Jìgìjìgì: Africulture Podcast

Where have you been??! Let’s welcome ourselves back to the soil, having deployed these techniques we’ve come to understand. What did we learn? Works Referenced: Tackling food insecurity through urban farming A youth-led program in Charlotte’s West Boulevard neighborhood combats food insecurity Odù to Sow Seeds To “God made the Soil, but we made it Fertile” Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Transcript (automated) Where have you been? Peace, I am Mason Olonade and this is Jìgìjìgì: Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul, so we share strategies for how to do both. To do both we ask two questions:How do you grow while you grow Kale, Collards, Tomatoes, and Melons.And why, do you think, the healthiest soils are Black? And today, a third. Where have you been? It’s been over two years since I last spoke to you, my patient Siblings of the Soil, and I have no quick answer. Not that you’d expect one from me anyway. Shortly after my interview with Dr. Zama I began my primary research, implementing these discussed theories, and moving forward I will be sharing the results of this research with you all. However, there is just…some issues with it. -:-:- I started as the Farm Manager of Three Sisters Farm and Market in March of 2022. I managed a modest city plot of a quarter-of-an-acre, or just over 1,011 m2. We had bees and teenaged boys and girls. I was featured on both television and local radio with one of my boys! From this television appearance I was asked to contribute to a forthcoming publication that I am immensely excited to share with you all when it comes out. As I listened back to these programs I now understand what my issue is. I then had the same issue. What have I gotten myself into!? When I listen back to my voice I hear a exhausted excitement. On its face it seems contradictory but it isn’t. Running just that quarter acre was physically exhausting. Moving wet, moldy, and fungal wood chips to build up sun-baked eroded soils was strenuous, dusty, and sweaty and navigating the internal landscape of my youth. That was hardest part. On the other hand, one afternoon I asked my staff if anyone, over the weekend, had any interesting dreams. One of them said,
 “Mr. Mason I just slept all weekend.”and another“Yo, no bullshit, sorry Mr. Mason, I’ve never slept better than right now.” Indeed, we were all being rejuvenated. -:-:-:- One morning in the fall of 2021 when I was a mere volunteer, the then manager Mr. Rickey had a family emergency and left me in charge. I distanced myself from demanding authority and asked he boys, who had more experience than I did with this piece of land, what did they think needed to be done? They answered, I gestured, and the work was done. Towards the end they spelled our BLACK FARMER with crimson clover seeds by the entrance. One of the most independent young men there said,“On God, this is the best, well lemme not say that, one of the best days I’ve had on the farm.” The OmniSicer gave me that one, and The Ultimate Comedian told a joke on me that day because that was the last time I heard those words. And that was a good thing. -:-:-:- My issue right now is that it is hard to write for this podcast because so much has changed! Where I live and record, my thoughts on whether or not there is a point to the podcast, or there is a point to urban agriculture in general, or more specifically because of1. Rising cost of urban real estate2. Inconvenience3. The Economic Status of Our People4. The Economic Nature of Non-Profits
 5. Urban Soil Hygiene?
 6. Shouldn’t food be free?
 7. The February 1st Episode kind of ended the podcast, right? Each one of these could be an entire episode if not series but ultimately I recognize now that the issue is the issue of hard work. Facing these questions I asked myself another, again:What have I gotten myself into? Hard Work. -:-:- One day, face with the reality of being late again due, primarily to being moved across town, the Brothers Jay and Bobby were pressed to get to work The same naive confidence that Jay skillfully wields to confront and navigate the realities of his difficult environment living with less-than-capable articulation turned into foolishness by leaving much later than “on time.” His younger brother Bobby stormed up with hill after they arrived an hour-and-a-half after we opened for the day. We’re only open for three hours. When Jay finally caught up to his brother and I at the top of the hill he said,“Aight Mr. Mason, w’re ready to work!”“Where?” 
 “Aww cmon Mr. Mason don’t be like th—“Bobby clapped thunder into his brothers ear,
 “See I told you we should’ve left earlier! You always do this!” And as he continued the sky got darker under his tempest. As I began to point out the critical errors in Jay thought process Bobby not only cosigned my statements but used this as a launchpad for further insulting lightning strikes. I communicated my appreciation for his vigor, and assured him that I had this covered. I told them they could no longer work here, not because I couldn’t have them, but because it made no sense. There trip took three hours, we only work for three hours, and they would only make thirty dollars. For most kids there is an acceptance that this isn’t about the money, but a six hour commute on public transportation in the South would change the nature of that about the money thing. I told them I would still pay them for today because, it being a farm, there is always work to be done. They went to their regular tasks and I asked Bobby to wait with me. He was still pissed, the storm had passed, but it was only just over the tree line, the winds could change and bring it right back.Bobby I need to talk to you.What.Excuse me? Normally I hate playing this card, because I hated being dealt this card growing up, but I’m the dealer now, house rules. Bobby, what do you think you’re here for?without making eye contact he droned, To learn how to grow and sell.No, what do you think you are here for?the story. No. You’re here to get rid of this anger issue. You’re extremely smart Bobby. Even the things you were just now saying about your Brother…let me ask you a question because I see a lot of similarities between you and I. You must feel, at times, like everyone is dumb, they don’t know anything, and nothing is ever done right. Does that sound familiar to you?Yea, something like that. I know, because I have that same thing. But you can’t keep this up out here, this stuff will get you killed! This is what we are here to work on. I can’t promise you nothing, but I’ve got a farm full of weeds and a brand new electric weedwacker. Do you think you could take some of that anger out on this farm? Bobby came back with the entire farm edged up, with grass sprinkled evenly throughout his brow and hairline.“Yea I think I killed a couple rats back there.” I received the tools as The Ultimate Comedian would, with laughter. When the school year was in full swing I asked one of the students, how is Bobby? She told me that he was currently suspended for jumping another student, with another student. At the end of the farm year, on the last day after we packed up the farm I interviewed the boys who stuck with me through to the very end of the farm season . I couldn’t then, but I wanted to, as I read to you from Eli Ogbe in Odu to Sow Seeds To, Lift My Arms in Joyful Satisfaction. After the boys left I surveyed the farm one last time and before I left I poured libation to the Banana and Onion. I planted the Banana in the row of Onions that Mzee David Moryas had planted. These onions were the last he planted before he left us for the Divine Amaranthine Fields of the Sekhet-Hetepet. I wanted to plant something perennial, tropical, and big that would honor the contribution he made at the farm by unlocking productivity and health from the soil with his time-honored traditional Kenyan africultural knowledge and techniques. This is the first regret I have ever held in my life is not being able to host him on this podcast. Luckily I was able to host, on YouTube a compilation of videos Mr. Rickey took of Mzee Moryas at the farm, instructing him and the youth. The link is in the show notes. I settled on a Banana and planted it in the Onion Bed. Throughout the growing season I would lead tours and I would tell select folks that I would touch the Banana leaf and ask Mzee Moryas for the strength to deal with these knuckleheads! We would laugh and the tour would continue. I opened the purified water bottle and said,Mr. Moryas, I apologize that I was just out here, saying that I was, but wasn’t actually asking for help. Immediately the Banana spoke,That’s because you didn’t need it. I wrestled with this paradox and as I thought about it I tapped out realizing it was true, when I did truly need the help it arrived, but the majority of the time it was just me and the boys. Hearing Abdullah speak on the radio brought it home. The Farm, that farm, and many like it with the same mission, they are not farms. The Farm doesn’t exist. The farm is a ritual, sacred space. This farm is where I ushered the boys into the process of manhood and they ushered me out as a Man. Six months later my son was born. -:-:- So, to answer the question. Where have you been? I’ve been in what I’ve gotten myself into and growing my son. And just like this is, just like the farm is, every day is exhausting, exciting, hard work. Share Jìgìjìgì with your friends, family, and closely related Siblings of the Soil. Leave us a 5* review wherever you listen to and we will say then as we say now.

Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 To conclude the illustrious interview with Dr. Isaac Zama we begin our talk about “Humanure” and we receive our challenge for 2022! Works ReferencedAmba Farmer’s VoiceAmba Farmer’s Voice Facebook PageAmba Farmer’s Voice YouTube ChannelHow to Make Your Own Organic Fertilizer With Urine (Piss) Part 1AmbazoniaFuture Fertility: Transforming Human Waste into Human WealthUrine fertilizer: ‘Aging’ effectively protects against transfer of antibiotic resistanceUrine fertilizer: ‘Aging’ effectively protects against transfer of antibiotic resistance – ScienceDaily.comAdvancing Technologies and Improving Communication of Urine-Derived Fertilizers for Food Production within a Risk-Based FrameworkUC Davis Chimney Solar DryerDr. Amos Wilson on the purpose of education.Akissi Stokes’ WundergrubsEpisode #78: Adam ChappellPost Traumatic Slavery SyndromeUDC CAUSESMchezaji “Che” Axum Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) Dr. Isaac Zama 1:53:16What is one question I wish asked me that could would I eat something that came out of poop? MO 1:53:35Okay, would you eat something that came out of poop? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:53:38Absolutely. Because you know what? Poop is very, very organic. Absolutely. Because poop comes from the human body. Except it is mixed with external organisms. That is when it becomes dangerous. But just coming out from you is not dangerous. I’ll give an example. When we’re growing up, when you go to the farm, and you’re bitten by a snake, your mom or your dad, they will force you, you pee. And do you drink that pee right there. And as soon as you drink that pee in neutralizes the venom of the snake. Yes, oh yes. Wow. Your mom though. I don’t know what to but you pee don’t mix up. mothers know how to do that. Yeah, yeah. They will make you to pee and or force you or you drink it and in utilizes the venom in the snake. I really don’t know whether it is all kinds of snake, or all kinds of venom for that, I don’t know. But, you know, for those of us who grew up where I grew up, that was a common practice, it was passed down from generation to generation. So if you go to the farm and you’re bitten by a snake, the first thing that you will do is, you know, make up and, you know, you know, you’re an endo dog give you the pee, or you drink that before, before they’re trying to take you back home, you know, to either give you a secondary treatment or ticket ticket to the clinic or to the hospital. So that was the first aid. So, you know, asking me if, you know, what was question that you wish that I, they asked me, I think that maybe something about the valorization of our indigenous knowledge, Oh, hmm. That, that that can, you know, help us even within the domain of agriculture, or just, you know, us as humans living. So, you know, the, some of the some of the things that we as humans we, we, we produce, by by police, I mean, things like urine, things like poop, those are very, very useful in, in agriculture, especially, in, you know, in trying to improve upon soil. You know, I don’t know, when you went to Puerto Rico, I don’t know how Puerto Rico is. But if you if today, you go to Sierra Leone, you go to Liberia, you go to Nigeria, to Ghana, maybe in a row, you know, in rural areas, and you go to a bar, where people drink you know, the way bars are set up, you know, you go to the bar, you buy your drink and behind the bar, you know, you just go there and pee, you know, you you know up on top. So, if you look where people pee, you would see that the grass where people pee is green 365 days a year. So, what does that mean scientifically, it means that the pee that we pee is organic, that is why the grass that is very green, transpose it to now to your to your farm, all the kill, all the things that you grow are always very green. Why? MO 1:58:25Because they’re being fertilized. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:58:27So, so it’s the same thing about you know, the urine that is you know, that people pee on on that grass there and that grass is very green, which means that the pea contents phosphorus contains nitrogen and contains what was was a chemical I forgot it. Yeah potassium. So, P from a human being concern, I mean, has those three elements potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus, that is what chemical fertilizer NPK NPK is that we buy from store that is what they contain, it is just that those are money, but that from P is natural. So, you know, if you look at, if you watch nature, you can see that some of the things which we despise, or which we throw away or which we don’t like, essentially, the things that we need to, you know, to, you know, to survive or to come into this symbiotic relationship between us and an earth and you know, what we eat MO 1:59:58I need to make this into a an entire episode or a series of episodes, but for the talk that I gave at the blink sustainability summit this year, I talked about how the entirety of Korean Natural Farming as this whole agricultural discipline came out of the observation of how they traditionally did agriculture in or how, how one guy’s grandfather did it, meaning at the end of the year, whoa, so sorry, they make kimchi, right, traditional food, and then they tossed the kimchi broth, out into this out into the garden and all that fermented, you know, the fermented cabbage that makes it kimchi, that stuff there would grow very well, right. But another thing that they used to do was because they didn’t have outhouses, or whatever, they just had pots, where they would collect all of the night soil or our our poop. And at the end of the, at the end of a given timeframe that would put that out into the, into, into the stuff in and have it grow. And so then, so that was the grandfather doing that, then the father said, what if I combine the kimchi juice with the manure? Right. And that was, that was the beginning of that particular thing. And then the grandson young thing showed develop this and he replaced the manure with sugar, brown sugar, especially, um, and it took off from there. And it’s this thing that everybody, you know, especially in the West, so many people do this sort of thing, just from that one observation, you know, um, but I think, um, when one of the things that like we were talking about, as it relates to John V’s future fertility, and the, the calculations that, that are provided, I did an episode on that in the past, I think I’m pretty sure I did. But, uh, but that’s because, for example, one of one of I can’t remember if it’s total or benign, but one of their, I think it’s togo has a whole lot of rock phosphates. And that’s one of their primary exports, which is, you know, I mean, it, whatever, that’s a lot, because that is one of the resources that is that we need to roll these plans, and it is an ever shrinking capacities everywhere else except for. And, obviously, we can’t completely just use our stuff, because we have to get the food that we eat from somewhere, right? Right. But it is an aspect of being able to recycle that stuff that eventually would just go into the wastewater treatment facility right here in the United States, or in other developed parts of the world. But it is a very interesting thing to have, you know, to, you know, looking at this resource that you have, I don’t know how many times people say you go use the bathroom, eight times a day, you know, the 30 milliliters or whatever, that you may, you know, put into the toilet that’ll add up considerably, you know, that’s 500 milliliters at the end of the day, and it only takes in a gallon is what 3.7785 liters. So it’ll take not that long to fill that up and five days, six days, you’ll you’ll, you know, you’ll you’ll fill that stuff up very quickly. may not, I’m not really all that together with math. But um, but like you said, the urea is something especially a lot of farmers in the Midwest are struggling right now, because urea prices have shot through the roof. And urea is in urine Dr. Isaac Zama 2:04:17nature has given it to us MO 2:04:19free. Right. Right. And, and, and like you talked about, and I’ll and I’ll put this video in the in the, in the show notes, what I was listening to, oops, I don’t want to make sure I play it. But you have a two part video series here, how to make your own organic fertilizer with urine parts one and two. And it’s a hour and a half of excellent information for people to just utilize that because once you have immune and just like with anything once you apply a new technique and have success with that technique, you’re going to keep going further with that right Being able to collect the wastes, or the resources of your entire household was a way to really improve that I mean, you know, tested yourself, you know, on a small plot, you know, on a on, you know, like, I have to say this, obviously, I have to do all this stuff at night because I don’t want my neighbors seeing me use the bathroom all the time. But, you know, I have one of the things because we have like these magnolia trees in our backyard, I want to be very fragrant, I want to smell, you know, the magnolia tree, how do I do that? Through fertilization? Yep. And, Dr. Isaac Zama 2:05:42you know, I’m going to give it small example, but you know, I do it personally, oh, um, you know, I have a bottle in my car, when I’m going to work, you know, if I, if I need to pee, I just pull up, pull up on, you know, a sort of a pee in the bottle, I close it, and, and I’ll put my car and I drive I drive back to work. And that, you know, when I come back home, I have, you know, this two liter gallon of juice, juice bottle, you know, you go to Walmart, or you buy juice. And so, you know, when you drink the juice, when I come home from work, I pour the pee in it, and I close it, and I put it on the stair, you know, another stairway behind, you know, you know, behind my apartment. And, you know, during harvesting season, you know, I can I can I can store that for six months, it will still be good to use as long as, you know, oxygen or air doesn’t get into it. Because, you know, if it you know, if you don’t close it? Well, the the urea would evaporate. Now what do you have who does water and salt because that’s what urine urine contains because then salt and, and water and, and then all the other trace elements like potassium, urea and nitrogen and potassium. So, you know, during the, during, during the summer, you know, I use you know, my own urine and mix it 5050 I take a liter of water or take a liter of urine, I mix it and I pour it on my tomatoes on my you know, my cocoa yam leaves on my, my garlic or whatever I want to grow. And, and, you know, it does extremely well, extremely well. It is extremely, extremely safe, you know, to use it. You know, I did remember once when I was giving a talk somewhere. And you know, some people were asking me, What if somebody has syphilis, or has you know, gonorrhea and you know, they you know, the collect their urine, and they have to use it in agriculture. You know, the answer to that is very simple. every living organism needs oxygen to grow, or to stay alive, otherwise they’ll die. So, if you collect the urine, and you put it in, in a juice gallon, you know, I’m talking about for enough for people who have smaller partners that don’t have learned to, you know, buy huge containers and collect the right. If you have your tool to gallon of, you know, juice, orange juice, and you pour your