The Next Gen Authors, Part 3: Steven and Emma Biggs

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series I’m calling The Next Gen Authors, about three Authors I know and have promoted, and their daughters who have also all become published authors – in their own right! Or maybe that should be, “in their own write” in this case … (Part 1, Part 2)

Steven Biggs and Emma Biggs
The Garage Gardeners

I promoted Steven Biggs, along with his co-author Donna Balzer, when they first published their gardening book, No Guff Vegetable Gardening. Steven has made an appearance on my Reading Recommendations blog, but is not yet an A-RI Author – although that’s soon to be rectified! Since the book he was promoting on RR was Grow Gardeners. Kid-Tested Gardening with Children: A 4-Step Approach, I’ve been taking great interest in how Steven is doing just that with his own daughter, Emma. However, not only has he raised a gardener, but also an author who is now writing her own gardening books!

Emma Biggs Biography

Emma Biggs is a 15-year-old gardener and garden communicator. Emma raised over 130 tomato varieties in her Toronto garden in 2019—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 of her stories—and the source of produce that she sells in her neighborhood. Emma gives talks at libraries, seed exchanges, garden clubs, and garden shows. She is the co-host of The Food Garden Life Show, and co-host of kids gardening videos on the From Dirt to Dishes gardening channel on YouTube. She has a monthly blog on the Harrowsmith Magazine website about growing tomatoes. Her latest book, Gardening with Emma, helps kids find the fun in gardening (and helps adults remember how much fun gardening is!).

From Harrowsmith Magazine, May 2020: Harrowsmith Gen XYZ – Emma’s Edible Yard – A Tomato that Looks Like Candy by Emma Biggs

Book: Gardening with Emma

Written for kids by a kid. Emma, shows young gardeners how to grow healthy food, raise cool plants, and have fun outdoors in the garden.

There are tips for making fun garden hideaways such as a sunflower house or bee tee-pee. Learn how to make a bug vacuum. And get ideas for kid-friendly theme gardens including a rainbow garden, a sound garden, and a tickling garden.

Gardening with Emma is a kid-to-kid guide to growing healthy food and raising the coolest, most awesome plants while making sure there’s plenty of fun. With plants that tickle and make noise, tips for how to grow a flower stand garden, and suggestions for veggies from tiny to colossal, Emma offers a range of original, practical, and entertaining advice and inspiration. She provides lots of useful know-how about soil, sowing, and caring for a garden throughout the seasons, along with ways to make play spaces among the plants. Lively photography and Emma’s own writing (with some help from her gardening dad, Steve) capture the authentic creativity of a kid who loves to be outdoors, digging in the dirt.

Thirteen-year-old Emma Biggs is passionate about gardening and eager to share her passion with other kids!

More info here too on Steven’s website.

Promo Plans

Emma has been doing a lot of speaking engagements, including Mother Earth News Fair in Texas earlier this year. All is on hold now…but we’re doing the podcast 2x a week now and getting a good following. Emma was recently on CBC, The Survival Podcast, and The Weekend Gardener radio show

Emma’s Current Projects

–          Emma made her own website using photos she takes.

–          She is very active on Instagram, promoting gardening.

–          This winter and spring Emma has been selling tomato seed on her website

–          This spring she will be having a tomato transplant sale (at a distance…still figuring out the logistics)

–          Lots of gardens underway with more new tomato varieties

–          Writing a book about tomatoes