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.
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Food plants are usually assigned to the vegetable patch, while ornamental borders are expected to sit there and look respectable. Garden designer Harry Holding sees no good reason for such strict garden zoning.

Harry is the author of Eat Your Garden: Edimentals as a Beautiful, Low-Effort Way to Grow Food. Edimentals are plants that are both edible and ornamental, allowing us to grow food throughout a garden without giving up colour, texture, structure, or beauty. Harry is the founder of Harry Holding Studio, and his School Food Matters Garden at the 2023 RHS Chelsea Flower Show received a Silver-Gilt medal and the People’s Choice Award.

In this conversation, Harry explains how edible plants can create a foraging or grazing experience right outside the door. We talk about designing in layers, using constraints to make plant choices easier, and creating ecologically rich plant communities that cover the soil and leave less room for weeds.

Harry also shares ideas for small gardens, courtyards, balconies, and containers. His approach is to imagine the space planted first, then carve out the paths, seating areas, morning-coffee spots, and evening gin-and-tonic headquarters.

We talk about:

• What an edimental plant is
• Why food can be a gateway to connecting with nature
• Combining edible plants with ornamental garden design
• Structural plants, seasonal highlights, and ground-cover layers
• Using colour, texture, height, and growing conditions as useful constraints
• Designing abundant edible gardens in small spaces
• Why annual vegetables sometimes struggle in established perennial plantings
• Questioning gardening rules and learning through experiments
• How to begin adding edimentals to an existing garden

Harry also talks about some fascinating edible ornamentals, including Saskatoon berries, sea kale, sochan, king’s spear, Korean aster, citron daylily, lamb’s ear, hostas, chives, and bladder campion.

His parting advice is simple: make a little room, try unfamiliar plants, and grow what brings you joy. A garden should not become another stern supervisor. It should be a place that makes your heart sing.

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.
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In this episode, Steven revisits a 2020 conversation with farmer, author, photographer, and urban agriculture pioneer Michael Ableman.

Ableman is the co-founder of Vancouver’s Sole Food Street Farms, an urban farming project that turns city land into productive growing space while creating meaningful work and community connection. His book Farm the City: A Toolkit for Setting Up a Successful Urban Farm shares practical lessons from that work, including how to find land, choose crops, build markets, navigate regulations, raise funds, and engage the community.

This is not just a conversation about growing vegetables in unlikely places. It’s about what happens when food growing becomes a way to rethink land, work, dignity, neighbourhoods, and the purpose of a farm.

For home gardeners, there’s a useful reminder here: gardens are never only about yield. They can feed people, yes. But they can also create beauty, connection, routine, and purpose.

In this episode:

• Why urban farming is more than putting raised beds on pavement
• How Sole Food Street Farms uses farming to create jobs and community
• What urban farmers need to think about beyond growing crops
• Lessons from Farm the City
• Why food gardens can be practical, social, and quietly radical
• What home gardeners can learn from urban farms, even on a much smaller scale

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.
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Once garlic comes out of the garden, you’re left with a useful patch of open soil and one big question: what goes there next?

In this episode, we talk through summer succession planting using garlic harvest as the seasonal peg. He explains how timing, climate, heat, dry soil, and first frost dates all affect what you can plant after garlic or after any early crop that frees up garden space.

You’ll learn which crops are easiest to direct seed in summer, when transplants are a better bet, and how to use shade, boards, mulch, and row cover to improve germination and protect young plants.

Topics include:

• Why garlic harvest timing varies by region
• Direct seeding vs. starting transplants
• How to deal with dry soil, heat, strong sun, and crusting
• Easy summer succession crops such as bush beans, basil, dill, rapini, and greens
• Crops for fall harvest, including spinach, beets, carrots, turnips, winter radishes, kale, and Asian greens
• Why bush snap beans are a better follow crop than pole or dry beans
• How to decide whether cucumbers and summer squash are worth planting after garlic
• Tips for short-season and cold-climate gardeners
• A simple “succession seed bin” system to make replanting easier

Succession planting doesn’t have to mean filling every inch perfectly. It’s about using open space in a way that fits your garden, your season, and your available energy.

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.
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I once flew home with an olive tree in a suitcase. Maybe not what the average traveller would do, but I was visiting a nursery that had a variety I wanted…which says something about my priorities.

Even where olive trees aren’t winter hardy, they make superb potted plants. Their silvery foliage shimmers in a breeze, they look beautiful on a patio, and they make a cold-climate garden feel just a little more civilized.