inside, once to close it really tight. After two weeks, any living organism whether it was syphilis, or was gonorrhea, or whatever, will die. Right? And so then it becomes safe to use it. You know, the next question would be What if I use it? When do I stop using it you wouldn’t have if you didn’t care, for example, if you know that you’re going to have a shoe kill, you know, next week, stop using it one week before one or two weeks before, you know you’re going to have this then or you know if if if there was any chance of any part of the pathogen in it. It would have killed it. If it was in if it’s in the summer. Once the rain falls on whatever you’re growing as soon as you’re growing outside. One of the rain falls on it, whatever it washes away in if pathogens that under plant and it will become safe to eat. If you harvest your kale, and you boil it, or if if you want to, you know, solo dry it, the temperatures in the solar dress are extremely, very high. So, if your kale or your Apple or whatever, you’re sort of dry, it had any pathogen, you know, the temperatures in it will kill it. And so it becomes safe to eat. So, you know, using, you know, collecting and using urine, you know, at a small scale, it’s very safe. Even for people, you know, the more established farmers who have two hectares or three hectares or five acres of land, you know, assuming you have three people live in your house, you serve your wife and your kid or, you know, if just if they’re just two of you, you know, you can collect that urine for one year. And you’re, you wouldn’t believe how much you collect. Especially if if you are disciplined, this being collecting it in the sense that because you know, you drive long distances, you don’t want to go waste the urine, when you when you when you when you get to the stop where you know, you know, when you get to the stop, or the color sets and stop. Yeah, the rest of the rest stop, because when you stop at the rest stop, you go to the toilet, you know, you’re wasting it. So how about you have, you know, your juice gallon in your car, your you know, your peanut closing, you put in the back of your, you know, put it back in the car you drive off, you know, you are actually saving money and getting organic fertilizer, right? Because urine is organic fertilizer. And if I may add, you know, for people who may who may think we are crazy, we absolutely not. You know, there are lots of risk of universities University of Michigan in Ann Arbor did a wonderful research on the use of urine as organic fertilizer. And their farmers from the in the Midwest, who are actually growing crops and selling these crops that not only growing for themselves. They’re growing it and selling. So using urine as well as there is there is the National Science Foundation, which is a top top US government research funder that has you know, provided funds for organizations to do research on the use of organic fertilizer, I mean, you using urine as organic fertilizer you know, if I want to be silica what I may say here is that one of the reasons why urine has not picked up as a resource for farmers to use particularly here in the US is because of the fertilizer lobby, no doubt because you know, they make money out of making chemical fertilizer, they will definitely will not want the knowledge of getting free urine and using it as fertilizer because it’s going to kill your business. Right. So you know, people can do the research on their own, you know, you and I don’t have to convince everybody because the information is out there. But you know, we are speaking from personal experience, you know, personally, I’ve been eating vegetables that are for less with urine and I’m not dead so so, you know, I’m going to suggest that you we know we are going to do a follow up podcast, okay. After next summer, okay, after you must have collected your own urine. And you know, fertilize, you know, a bed of kale or cabbage or whatever. And then you eat it and then we’ll come back and do a follow up interview. MO 2:14:53Okay. All right. I will do that you know I am. Now what I will have to say is that What I will do, I’m gonna have to do it a little bit differently, right, because here at our house, I can’t grow anything edible, because of these deer that are out here. But what I will grow, I am planning to grow some, like ornamental flowers. So my test will be, you know, putting them in the same soil, right, and I’ll try and do it with however many I have. If I think I have like six plants, so I have six, I’ll do three and three grand. So I’ll do three plants in the normal soil that I’ll treat the normal way. And then I’ll have three plants with a normal soil with my urine collected urine, and then I’ll see I’ll do my very, very subjective smell test to see which ones are more fragrant. But then it also should show up in a number of blooms, like the bloom life height, the resilience to nature, and all that and all those different things. So that’ll be something that uh, that that will be my test. Yeah. Yep. Very nice. Yeah, I just while you were talking, I pulled it up $3 million, awarded to the Regents of the University of Michigan for from the NSF for the advancing technologies and improving communication of urine derived fertilizers for food production within a risk based framework. That’s right. 3 million dollars. That’s right. For that, for that experiment. And they just published last year, that was that award was given in 2016. Last year, University of Michigan published and courtesy of Science Daily, the headline is urine fertilizer colon aging effectively protects against transfer of antibiotic resistance. Recycled in age, human urine can be used as a fertilizer with low risks of transferring and antibiotic resistant DNA to the environment, according to new research. Yep. So yeah, I mean, uh, my wife and I have talked about this a lot about, especially within utilizing, I mean, that’s another thing that I’m really excited about is biogas. Alright, and an anaerobic fermentation, digestion and stuff. Right. Um, and there’s this one company, um, I don’t remember the name of the company, but they sell like a digester. And then they sell a toilet for the digester. And, and it will, you know, and you can hook it up to your, whatever graywater system, but it’ll immediately transfer it in just one, you know, with the flesh directly into the digester. And as you put that in there, fertilizer comes out, you know, right. Um, and, because, like you said, and especially, you know, a lot of people worried about streptococcus staphylococcus in tear intero, disease, whatever, whatever. Um, but it is the case, preventing oxygen from entering into the system will prevent them from being able to live. Yeah. And so in that way, you know, fermentation or fermentation and or anaerobic digestion is the way to be able to really extract even more of the nutrients especially out of our, our, our manure, especially if you are eating a lot of plants anyway, there’s going to be a lot of cellulose in there that you can’t do anything with. And, and then that anaerobic digestion will further break those bonds on those of those cellulose fibers, and other starches, and really give that you know, bring those carbon carbohydrates, either into methane gas, or into other smaller peptides and stuff like that for your plants. And so I will definitely be able to do the urine test, no problem just got to get some more buckets, um, to be able to, to to collect everything. So, I will definitely, I’ll definitely do that. And, and then yeah, I guess in the wintertime, we’ll excuse of everything and keeping everybody together. For that, I’m excited. I’m excited for Dr. Isaac Zama 2:19:36that. Yeah, I’m excited to you know, this, you know, this podcast is taking, you know, an exciting turn. Things that I’m really really excited about, you know, letting people know that you know, these are simple things that we can do you know, to stay healthy all the illnesses that, that we have, in large part due to the things that we eat. And chemical fertilizers are not good for the health, you know, for, you know, not good. You know, in growing food, or the chemical fertilizers, very bad for health, you know, that is proven scientifically, it’s not me we say. So, you know, if we can, if, if there’s, if there’s a way of reducing the amount, or the amount of food that we eat that is grown with chemical fertilizer, I think we should definitely as a people consider it. Absolutely. MO 2:20:47And I mean, especially with the increased amount of autoimmune diseases, that people are getting a lot of that stuff, when your immune system is gone haywire. A lot of that stuff can be fixed with the, with increasing the how do I say it organic foods? Well, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, just you having a better understanding of where your food is coming from this kind of kind of what I was trying to say, like, I mean, if you, a lot of people say a lot of different things, and ultimately, I think it’s knowing where your food is coming from, right. Because, um, because just because you buy, just because you buy organic vegetables at the grocery store doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the healthiest vegetables that you can get, you know, and sometime it will so, so there’s that, but ultimately, like with you said, with the exciting turn, talking about using our waste and stuff like that, we talked about it earlier, that it is a mindset shift that has to occur in the individual and or individuals, you know, I am extremely fortunate that I do not have to convince my wife to collect my urine haha Dr. Isaac Zama 2:22:09know, you can you can use her’s too! MO 2:22:11I will be we will be absolutely it, but it is going to be something different to not automatically go to the toilet, that’s going to be the larger mindset shift, you know. But, uh, but I know that for some people, they may not be as fortunate as I am, and may have to operate in secret. And for those people, you just have to prove it, once you prove it, and say I didn’t spend any money on growing these things. How did you not spend any money? Well, let me show you. Yeah, what is one question others should ask you before working with plants and the soil? Dr. Isaac Zama 2:22:56Um, one question asked me for working, you know, believing what you’re doing. Trust that, you know, this, what you’re going to, you know, to plant is going to grow. There is no secret in growing anything. You don’t have to go to Harvard to be able to grow anything. You know, it is just an interest. And because we are in a society where people have gone to school, you know, just read up as much as you can, in what you want to, to grow. But don’t overdo it. Don’t overthink it, you know, everything has to this eye has to darkness is this to see and know. You know, just get if you happen to live in a city where when a county has a county garden, where they collect all the you know what chips and leaves that the grind them and go dump them someplace. And most things rot. If you’re in that kind of an environment, go you know, in the spring and collect some of that, you know, you know, if you have a space in your backyard, you know, you can start a small garden if you don’t have the space, put it in one or two buckets or even get a flower pot for people who live in an apartment where you know, they kind of put a bucket or something like that, get a small flower pot, get some of that soil and put it inside