The Maritime Gardening Podcast

A vegetable garden can be defined as an outdoor area that has been cultivated and planted with plants that taste far better than what typically grows in the wild. Given this definition, is it not totally natural that every herbivore in nature would want to eat the plant in your garden? Pests are a part …

There are plenty of gardening books and resources that speak to the merits of cold frames. At least in principle, cold frames can extend your growing season, provide produce in the winter, and give you an early start in the spring. With all that said, based on my experience, in terms of them being a …

You will find few gardeners that do not grow tomatoes each growing season, and many treat this particular plant with extra special care. The entire growing season is spent in anticipation of fresh red tomatoes growing on the vine, destined to be the star of countless salads on the dinner table. In this episode I’ll …

Saving seeds continued… How To Save Seeds The right way to save seeds is different for certain kinds of plants, so in order to keep it short, I’ve simply outlined the generalities below.  If you want more information, a good online resource is the “International Seed Saving Institute” website. When Are They Ready The leaves …

Imagine if you could buy a steak at a grocery store, and then use that steak to make more steak. Well, with many garden plants, that’s exactly how it works if you know what you are doing and have a little foresight. Saving seeds not only saves you money, it will also give you a …

Whether it’s fruit trees, berries, rhubarb or herbs, perennials are the plants that just keep giving! In this episode we’ll talk about the numbers, and why it makes so much sense to get your perennials in the ground now. Many perennials all take a number of years to get established such that you can start …

We usually associate rainy days with staying indoors, and either getting caught up on work or household chores, or just taking it easy and watching a movie. I associate rainy days with gardening, and I call them ‘moving days’, because rainy days are ideal for moving and rearranging your plants. In this episode I will …

It’s early July, and the time of year that many might be making the traditional dish “hodgepodge”, so I thought it would make sense to do and episode on a bunch of unrelated topics that have been on my mind recently, that are relevant to this stage of the growing season. I’ll talk about lawn …

The many benefits of compost in a garden are worth discussing, but more importantly, how to set up a composting system in your backyard that makes sense is even more worthy of discussion. Composting should cost nothing, take minimal effort, and give back huge returns to your garden. In this episode I talk about strategies …

Raised beds seem to be all the rage these days. From community gardens to backyards, they seem to have taken over the landscape as the preferable method for growing vegetables.  Well, I’m going to let you in a on a little secret – the plants could care less. It’s not about the lumber, it’s about …

Many of us get locked into what we are used to planting, and never try new things. In my experience, a garden can be something between a laboratory and a playground. You should always be playing around with new plants and varieties, and comparing results. In this episode I’ll discuss a few things that I’ve …

A season with marginal success can be hard on anyone. If you are new to gardening, you might want to try planting some of the things on this list in your first year, and then branch out and try harder things the following year. There’s nothing wrong with bad results in gardening, it’s just that …

Before we get into the ‘beans and potatoes’ of this episode, Dave and Greg chat about the growing problem of Ticks and Lyme Disease here in The Maritimes.  Greg tells of a recent tick encounter during a fishing trip and Dave refers to two previously produced episodes of his other show, The Maritime Outdoorsman Podcast, …

The end of May is a very important time. This is when every plant that cannot withstand frost should go into the ground (give or take a week). I’ll discuss a number of varieties, as well as some strategies that increase the odds of success with certain temperamental vegetables given how variable the climate can …

Because mulching is so central to the practice of permaculture, I thought it would make sense here to talk about how mulch can benefit your garden; what kinds are available (as well as their advantages/disdvantages); and also about weed control. Listen to this episode as we cover all of the following points: Conventional vs Permaculture …

Overwhelmed at the prospect of getting started? What are the costs? What tools do I need? I’ll make this as simple as possible: you need a minimum of 5 tools, you need some seeds or transplants, and everything else is free if you know where to look. Topics covered in this episode Choose a spot …

We should be into May by this point, so it makes sense to discuss what to plant at this time of year, and my top 5 greens, as this is generally the time to plant them as well. I will also talk a little bit about permaculture, in the event that some people may want …

This is the very first episode of the podcast (season 1). We are kicking things off by discussing the idea of getting back to having a garden, in the manner that was common among many of our parents and grandparents. While we all have busy lives, establishing a garden can be seen as a means …