Olive trees are tough, forgiving, and well suited to pots. The trick is remembering that a pot changes everything, especially in winter. And while getting olives isn’t guaranteed, there are practical ways to improve your odds.

In this episode, I talk about growing olive trees in pots where they’re not normally hardy: why to grow them, where to put them, how to overwinter them, and what helps them fruit.

Want more? My 2026 Olive Camp recordings are available here. Or check out my book Grow Olives Where You Think You Can't, available at FoodGardenLife.com or on Amazon.

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.
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Common quince is beautiful, fragrant, useful in the kitchen—and still surprisingly uncommon in Canadian gardens. In this episode, I talk with Matt Soltys, The Urban Orchardist, about why this old fruit deserves another look.

Matt shares what he’s seeing as he visits urban fruit trees across southern Ontario: backyard quince trees, older pawpaws, locally adapted genetics, and overlooked trees that could become the foundation of future breeding work. We talk about common quince as a small garden tree, how it differs from Japanese quince, why one tree can be plenty, how the fruit is used, its role as pear rootstock, and simple pruning ideas for healthier fruit trees.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing common quince in cold-climate gardens
• Why quince is such a good fit for home gardeners
• The difference between common quince and Japanese quince
• Quince preserves, cider, and other kitchen uses
• Fruit-tree breeding and locally adapted genetics
• Pawpaws, pears, and other unexpected urban fruit trees
• Pruning quince and other backyard fruit trees

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.
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Growing tomatoes in a cool or maritime climate can feel like an uphill battle. It doesn’t have to be.

In this episode, I’m joined by tomato expert Holly Farrell, author of The Tomato Grower’s Handbook, to talk about how to get reliable, flavourful harvests even when summers are mild, damp, or unpredictable.

We dig into practical strategies for gardeners in places like coastal Canada, the UK, and the U.S. Pacific Northwest—where heat is limited and blight is always lurking.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why variety choice matters more than anything else
• The difference between bush (determinate) and cordon (indeterminate) tomatoes
• How to use microclimates (walls, courtyards, sunny corners) to your advantage
• Simple ways to add protection—from cloches to greenhouses
• How to reduce risk from blight in damp conditions
• Tips for growing tomatoes in:
  • Balconies
  • Containers
  • Garden beds
  • Tunnels & greenhouses
• How to deal with wind exposure (especially coastal winds)
• Holly’s favourite tomato varieties for different uses

If you’ve ever struggled to ripen tomatoes or deal with disease pressure, this episode will give you a clearer path forward.

If you would like to see what Holly is up to in the garden, here is her Instagram handle.

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.
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Pears deserve more respect in cold-climate gardens. While apples dominate the conversation, there are pear varieties that are just as hardy. The problem is, most growers don’t know about them. Varieties like Krazulya, Vekovaya, and Ure aren’t widely planted, but they probably should be.

In this episode, I chat with Elisabeth Racine from Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery, where they’re testing about 200 pear varieties. We talk about what it takes to grow pears successfully in colder zones, including variety selection, pollination, feeding, and training.

We also talk about some top cold-hardy pear varieties and the most common mistakes home growers make when planting pears.

If you’ve ever wondered whether pears are worth the space in a northern garden—or which variety to choose if you only have room for one tree—this conversation will help you decide.

Topics covered include:

• Why pears are a worthwhile cold-climate fruit crop
• How far north pears can realistically be grown
• The importance of variety selection
• Top cold-hardy pear varieties for home growers
• Pollination requirements
• What most people get wrong when planting pears
• How long it takes for pear trees to produce

And if you’re looking for more on cold-hardy fruit, tune in to this episode about growing fruit in cold climates with Veronique from Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery!

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.
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Designing a vegetable garden can feel simple—until you try to make everything fit. Rows or raised beds? What goes where? And how do you plan it so it still makes sense in July?

In this episode, I sit down with Natalie Bogwalker and Chloe Lieberman, authors of The New Natural Food Garden, to talk through practical, thoughtful ways to design a productive vegetable garden.

We cover the decisions that matter most—layout, crop choice, and how to make a plan that you’ll actually follow through on.

In this episode:

• Rows vs. beds: what works, and why
• Choosing crops for your space, climate, and habits
• How to place crops so they grow well (and don’t get in each other’s way)
• Making a garden plan you’ll stick with
• A look at no-till methods and how they fit into garden design

This is a conversation about making your garden simpler, more productive, and more doable—not more complicated.

Find out more about the book and about their online gardening programs on their website.