and you know, plant something that a bean see whatever seed you like, you know, you know just make sure that it is a seed that will grow you know, there are stores across the country that sell planting seeds get planting seed and if Want to nurse it, you know, you can nurse it in some of this, you know, small black things that have, you know, holes, I don’t know what to call, you know, a nursery or whatever. Yeah, and knows it knows it inside or just take it and put, you know, and they, you know, flowerpot and just grow it, make sure that you give you give it food. By food, I mean, water is just like, you know, places like anything else, you know, every day, or every two days, make sure you water it, it will grow and, and, and produce. So, you know, what I would say is, don’t overthink about it. Don’t go to facebook and join groups and read and read until you can read anymore, because you want to do it, right? No. You know, just, you know, be interested in whatever I wanted to grow. And, you know, just read a little bit about it, and just do it, and learn, you know, the, you can read a whole textbook, and if you don’t practice it, you will not know it, you know, the, there may be some challenges that you will learn from growing it, you know, the first time that you know, the second time you will correct those mistakes, and then, you know, you become good at it. So, um, you know, that is what I would suggest that, you know, people do MO 2:26:22the, like we talked about before, a lot of people think that they can’t grow stuff, because they say they’re too ambitious, when they get started, you know, they they just start they’re like, Okay, I got tomato seeds, a celery seeds, a carrot seeds, I got I got broccoli, I got all these different things, and they try and plant all of these different things at once. And it’s, you know, if I, if somebody asked me, I want to start growing, When should I start growing, I tell them to buy a sweet potato, put on their countertop, and forget about it, when it starts growing is when you then take it outside and put it in the ground. And then when before it gets cold dig them up. And you’ll have too many sweet potatoes, too many sweet potatoes, you know. And after you do that, then you can begin to learn, you know, but it’s it’s a and I’m i It’s been a while since I’ve interviewed somebody. And so when I looked at this question, I was like, hmm, but you restated it in a better way, which is what is the advice that you would give before working with plants in the soil? And that’s, that’s the question that I should have asked. So thank you for reformatting my question. And so our last question, Dr. Zama, is if you would like people to how can people contact you? Dr. Isaac Zama 2:27:53Well, I would say through you through through your podcast, for those who, you know, who, on Facebook, you know, they can always contact me through Amba farmers voice, and we have a phone number there or WhatsApp number, which is 202 735 1145 It’s there. We’re still working on building a website for Amba Farmer’s voice, which, you know, we have a skeleton out there. The work is still being done, it’s Ambafarmersvoice.org. You know, if people want to see some of the work that we’ve been doing, they can go to YouTube. And, you know, when they can just search for Amba Farmer’s Voice and you know, find out some of the work that we’ve been doing. So, that or by email and by Ambafarmersvoice[at]gmail[dot]com You know, I would definitely definitely be interested in communicating with people who may want to start something in you know, come this spring you know, out, you know, I would love to share my enthusiasm and what I know the little that I know, you know, with people so that, you know, they can start, you know, growing something, you know, for themselves. We absolutely as a people as you know, as you said, people we have to take care of our what we eat, and what we eat starts from you and I sharing this knowledge between you and I and you know, getting ourselves is challenged that by next spring, you have to have tested, you know, done this research. You know, I’d like to invite more of your listeners to join this club. Okay, of research. We are going To do empirical research or non university research, that we absolutely need to, you know, you know, amongst ourselves and you know, to, you know, to get things going, I think I really like this program, because it gives me an opportunity to share some of the things which I had in there and I didn’t have the opportunity to, you know, send it out to people who, who may learn one or two things and so I’m, I’m really thankful that you know, invited me to, to this program MO 2:30:38I’m in I’m immeasurably thankful that you’ve joined me on the program and, and that you shared your wisdom, experience. And, and, and, and all this time. I mean, I think we’ve been talking for like two hours or something like that. So, or even more than that. I mean, we’ve been talking for a long time. I you know, you call me a busy man, I call you a busy man. So two hours for too busy man is a long amount of time and so, and yet it’s flown by. And so I’m really, really thankful for you, so don’t go anywhere. I’m going to close up the show, stop the recording. But and then we’ll we’ll close out. I just want to again reiterate many, many things to Dr. Isaac Zama for sharing his wisdom and experience. Please visit africulturepodcast.com or jigijigi.org for the full show notes. Share Jigijigi with your friends, family and closely related siblings in the soil. Leave us a five star review wherever you listen to and we will say then as we say, Now, Asante Sana, Medase Pa Modupe O. Thank you for listening Dr. Isaac Zama 2:31:49and I will add one, okay. Miaka MO 2:31:53Miaka. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Yeah, so Dr. Isaac Zama 2:32:01Miyaka is thank you in gamba, MO 2:32:03and gamba. Okay, I was gonna ask you to give me some to give me some gamba. So Miaka awesome.

Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 In this second part of our interview with Dr. Zama we move through the different possibilities for food, pidgin, and how libations connect us to the soil. This particular segment is powerful and it is my honor to share it with you all. Works ReferencedAmba Farmer’s VoiceAmba Farmer’s Voice Facebook PageAmba Farmer’s Voice YouTube ChannelHow to Make Your Own Organic Fertilizer With Urine (Piss) Part 1AmbazoniaFuture Fertility: Transforming Human Waste into Human WealthUrine fertilizer: ‘Aging’ effectively protects against transfer of antibiotic resistanceUrine fertilizer: ‘Aging’ effectively protects against transfer of antibiotic resistance – ScienceDaily.comAdvancing Technologies and Improving Communication of Urine-Derived Fertilizers for Food Production within a Risk-Based FrameworkUC Davis Chimney Solar Dryer Dr. Amos Wilson on the purpose of education.Akissi Stokes’ WundergrubsEpisode #78: Adam ChappellPost Traumatic Slavery SyndromeUDC CAUSESMchezaji “Che” Axum Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) MO 1:07:03So now we get to our third question. How have you grown while growing all that you got growing on? Meaning? How has your well being improved? By being in the soil? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:07:19Oh, the for that there’s absolutely no question that eating natural food, or eating organic food improves your health? There’s no, there’s no question about that. You don’t need to have gone to school to know that. You remember, our parents us would stay up to the 100 years? For the night? Yeah. Why? Because they were eating natural organic food. So organic food is natural medicine in itself. So you know, to demand how my health has improved as a result of, you know, paying attention to what I put in my body. My health has actually improved. You don’t get as tired, as, you know, as much as I used to. And not only that, the taste? Yeah, the food itself. Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s like day or night. Yeah, you know. So, you know, encouraging everybody to try to see how they can grow their own, not organic or natural food would eventually improve your health. That is there’s no gainsay about that. You know, you don’t talk to talk to the older folks, they’ll tell you, they, you know, they ate natural food and they stayed for so long. Unlike us today that we are, you know, we grew up eating so much processed food, by by time you hit 30 You start having all these kinds of complaints have complaints. So, you know, if we want to protect our health, and if we want to live long, we should start by eating by eating healthy and organic food that will reduce our going to the doctor, you know, all the time. MO 1:09:44Yeah. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:09:48Especially, MO 1:09:50I mean, and if and if that doesn’t appeal to you. The taste factor will really I mean, no No, no food tastes as good as the food you’ve grown yourself. Yes. The kale that we have growing at the farm right now. I mean, it, it. I mean, if you know what you’re looking for it looks fantastic, right? It’s it’s the curls, the curly kale, that you can’t even see the stem, right, because it’s so cold, so tight. But, Tim, I mean, and I, I’ve grown that kale before, but not in the way. I mean, that was years ago. But this time around this kale has been almost, it almost tastes buttery. I just like I didn’t know that kale could also taste like popcorn, you know, because of the because of just the the amount of flavor. Now, of course, all of these favorite flavors are really subtle. Right. And so one thing that you really do have to work on with a being able to appreciate that taste is resetting your own palate, you know, resetting your tongue to be able to get used to how food is supposed to taste. A lot of the reason that you know, I have this theory, and it may be a little bit controversial, but regardless, um, you know, a lot of especially black American cuisine, African American cuisine is heavily season heavily spiced Yes. And I think that a lot of that comes from traditionally not having high quality food. And you I mean, it’s, I mean, chitlins, chitterlings, you know, all these different things, that is not a high quality food, you have to be able to season it to not have it not taste like what it is. Yes. And, you know, by the end, like I was telling me to yesterday, like, when people would get our cabbages and stuff like that, from the farm, they immediately talk about taking Turkey necks and fat back and all these different things. And putting, you know, putting that in, in in the pot, or whatever, whenever they cook the college or they cook all these different things. And they Dr. Isaac Zama 1:12:32basically MO 1:12:34eliminate all of the health from the food that they’re getting, because they’re cooking it for far too long. There. And then they’re putting all of this other stuff into it, that would remove the ability for you to actually taste the greens right. Now, obviously, putting the fat back the bacon, all these different things in there is going to taste good, because all those things taste good. Yeah, I’m gonna deny that. But it is about figuring out oh, what does? Or what do these different plants taste like? You know? And how can I appreciate that taste? Like we’re talking about sweet potatoes, I could some of the sweet potatoes that we had had from the farm. And, um, man, when I just, I don’t even I don’t remember how I put them that time. But immediately this image came to me when I put them right. That it was it tasted like the sunrise, you know, but the sunrise is itself. A very subtle thing. Right? Right, all of these different colors that come up there, right. And so if I were to overload it with butter and salt and too much cinnamon and sugar, then it would just be like flavoring it for noon. Yeah, I mean, that’s not what you know. So I was trying to you know, this, like, I was trying to say that to somebody when when they came here and they were buying some of the sweet potatoes. They’re like how you cook them. And I said, when you cook these things, just picture the sunrise right? Cook towards that when you cook them because you don’t need to add all that other stuff because they’re coming from right here. You know, and they looked at me like I was crazy, but I’m used to that. Because a lot of this stuff when you really get down to it and you start reprogramming your taste buds. You realize that you don’t need a lot of this stuff too. You don’t need a lot of you don’t need a lot of oil. Well you still need oil to cook but you don’t need to really be concerned with flavoring it so much because all you need to do as opposed to putting flavor in all you need to do is bring flavor out. