Gardening with the Younger Generation
March 4th 2019. 19:30 to 21:30
Mon, 4 March 2019
7:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Toronto Botanical Garden
777 Lawrence Avenue East
TBG members free, public $15
If you’ve ever lamented that “teenagers these days aren’t interested in gardening,” 13-year-old Emma will give you hope for the future. She loves gardening so much that she wrote a book about it with her dad, Steven. Emma grows more than 100 tomato varieties in her garden and enjoys exploring unusual crops. She and her dad will share stories about gardening together as well as advice on how to inspire young people to get their hands dirty.
After the lecture, Emma's most recent book, Gardening with Emma, will be available for sale and signing.
About Emma Biggs
Emma Biggs is a 13-year-old gardener and garden communicator. Emma raised more than 130 tomato varieties in her Toronto garden in 2018—gardening in containers, in straw bales on a driveway, in a neighbour’s yard, in wicking beds under a walnut tree, and on the garage roof. Her garden is the source of many stories, and of produce that she sells in her neighborhood.
In 2015, at the age of nine, Emma co-authored Grow Gardeners: Kid-Tested Gardening with Children with her father, and started helping him at garden talks and workshops. For the past couple of years, Emma has been giving her own talks at libraries, seed exchanges, garden clubs and garden shows. Emma is the co-host of The Garage Gardeners Radio Show. She hosts kids gardening videos on the From Dirt to Dishes gardening channel on YouTube.
Her latest book, Gardening with Emma, helps kids find the fun in gardening (and helps adults remember how much fun gardening is!). Check her out at emmabiggs.ca.
About Steven Biggs
Steven Biggs is a horticulturist and writer specializing in gardening, farming and food production. Steven shares his garden successes and failures in his talks and writing. Despite his misgivings about what his neighbours might think, removing his front lawn to make a garden full of edible plants turned out to be a big success and a great way to meet people. However, his parsnip wine was less of a success.
Steven is the co-author of the 2011 best-seller No Guff Vegetable Gardening as well as author of the 2012 Grow Figs Where You Think You Can’t . In 2015, he collaborated with his daughter, Emma, to write a fun, easy-to-follow guide to gardening with children called Grow Gardeners: Kid-tested Gardening with Children. Steven’s writing has won awards from the Canadian Farm Writers Federation, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Garden Writer’s Association.
Together with Emma, he hosts The Garage Gardeners Radio Show, where they interview interesting gardeners from across North America who push garden boundaries. Now, with the release of Gardening with Emma, Steven is enjoying his new role as Emma’s secretary. Check him out at stevenbiggs.ca.