun exposure, and other site characteristics. About Rob Avis Rob Avis is a permaculture designer and co-founder of Verge Permaculture. His work focuses on designing productive landscapes, managing water, and restoring ecological systems, from urban properties to larger rural landscapes.

2. 

   13 Aug 2026

   The Indiana Jones of Pawpaws: Neal Peterson’s Remarkable Search

   The revised fig book is now on Kickstarter The special hardcover edition of Grow Figs Where You Think You Can’t and registration for the October 15 and 22 Fig Camp are available now. A lower-priced softcover will follow this fall. See the book and Fig Camp options. (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevenbiggs/grow-figs-where-you-think-you-cant) --- Pawpaw season is nearly here—and this week we’re revisiting a conversation with one of the people responsible for bringing this remarkable fruit back into the spotlight. Neal Peterson is sometimes called the Indiana Jones of pawpaws. After tasting his first pawpaw, he became fascinated by a fruit that had once attracted considerable attention from plant breeders but had largely fallen into obscurity. Peterson dug through old horticultural records and tracked down surviving trees from early breeding programs. Those discoveries became the foundation of his own pawpaw breeding work. In this episode, Emma and Steven talk with Neal about: His first taste of pawpaw—and why it changed the direction of his life His search for nearly forgotten pawpaw varieties How pawpaws grow in the wild Why pawpaws fruit better in sun than in deep shade Pollination and the need for two genetically distinct trees Growing two pawpaw trees in a small garden Choosing early-ripening varieties for colder climates Why wild pawpaws can be very seedy How Peterson bred pawpaws with more flesh and fewer seeds Growing pawpaws from seed Caring for young pawpaw trees Managing suckers from grafted trees Pawpaws are understorey trees in the wild, but that doesn’t mean shade is the best place for fruit production. Neal explains why trees growing in brighter locations are usually more productive. He also shares a wonderfully practical space-saving suggestion: if your garden is small, plant two genetically different pawpaw trees only a couple of feet apart. A 2026 update Neal no longer sells pawpaw trees or fruit directly. He continues his breeding work, and the Peterson Pawpaws website (https://www.petersonpawpaws.com/) provides growing information and lists nurseries offering his varieties.

3. 

   6 Aug 2026

   Bonus: Remembering Bob Duncan—“Let’s Try It”

   The revised fig book is now on Kickstarter The special hardcover edition of Grow Figs Where You Think You Can’t and registration for the October 15 and 22 Fig Camp are available now. A lower-priced softcover will follow this fall. See the book and Fig Camp options. (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevenbiggs/grow-figs-where-you-think-you-cant) --- Bob Duncan showed Canadian gardeners that the line between possible and impossible isn’t always where we think it is. At Fruit Trees and More, the nursery and demonstration orchard he ran with his wife, Verna, on Vancouver Island, Bob grew figs, lemons, olives, yuzu, loquats, feijoas and many other fruits that gardeners might not expect to see growing in Canada. Bob was also extraordinarily generous with his knowledge. I wrote about his work in my books about growing figs, lemons and olives—and turned to him many times with questions. In this special tribute episode, I’ve gone back through recordings from my visits and conversations with Bob. Some were made while we walked through his garden; others come from longer interviews about citrus and unusual fruit. You’ll hear Bob talk about: His enormous Meyer lemon tree, which produced more than 400 lemons annually Why keeping a citrus tree alive is different from bringing its fruit to harvest His focus on breba figs Growing olives on Vancouver Island Why yuzu is especially well suited to coastal British Columbia The danger of keeping container-grown citrus too wet The thinking that led him to try growing these unlikely fruits in the first place Near the end of one of our conversations, Bob summed up his approach in five words: “So I thought to myself, ‘Let’s try it.’” Bob died on July 20, 2026. My condolences go to Verna, Bob’s family, and the many gardeners who learned from him. You can read more about Bob’s remarkable life—and find details of the August 24 celebration of life—in his obituary (https://www.mccallgardens.com/obituaries/robert-william-patrick-bob-duncan/?utm_source=chatgpt.com).

Who has been a guest on Food Garden Life: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible Landscaping

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Charlie Nardozzi
• Frank Hyman
• Brent Poole
• Candace Benson
• Helen Battersby

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.5 / 5

19 ratings

Spotify

4.7 / 5

12 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 58 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

80

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

90

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

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.