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:14:58Yes MO 1:15:02So, and especially like, I went to the farm yesterday, and there’s a bus, there’s a bus stop right near the farm and, and one of the guys, there’s a guy picked up, another bus driver picked up the route recently. And he was the only bus driver since I’ve been there for two seasons now who has reached out and been like, Yo, what are you guys doing blah, blah, blah. And that was really exciting, because, you know, he, they stopped the bus, their previous bus drivers that use the Porta Potty that we have had on premises, but they never tried to buy any of the vegetables and stuff. And so I’m talking with him yesterday, I gave him one of those buttery kale leaves, I gave him one of the carrots that I pulled out the ground, and some of the mustard leaves and stuff like that. And man, he was super excited. You know, and it’s just like, that’s what it is, you know, we bring people to the farm all the time, they see the okra, that is, you know, taller, but you know, super tall, I’m six feet, and I still have to reach up all the way to get into the okra that’s all the way up there, you know, let’s, you know, seven, seven and a half feet in the air, right? The corn, same height, you know, people get around that kind of stuff. And they’re like, Oh, my God, I feel like I’m a child again, you know. And, you know, that kind of stuff is, you know, and, and that’s why I have the podcast, right? I mean, we want to build your soul at the same time and your own feelings of resilience, self sufficiency, by just you know, you you won’t forget the taste, I haven’t forgotten the first pickup that I gave myself, after eating my first sweet pepper, I sat there and immediately started hiccuping. And I was like, I gotta learn more about this, because this is a very powerful feeling. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:17:01Right? Right. You know, one of the things which people you know, I don’t know, but, you know, there’s some spirituality in food, which we are missing in this mechanical world in which we are today. And, you know, I’m really happy that, you know, you’re trying to educate people to consider food as not only something that feels the stomach, but that there’s some spirituality involved. When, you know, you’re eating, organic or natural food, there’s some kind of connection between, you know, what you’re getting from the ground, which is very natural, and some universe that is part of what we what we as humans are. So, you know, that is something which, you know, he needs somebody to have gone, you know, to have thought through this for a long time, to be able to make that connection between what you eat, and your spirituality. MO 1:18:21You’ve provided the perfect segue for the next question, do you believe that we have a special relationship with the soil? We as black folks, African people, and if so, how do we perpetuate that special relationship? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:18:38Yes, we do. Because we leave from what comes from the soil. So if nothing comes from is fine, we’re going to die. You know, even though we are in the 21st century, where we have a lot of mechanized or a lot of processed things that come from the soil, but everything else comes from the soil. So we are connected, you know, to that soil. So it is left on us now, you know, to try to go back to the natural soil that is supposed to be you know, for us to really live a fruitful life as well as is supposed to be you know, as black people. There is so much spirituality and connection between us as a people on the soil. For those of us who grew up, back then at a time Our parents would pour libation. Which is a connection between the living and the dead. Eye, you do that through the soil, how does that manifest most families who are not yet Christian, but that’s not what I mean. They have family shrines in their home. There are some shrines that built with elf, it has an F mount a small f mount into the house, which jewelry during certain times in the year, the whole family would gather, like what we have here, as you know, family reunion, but back then, you know, gather and for house, and the we use, you know, they’ll bring certain gifts, you know, to the ancestors or to this, you know, to their, to their ancestors. And you know, they will bring palm oil, they will bring salt, they’ll bring palm wine, and, you know, talk on top on top, you know, and then they’ll pour some of the palm wine on the family shrine, asking the ancestors to take this, this is their own food, that you know, the children who are alive are bringing, you know, to them, or, you know, this is palm wine, get this palm wine and drink, this is palm oil, this is palm oil, and, you know, soothe yourself or cook whatever you want to cook in the spirit world. And the reason why, you know, they bring that, you know, through the medium is to be able to communicate, and connect with the ancestors, and they do that through the earth. So, as black people, the F is extremely, extremely important for us to connect with our Creator, whatever the Creator may be, or with our ancestors, wherever they are. So, it’s the same thing with food, our connection with the cosmos is through the earth. That is why when people live this world, they go down through the earth and through that if you go out into the cosmos, or to where, you know, into the world beyond So, that is the connection that we have. With Earth, you know, for you know, for us as black people to live well on this earth, I mean, you know, in this cosmos, we have to get good fruit from the earth. With with us who are living to be able to communicate with our parents or ancestors, or our gods who are in the world beyond, we go through F by giving them food, palm oil, palm wine, a little bit of salt, in some traditions, they will even throw a piece of, of meat of chicken, you know, on that shrine for them, you know, for the ancestors, you know, to take that and eat and the and the reason is for the ancestors to protect, you know, you know, their family members who are still alive, you know, from bad things are happening from them and things like that. So, you know, I thought I should bring this little bit of explanation show our connection between us who are living and not only food, but our ancestors who are in the water we don’t see. MO 1:24:19And I’m so glad you did. You know, because um it’s one thing for me to talk about this kind of stuff being 500 years removed. Right. And, and you talking about it further invigorates me to find a even even more of a connection to to the soil and to my ancestry to the ancestors right through the soil. Like I told you before we got on you And, and I’m glad that you brought it up because so many people are confused about what our spirituality is. Right? As I mean, I don’t have to explain it to you. And I’m and so it’s, that is, I mean, obviously the podcast is one vessel for showcasing appropriate spiritual technology, right? Um, because this is how we’ve always done it. And this is why it’s within us, you know, I didn’t inherit these. I mean, I call them black thumbs, I didn’t inherit both of my thumbs from both sides of my families, for no reason, right? This has been with us this whole time. And the different aspects I mean, especially it within big conserved behavioral practices, that act of libation is one of the most conserved practices of black people, and especially in a lot of black Americans don’t even know why we do it, you know, but we definitely do it. And, um, and especially in the end, I really, really appreciate the way that you described it, because it makes it Dr. Isaac Zama 1:26:23so MO 1:26:25much easier to think about, right? That it is us, I mean, it is even helpful for me, right? I’m, you know, even though I’m having this sort of, you know, interview, poise and all that kind of stuff, I’m, you know, full to the brim with excitement about what you just shared, because it does make it more accessible, right, because getting to our own spiritual practices, which are fundamentally different from any Abrahamic situation. It’s hard to even conceptualize what that stuff looks like, in a practical capacity, right? Especially when different and different practices like you file or Vodoun or the, or, or, or all of the different things require initiation to kind of understand the different things or different people want to pay once you to pay to, to, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Um, but it is ultimately like, like you said, the the earthen mound as an altar, and giving these offerings to your ancestors, thanking them in in this reciprocal way, you know, that, you know, because I’m thankful that I’m here, I want to offer you this, right. And so, like, I talked about before, with the, like, I was telling you, I made those revise for the black soldier flies, I made those revise for the ancestors, and put set that out on the altar. But because I was living in an apartment, I can’t necessarily just throw it out the window. So I fed that too. Then too, I took the the steaks, and then put them in the black soldier fly buckets, right? Because as I was reading this one paper about the Cranko people in Guinea, and like we were talking about before, about the sort of spiritual implication of termites, right, and these being messengers, um, and because we don’t have, we don’t know, because our houses are constructed with wood out here in the United States, you don’t want to cultivate but you can cultivate black soldier flies, and they work, you know, to me, it’s been communicated to me that they work in a similar way. Right? And so on, uh, you know, to dispose of these of these steaks, you know, rather than throwing them away, or rather than tossing them somewhere, you know, I can feed them to the black soldier flies, derive all this stuff, and then I use those to then plant some ornamental flowers and for our front yard, you know, yep. Um, and, and. And so in the way that you’re talking about it in to perpetuate, then, the ancestral communion, right, and libation. And these different, these different practices that we can do with these different offerings is a way to perpetuate that that special relationship. