Gardening Out Loud

In this episode . . .

In praise of Canada goldenrod. Strategies for savouring summer. A magical harvest dinner. Saving cosmos, nasturtium, and calendula seeds. My squirrels love honeynut squash. A taste of the tropics with ground cherries.

Most of Gardening Out Loud focuses on gardeners, but in Toronto there are a few ingenious folks farming in people’s gardens. Sylvia Cheng of Growing Tkaronto Floristry is one of those people growing gorgeous blooms on borrowed land, creating little pockets of abundance beside busy city streets.

I came to Sylvia for her perspective on farming in gardens, working with landowners, and, of course, growing beautiful dahlias. On a beautiful late summer day, we checked out her home plot, one growing in the neighbour’s backyard, and hopped our bikes to visit a front yard dahlia plot just exploding with colour.

Tune in to learn a bit about some challenges of urban floristry, tips for healthy dahlias, and why growing local flowers matters.

If you’d like to learn more about Sylvia and Growing Tkaronto, check out her website and her Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this little peek into urban flower farming and have a new understanding of why some of why local bouquets have higher price tags.

In this episode . . .

On embracing creativity as an adult and finding flow state. A tour of all the plants and flowers I use in arrangements. Basic tips for bouquets and arrangements. The benefits of growing your own cut flowers.

The book that taught me so much about arranging seasonal flowers: A Year in Flowers by Erin Benzakein.

I get my spring bulbs from Flowerbulbsrus. (Not sponsored.)

Specific plant varieties mentioned: Black Knight scabiosa, Costa Silver snapdragons, Black Prince snapdragons, Little Lime hydrangea, cosmos Apricot Lemonade, cosmos Snow Puff, ninebark Diablo, geranium Rose of Attar.

In this episode . . .

A passionfruit-scented rose. Tomatoes, beans, cukes. The squash plants persevere. Sprouting broccoli lessons. Planters are not litterboxes (and yet . . .) Surprise cucamelons continue. Attack of the 11-foot tomato plant. Some container successes.

Specific seed varieties mentioned: Purple Peacock pole beans, Blue Lake pole beans, dahlia Hollyhill Black Beauty, dahlia Lakeview Peach Fuzz, dahlia Karras 150, cosmos Apricot Lemonade, ninebark Diablo, Aspabroc sprouting broccoli, Mesclun mix, Duke blueberry, geranium Attar of Roses, Coyote tomato, Fall Gold raspberries. The ruffled tomato in the container I couldn’t remember is called Costoluto Fiorentino.

In this episode . . .

Cultivating awe. Visits from cardinals and teen robins. Updates from the zinnia and the dahlia patch. Garden time moves differently.

Specific seed varieties from this episode: dahlia Hollyhill Black Beauty. Queen Lime zinnia series.

If you want to learn more about awe, check out the interviews I mentioned with Dacher Kaltner: On Being and How We Live Now. You can also read Keltner’s new book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday. And let me know what brings little doses of awe to your life.

In this episode . . .

A calla lily experiment. The resilience of mouse melons. All hail the 2023 garlic harvest. First tomato. Dahlias and tomatoes are here. Plus: zinnias! Beans! Cucumbers!

Specific seed varieties from this episode: dragon’s tongue bush beans, Cosmonaut Volkov tomatoes, Piccolo cucumbers, Eleonora basil, tulsi (holy basil), dahlia Lakeview Peach Fuzz, snowpuff cosmos.

Another guest episode! Last year, as part of Urban Agriculture Week in Toronto, I visited Maria Solakofski’s garden in East York, and I found myself signing up for a workshop just so I could return days later. Listen in and I think you’ll get a sense of why.

Maria is an herbalist and educator growing a wildly abundant garden according to permaculture principles. She sells tisanes, skincare, and other herbal products, and runs workshops and a mentorship program out of her East York yard.

You’ll find this episode runs a bit longer than the other guest episodes, because we covered three gardens — and if you like listening as much as I liked being there, I don’t want to cut it short.

Tune in to learn a bit about permaculture, but also unique berries, growing in containers, soil amendment, and cooperating with wildlife. The episode also feature’s the pod’s first-ever groundhog guest.

If you’d like to learn more about Maria and her garden, check out her website, Wild by Nature, to learn more about her offerings. I hope you enjoyed soaking in her knowledge and enthusiasm, and you too always remember her prompt to enjoy something you don’t strictly need: “But wouldn’t it be nice?”

Lastly, I can’t seem to record a guest podcast without an audio problem (🤦‍♀️) and you’ll find the last three minutes with Maria are a bit of a shambles because it seems my new mic didn’t connect and you were getting raw phone audio. I encourage you to keep listening though — those are some of the most vital minutes of the conversation. One day I’ll crack this audio thing, I swear. Listening to my intro this morning, I thought maybe it’s making me sound like a robot, so my mic search may continue. Thank you for your grace as I stumble my way through. At a certain point, you’ll also hear some rambunctious play from a nearby yard, because that’s just life in the city.

In this episode . . .

After the rain (cue Jim Cuddy). Why I’m done with comfrey tea even if it’s not done with me. Milkweed multiplies. Collecting kale seed. Surprise mouse melons. More edible “weeds” and surprise appearances. A special guest monarch. First zinnia (Queen Lime Blush). Leaf thievery and its many uses.

In this episode . . .

The great fence drama of 2023, and why a chain-link fence can be a wonderful thing. First strawflowers and blueberries. Borage abounds. Pinching dahlias. A return to broccoli.

Gardens I visited last weekend: Artemesia Daylilies and Fiddlehead Nursery — they’re just down the road from each other.

In this episode . . .

Snapdragons and poppies in their prime. Serviceberry mystery solved? Revelling in raspberries. On growing friendship. Mulberries as economy of abundance.

If you’re in Toronto and have a fruit tree you’d like harvested, or would like to help harvest other people’s trees, sign up for Not Far from the Tree. Similar groups also exist in cities all over the world.