Artistic Front-Yard Garden, Anti-Inflammatory Food, Grow Luffa
Shawna Coronado’s front-yard vegetable garden
Food Garden Life is a show about pushing garden boundaries. If you’ve tuned in before, you might notice the change in the show name. With this episode we celebrate 2 years on the air. WHY THE NAME CHANGE? As we looked through past interviews, we realized that we invite mostly people who grow food and edible plants. To celebrate that focus, we’re calling the show Food Garden Life.
Artistic Front-Yard Veg + Anti-Inflammatory Food
Our first guest is garden and wellness expert Shawna Coronado from Arizona. Shawna is a garden expert and the author of 8 books. She brings together gardening and healthy eating. Shawna talks about getting community buy-in for her front-yard vegetable garden—and about making that garden a work of art.
Her most recent book, Stacked with Flavor: An Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook with Dairy-Free, Grain-Free & Low-Sugar Recipes, was inspired by her struggle with severe degenerative osteoarthritis. When Shawna found herself crippled by the condition, yet not satisfied with the idea of living the rest of her life on pain killers, she tried changing her diet as a last-ditch effort. This book shares that journey along with practical, flavourful cooking ideas. Shawna gives a practical look at how to undertake an anti-inflammatory diet.
Beautiful Luffa: A Guide and Workbook for Growing, Using, and Enjoying Sponge Gourds
Grow Luffa
In the second part of the show, we chat with natural beauty products expert Janice Cox about growing luffa (a.k.a. loofah). Hear about using luffa for personal care, as a natural sponge, to hold water in flower pots, for arranging flowers—and to eat! Janice talks about 3 key things to give your luffa plants: sun, support, and pollinators.
Janice found that when she gave talks about natural beauty products, she always had a lot of questions about luffa—so she wrote a book about it, called, “Beautiful Luffa: A Guide and Workbook for Growing, Using, and Enjoying Sponge Gourds.”
Luffa aegyptiaca is the type of luffa most often offered for sale at seed companies; it is quite fibrous, making it suitable for a strong scrubbing sponge (it is also known as Egyptian cucumber.) Luffa acutangula is the best bet for eating.
In Emma’s Tomato-Talk segment she chats with Hanna Jacobs from Matchbox Garden & Seed Company in southern Ontario about some of Hanna’s favourite tomatoes.
In the Biggs-on-Figs segment, Steven chats with Will Pananes from south-central Pennsylvania about his innovative use of a heat column to overwinter fig trees. Look at the 2015 blog post titled, “Making a Heat Column for In-Ground Fig Plants.” There will be more photos to come from Will in fall 2020…stay tuned to the blog!
“You have to be a little crazy!”
Will Pananes talking about finding ways to grow figs in cold climates