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:29:46Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. MO 1:29:50I’m Dr. Zama. Why do you think the healthiest soils are black? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:30:02Yeah, the answers are simple. Okay, black is life. Black is life, black, the color black or whatever what I call it color or what that is life, I’ll give you a simple example an analogy go, you know you have a farm, go to that farm and pick up the soil that is not black. Okay, and pick up another side that is black and plant food and see which one grows, which one will grow you have farmer who’s gonna grow MO 1:30:45and the one in the black soil also it is because, Dr. Isaac Zama 1:30:47because this is because the black squares are because it is life that is the simplest of explanations that I can tell you, why the soil is black, that is how nature merit that you will get good enough food from this thing that is black. And if you make you know, if you get what is it apples, bananas, whatever, you put it somewhere, it turns black, right, it is just nature that is we will call it God or nature that is when nature made it. And so, that is why you know, compost is black, because it produces good and natural food. Again, the simple example is if you get red soil, and you plant on it, or you get black soil or you plant on it, you will see that you will get much more harvest from the black soil. So to get a good harvest or good food, your soil has to be black, you have to do everything to be able to get you know, soil that is black for you to have good and enough harvest. I know maybe some of your listeners are. So our listeners may talk about you know, including of this kind of chemical fertilizers and red soil. And yeah, that is not what I mean, if you just take the soil as it is, in its natural state without any additives, not any inputs, if you take black soil, or you take red soil or any other soil, the amount of food that you grow that you have is from the black soil will be more than the amount of food that you’ll get from any soil that is not black. And so in order to let people not starve the soil that they’re growing food in has to be black. I don’t know if that makes sense to you? MO 1:33:17No, absolutely. It makes sense. Absolutely. It makes sense. And and it is you have provided the simplest explanation thus far, I do have an idea for a podcast that is a little more sophisticated, but I think it’ll help the critical thinking ability of our people. I mean, it’s separate from this idea but but somewhat related in talking about when the healthiest soils or when the blackest soils aren’t necessarily the healthiest soils, right? Because there’s some times where just color can deceive you. Yes. So I don’t want to I, I want to be responsible with with with with the, you know, the stuff that I’m putting out there and being like, Hold on now is not always the case. Because sometimes you can have super waterlogged soils or something like that. And, and it can be it can be actually detrimental. But within the experiment that you were talking about, yeah, if you took some clay out of the ground and tried to put something in it, only the most resilient thing may grow. But it’s not going to be a tomato, it might be a pine tree that might it’s not going to be it’s not going to be a tomato or some corn or something that you actually want to eat. You know, none of that stuff is going to grow in that red clay but in that black soil Absolutely. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:34:44Yeah, um you know, if you want to get scientific into it, you will see that you know, the black soil favors a medium for micro organisms to grow in it. That will then help you know your your your plants. to grow, as opposed to, you know, a soil that is not black or that is red, that will not have the they will not have the same amount of microorganisms in it that will enable, you know, food to grow. So that would be what anyone had, you know, talking about that yeah, collar collar in itself is not 100% requirement to grow, or to do to get good harvests. Yes, I absolutely agree with you. But, you know, the black soil provides a medium for lots of biological organisms to, you know, to thrive, help, you know, food grow. MO 1:35:41Yeah, I mean, into, like you said, you know, it’s your statement of black is his life is a kind of statement that can apply to as deep within the science as we want to get to it, right? Because it is only by the amount of aggregate, that however many different microbial communities we can stuff into this square centimeter, right? That is what is going to actually ensure the health of the crops that you’re trying to grow. And so you want to make sure ultimately, that the soil is alive. Yes. That that that soil that has no color will have no life. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:36:23Yep. Yep. MO 1:36:26Our podcast is based on this yoga away or proverb. Gigi crochet for two to a firmly rooted plant cannot be uprooted. What is your favorite agriculture or plant related problem? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:36:42agricultural related problem is that the soil would never for you. Oh, it’s so MO 1:36:57I like that. Yeah. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:36:59Yeah. So no matter what you do, you know, you can have a million dollars today in the bank and tour all is gone. can buy an airplane with a million dollars, and it crushes on the healthiness car. But if you plant a seed in the soil, and you tend you tend it is going to grow. If you have a hectare, or an acre, and you know you plant, whatever you want to plant, if you give it the good soil that it needs, if you give it the water that it needs. It’s not going to fool you. Mm hmm. MO 1:37:45Yeah, I yeah, that, um, that one is super good. I’m very glad that, that you share that with us. Because that that one is going to be there’s so many different implications as well as all really good proverbs to write. Um, I’m just, I’m just gonna let people sit with that one and move on to the next question. Want to leave that on its own? What is a resource that you’d recommend for those looking to increase their agricultural understandings? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:38:32Um, number one, this podcast? Hey, yes. You know, um, there are lots of resources out there, you know, people are so busy. This the, you know, falling the rat race, you know, to make ends meet. But, you know, the good thing with this podcast is that, you know, you can listen to it on your radio, whatever you’re driving, you know, you can download this podcast on your phone, and when you’re driving, and you listen to it. You know, if you come back in the evening, and you’re, after you finish your work, you want to go to bed, you know, you can put this podcast on or you listen to it, you will get educated with whatever you want to learn, you know, concerning agriculture. You know, for for those who are really interested, you know, that there are lots of resources at universities like University of District of Columbia. You know, they have this courses program, where, you know, they document lots of things that people can do, you know, to grow food. So, They’re, you know, for people who are interested, you know, the, it turns of you know that there are lots of places where you can go and find information if you’re really interested. But, you know, things like this podcast, you know, are definitely recommended to, you know, to, you know, to lots of people to, you know, to listen to it. I have listened to some of the the programs that you’ve that you’ve done with the guy somewhere down in Virginia who does vegetables for African markets. The there’s the there’s Mr. The one who, who works for UDC forgotten his name? Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, he’s done a lot of good podcasts. So not only those two, but you know, the one thing about your podcast is because it’s, it’s, you know, it, the scope is wide, you know, it doesn’t only talk about one thing. So, it opens people’s minds, you know, to different things, of doing different things, and, you know, growing food, and, you know, you know, he talks about food, and spirituality. And those are things that, you know, you find in traditional academic institutions, or traditional traditional academic research, you know, for doing different agricultural things. So, for people who want to get a little bit beyond just the one plus one is two, I think your podcast is really, really instructive. And I would encourage people to, you know, to, you know, to listen to it, MO 1:41:52I really appreciate that. I really appreciate that Dr. Zama. And, and I have to recommend Amba farmers voice to people as a resource that I’d recommend to people, because of the different ways, especially if you want to hear some pidgin and learn some pidgin. as I as I have always wondered about it. And, um, I mean, like I said, now I’m able to hear it, but also be able to understand to increase my understanding of relating to our people, right, because we talk everybody who listens to the podcast heard me talk, um, and, uh, and being able to relate to people and meet people where they are is something that I’ve not always been, I’m not been the best at and, um, and, and I definitely do want to be able to get to more people on the continent. And hearing about the practices as they are practice is extremely beneficial, right, to be able to be able to be able to pull out techniques that can work, wherever, you know, people have heard it on the podcast, that I want to be able to curate a body of information that can work wherever you are on this earth, you know, because a lot of techniques that are talked about are only relevant to somebody living in zone eight, or somebody living in Massachusetts, right, we need to figure out techniques that will work regardless of where you are on the planet, throughout wherever people are, wherever anybody is throughout the diaspora is where these techniques need to work. And the one technique that works throughout the that diaspora is our spirituality. Right? And so, I’m I, like, you know, these sorts of questions come in this way. Because as I kept farming, you know, I kept mean, dreams changed, right? These different these. And my appreciation for life in general, especially the outdoors changed, and it was because not only was I connecting to the universe in a way that you described earlier, extremely poetically, but it is also connecting to my own heritage for the last 500 years, but so to speak, right? Because so much so many people don’t want to don’t want to farm because they consider it slave work. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:44:37No, no. MO 1:44:41It is just the reality that we have to overcome, you know, because as we’re doing this, you are in, in a way, healing that relationship. Yes. Um, and being able to overcome that, you know, Dr. Joy DeGruy talks about it so much in the book, post traumatic slavery syndrome, and the different behaviors that we have been that have been selected for within our people. And I mean, slavery didn’t just happen in the Americas, right? It was obviously going on back home, too, right. Um, and so all of us have these these problems. And although it may not be the case, for everybody to develop some agricultural prowess, the spirituality will be felt in that way. Because it’s always been the case that there have been blacksmiths, there have already always been people who have done construction, and all of these different things have all of these different spiritual aspects to them, You know what I mean? Well, obviously, you know, but, um, it’s, it’s the case that being able to, just like I said, before, math, physics is applied math. Chemistry is applied physics, biology is Applied Chemistry in agriculture is applied biology. Right. Right. Um, and what we’re trying to do what I’m trying to do with the podcast, and what you’re helping me do, what we’re trying to do, is being able to apply spirituality. So it’s not just this, you know, we’re not just praying, and we’re not just we’re at, you know, spirituality is to be found through work. Yeah. And, and so, ultimately, like, like I’m saying, a lot of people have criticism, I’ve seen criticism about people like me, although it may not have been directed to me, who get a lot of their understanding about the continent through books. And, and don’t do it. And, and so what I’m saying is that something like ombre farmer’s voice, where you can see where people are doing, see how people are living, and seeing how you can actually benefit people can go a long way to increasing your own agricultural understanding. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:47:21Yeah, um, you know, you you mentioned something about, you know, the pidgin language. And, you know, what immediately came to my mind is that, you know, you’ve talked about this several li about meeting people where they are. And so, you know, the advantage of the pidgin language is that, I think a couple of years ago, so, there was this year of return. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes. So, why you have lots of people who were going back to Ghana, you know, Senegal, and you know, all these other places, you know, just, you know, getting up and jumping on the plane, and going to Ghana, without being able to understand how to communicate with the people besides English. It’s not a good thing. So if people have access to teach it in you have in Nigeria, in Ghana, in Sierra Leone, in Liberia, Southern Cameroon’s, they all speak pidgin. So knowing a few words, in Pidgin, from here, before getting on the plane, you know, get to connect it, immediately you get on the ground, you know, you know, get off the plane. So, that is one of the, one of the visions of Amba Farmers voice, that, you know, learning to speak, Yoruba may be difficult, but, you know, Pidgin has, you know, some English words, which you can quickly understand, and using those you can easily communicate with the people when, especially for those who have the, you know, who are continuing the year of the return and, you know, going back to Ghana or to other African countries to settle, you know, this is this could be a way to facilitate, you’re communicating with people on the ground when you get there, and not only communicating with people on the ground, but, you know, learning you know, a new language, you know, Pidgin is not very difficult. So, you know, you may not understand the nuances, but a lot least you can understand, you know, some of the things that are being you know, you know, the pidgin language is English, which is broken them call it broken English. So it is broken, it is broken English and it’s it’s a, it’s a it’s a medium of communication through which you can transmit knowledge easily, particularly for people who haven’t gone to school. It’s a language that you can communicate for, with the grandparents who didn’t go to school, but other kids who have gone to school. So you know, there’s that common language that you can use to, besides you know, the local languages, there’s not pitching that you can use to communicate. So that is, you know, when you’re talking about, you know, pitching that just came to my mind. And secondly, about, you know, people thinking that agriculture or farming is slave work. Could be true. But, again, for those of us who are not getting by live, now, it is not slave work, because during slavery, you were forced to do whatever you had to do. But now, it’s your choice to grow lettuce, or grow something. So it is not really slave, but it’s actually weaning yourself off that level, that were meant, think about that it was slave work, right. So it is detoxifying ourselves from that slavery mentality that we grew up with, that we know we’re being forced to, you know, to do this, or to grow this to grow this, because we need to stay alive. So you’re forced, but now, it’s your choice. So I think it is really relieving or breaking those chains of that past that we’re forced to. MO 1:52:10Absolutely, um, it oftentimes with certain conflicts that we had the only way to overcome them is to somewhat barrel right in to them. Right. And, and, and this is this is that right? Overcoming that notion of like, because before before, before the enslavement era, I mean, there was rice, it was, you know, rice Coast pepper coast, right. All these different because of the because of the agricultural prowess. So in that way, we’re connecting with our heritage beyond the last 500 years. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:53:01Yes. Absolutely.

Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Dr. Isaac Zama honors us with his wisdom and knowledge as he ushers in the second season of the podcast. Dr. Isaac Zama founded Amba Farmer’s Voice and through that is how I found him. His program showcase no-to-low-cost method of natural farming tailored to the people of Ambazonia. In this conversation we spoke a lot about the different topics. We had a lot of fun sharing our enthusiasm, and for that reason it has been broken up into three parts! Works ReferencedAmba Farmer’s VoiceAmba Farmer’s Voice Facebook PageAmba Farmer’s Voice YouTube ChannelHow to Make Your Own Organic Fertilizer With Urine (Piss) Part 1AmbazoniaFuture Fertility: Transforming Human Waste into Human WealthUrine fertilizer: ‘Aging’ effectively protects against transfer of antibiotic resistanceUrine fertilizer: ‘Aging’ effectively protects against transfer of antibiotic resistance – ScienceDaily.comAdvancing Technologies and Improving Communication of Urine-Derived Fertilizers for Food Production within a Risk-Based FrameworkUC Davis Chimney Solar Dryer Dr. Amos Wilson on the purpose of education.Akissi Stokes’ WundergrubsEpisode #78: Adam ChappellPost Traumatic Slavery SyndromeUDC CAUSESMchezaji “Che” Axum Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) MO 0:02All right, peace. I am Mason Olonade and this is Jigijigi Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul and we share strategies for how to do both. To do both, we asked two questions. How do you grow while you grow kale, collards, tomatoes, and melons? And why do you think the healthiest soils are black? Today, I’m very excited to have very proud to have Dr. Isaac Zama of Amba Farmer’s voice on the podcast, this will probably be a two part podcast, because he and I can talk until the next full moon about all these different especially low cost or no cost, ways to improve and build soil improve soil health, and improve human health. And so I want to say welcome Dr. Zama. Dr. Isaac Zama 0:58Thank you so much Mason it’s a wonderful pleasure to to be on your program and really appreciated. I’d like to use this opportunity to say hello to your listeners that we hope that through this program, they’ll be able to learn, able to share ideas how people can improve upon their nutrition, and health. MO 1:26I want us opportunity to say hello to your audience. And, and and and likewise. So the first question that we ask everybody is, when did you first realize you were supposed to have your hands in the soil? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:44Um, that is an interesting question. You know, I never realized that I had to have my hands in the soil. Because I was born in the soil. You know, I was born in Southern Cameroons. And when you are born, most of the people, especially if you’re born in the village, you grew up going to the farm, the first thing you know is you have a farm, you know, in your compound, or wherever you grew up. And so as early as you start walking, you have to go out, you know, by yourself, you know, to pluck berries, you know, there are all kinds of berries, all kinds of fruits. So you you know, you go out, you know, in the field, or in the backyard, to you know, to harvest whatever, whatever you want you want to harvest. And those of us who are born in the villages, you know, you you were born and most of the time you didn’t even have shoes, so you walk on the soil, and so the soil is just part of you. And so having your hand in the soil is just like breathing. It’s just natural. There’s not, it’s not something that you learn, it’s just something that you do. And so, that is how, you know, I got my my hands, you know, in soil. MO 3:22Well, you’re far you’re very far away from Southern Cameroons. You know, and I, I mean, had you because I, we’ve talked, we’ve established this brotherhood, I still would know super little about your life, right. And so in the process of you getting from Ambazonia, to Fairfax, you know, and discovering what you needed to be able to do for your people when I guess when did that sort of stuff click? Dr. Isaac Zama 3:57Well, growing up as a kid, I really wanted to be a professor at the University. And for those who may not know the history or the story behind Ambazonia or southern Cameroons. Southern Cameroons is or Cameroon, for, you know, to make it simple. Cameroon is a country that is composed of an English speaking part of the country which is called Southern Cameroons or Ambazonia and the French speaking part which is called La Republic du Cameroon. So, you know, in the 60s when African countries were gaining independence from from the colonial masters, England and France the UN because of pushing to liberate most of the countries decided that Southern Cameroons which was ruled, which was governed at the time by, by by Britain should join or should obtain their independence by joining with the independent French Cameroon. So, that is how these two countries came about, you know, this, these two countries became the Republic of Cameroon. But because the English speaking, were a minority within this Cameroon enterprise, they were, I would say mistreated, marginalized, as people buy the majority of French speaking Cameroonians, and this has been going on for the last, you know, 5060 years, the English speaking people became so disenchanted with the situation. And in 2016, they started agitating and wanting much more autonomy, or, you know, to be able to govern themselves. And they, the French government, you know, came down very hard on them with violence started killing people. And, you know, the southern cameras started defending themselves. And before you know, it, it the thing blew up into a whole Civil War. That is, the political history of my, my own personal history was growing up in this, you know, in this environment, of marginalization, you know, the French government didn’t want to develop our own part of the country. And so, they need, they never built any academic or academic infrastructure within our own part of the country. So those of us who grew up in the English speaking country had no opportunities, you know, for further education beyond high school. The, the, the, the universities that were established, were established in French by the country, and you had to speak French to be able to go to these universities. Can you imagine lesson that you finish high school, you’re, you’re all speaking, you know, you learned everything in English. And then you had to go to college, you have to go start in French, you have to go sit and listen to a professor speaking to in French language, which you know, nothing of. So, those were some of the frustrations that those of us who grew up in that country grew up in. And so, because of that, most of us are from a part of the country if found ways of, of, you know, going overseas, when when abroad. So, I happen to have had the good fortune of coming to the US. And by the time I came to the years, I already had a bachelor’s degree. I was a lawyer by training, as I said, my I wanted to be a university professor. But when I came to the US, I went to the University of Washington, School of Law in Seattle. And I did a master’s degree in environmental law. And after that, my, you know, finishing my master’s really opened my mind to what to what I could contribute, you know, towards our people, thinking of beyond myself. Beyond my goal of becoming of teaching in a university, I started looking at where I came from, what my people were going through, what could I do to help them so that made me do a 360 degrees spin. And I went into agriculture. i for i decided to go to the land to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. You know, where I did my PhD in international development. Most of it was centered on the Road development and agriculture. So that is how I actually came into becoming an agriculturist, I’d say, having studied in University of Wisconsin Madison, so that was the, my journey of becoming a professional in, in agriculture. You know, having studied that, you know, I started thinking that we have, you know, this is me, I’ve studied all these wonderful developments in agriculture. How does that translate? Or how does that help my mother in the village who hasn’t gone to school, who doesn’t have the resources of putting in place all the things that have started in the United States? Right. So, that is how I started, you know, reading and reading and doing research about how the agricultural system in the United States developed, you know, from the, you know, in, you know, using the, you know, for using the various phases, because, you know, the agriculture we have today in 2021, or in 19. Oh, in 1998, when I went to graduate school, is not the same thing as it’s not the kind of agriculture that is practiced back at home by my mother, who is a hoe and a machete, you know, to, you know, to Kenya grass. So, I started doing research to see how, based on where our people in the village are, with what kind of technology that they have, what can they How can I use my knowledge, you know, to meet them where they are, and improve upon what they are doing, you know, for, you know, for agricultural production. MO 12:22The, I tried to say this quote earlier, before we before we started recording, but I, I pulled it up, because it is exactly what you said, like Dr. George Washington Carver said, and bulletin number six, how to build up one out soils, we think it is wise to state here with the chief aim was to keep every operation within reach to the poorest tenant farmer occupying the poorest possible soil. And so, it’s been a very interesting thing. When I worked with these high school boys in the Hood, and trying to tell them all the stuff that I know not to go into how I would learn this information, and not the going and how I would say it back to me, or talking about all of the different ramifications, all the different implications bla bla, bla, bla bla, about what it is, you know, I just say, I see you see this widget, all this white stuff on the woodchip is a, you know, mycelium and this helps us extract all the different nutrients out of the wood out of the soil. So do not mess with this too much. You know, because a lot of I think that a lot of our people get caught up with I think a lot of the anti science and anti intellectual stuff that pervades, especially within the you know, the African American community is because it is insulting to be spoken to well beyond where you are, right. And I think a lot of people have a lot of good intentions, you know, especially me in the past by saying, Oh, no, I want to appeal to the EU that I know exists, that you know, look once to strive further and further and stuff like that, but um, sometimes that striving further and further is just having a reliable meal. Right? And so me talking about all this different theory is nonsense and is way far away from and I might, and I’m not and I’m ignoring that person and their reality. And so, I’m sort of due to be relate to relate to what to what you’re saying. Thinking about what you’ve learned, especially at the PhD level, and bringing that all the way you know, in focusing that information right To be able to communicate it across continents, you know, is it is a no, no, I mean, and you’re doing it, you know, I that’s how I found you. Because you’re doing this work. And you know, you’re about to, you know, I pulled it up earlier today with the, the the solar dehydrator and a solar dryer and everything that you’re given, you’re showing the people how to make in, in southern Nigeria, and everything like that, I mean, this is exactly the kind of work that needs to be done. And, and, and it’s very exciting to know you, and you’re doing it and to be able to give you a space to be able to share more information about it. It makes me proud to be able to, to be able to have you on the show and talking about it. And, and it’s because like, you know, some people may know about the United States and the victory gardens and stuff like that, that we had during World War Two. Um, but that was not anywhere near what is going on back in Ambazonia. Right. Like it’s because it is a fight for independence, but on the individual level is a fight for survival, right? Like, like you were talking about. Now, I don’t I’m not all that familiar with the geopolitical situations. I don’t know what it means. But like you were saying in this post on the 13th, that you’re saying, Oh, I guess it’s the French government is burning down food and homes in these various places. And so this is also farming as resistance like wood. This is not going to stop us anyway. You know, and you can’t have intensely technical solutions in war, because the infrastructure is not there for it. You can’t have all these plastic disposable items in all in all this different stuff. You need stuff that is going to that we can implement tomorrow that will feed us the day after that. Correct. So as it relates to that, what all do you have growing on this year? Dr. Isaac Zama 17:21Oh, that’s interesting. This summer, actually. I decided to grow Coco yam leaves. You know, collouquially is called here a Malanga at the you know, the the, the Hispanic stores, you know, they call it a Malanga. But back home, we call it Coco Yam. And you know, it’s it’s like a fruit, but it’s a tuber that grows on the ground. And back home, we eat the leaves, the leaves are extremely nutritious, the leaves are eaten in different forms. Once the cocoa yam grows, it produces big green leaves. And those leaves can be harvested and dehydrated. And then it could be ground and eaten in and made into sauce. Or you can use the leaves to roll another kind of dish that is called ekwang which is a grated cocoyam. And there’s another dish that is called Kwacocoo bible made out of his cocoyam, but in the US, cocoyam is, is pretty much available in stores, so you can actually go to any ethnic store and your buy, but you will not have the leaves here. So, to me, I thought that because we don’t have the cocoa yam leaves, that is what I should grow, you know, growing something that I cannot find easily in the store. So that is what that’s one of the main things that I grew, you know, this this summer, and because I don’t have enough space, what I did was that I went to, you know, had a friend who took me to a beekeeper who was kind enough to give me some five gallon plastic buckets. And, you know, I went to our community garden and picked up some really good compost from there I put them in this bucket, I had six of these buckets and I put in the soil and I was able to you know, I went to a store and bought the cocoa yam seedlings or seeds and came and planted them. And before you knew it in two or three months, the whole area was you know, inundated with coca yam leaves. very fresh green you know, if you go to Amba farmers Voice Facebook page that is our that is the back yes, the image Yeah, yes, that’s the image that those are cocoyam leaves that I grew in my backyard. And so you know, able to harvest harvested, you know, towards the fall, we use some in making ekwang. We harvested some boycotted and, and, and blended it, and then you know, put them in plastic bags and put them in the freezer. So, if we want to do cocoyam stew, we’ll just get get it. And then you know mix stew with tomatoes and onions and, and fish or chicken or whatever. So that is what I grew up in the summer. I also tried my hand at growing ginger. Hmm. Okay, yeah. So, you know, I went to, you know, to the grocery store, just bought ginger and came and, and I put it in, you know, an A plastic sachets or, you know, in this large bag, this launcher, you know, such pets, and, you know, put it in it and put it outside. So the heat from the sun made, you know, stimulated it, it started, you know, producing shoots faster. So, you know, I then took it out and implanted it, you know, it grew, you know, it grew. And, you know, that was just a way of me testing to see what I was getting for any group very well, even though it didn’t produce a lot of ginger, but I was able to have a little bit of ginger. And the reason being that the timeframe was too short. That is something which I don’t, you know, after research how long it takes to grow ginger from, from the seed on to harvesting, but that just told me that, you know, you could actually grow ginger here successfully, you know, the summer, I think the the folks in, in California or in Nevada or in Colorado, I mean, you know, in the West that is a little bit tropical. I would grow ginger very well. Yeah. So, um, you know, those were, you know, I also grew Huckleberry, which we call Njama-Njama, it’s, it’s a green vegetable that is very, very nutritious. And so, you know, I was able to grow that and have it be added, you know, you know, a number of times, once you have once you’ve grown, it starts growing, you harvest after maybe one or two weeks, it’s ready to harvest again. So we harvested that several times during the summer. And, and, you know, either at all, you know, we were, you know, freezing, you know, to, you know, to eat during the winter MO 23:48because I didn’t know, Huckleberry– cocoyam is also elephant ears. That’s how the majority of people here know it. Okay. Dr. Isaac Zama 23:59Elephant Ears. MO 24:00That’s the name. Yeah, that’s a sort of colloquial name. Okay. The people’s name. Elephant ears. And, and then in, especially in Asian communities is known as Taro. Yes. Tarot. Yes. So I didn’t know that. The that’s what this was. And especially down here in the further south that you get, even at the University of Maryland on campus. Coca Yam is used as an ornamental plant and so and especially down here in Charlotte, because it gets really humid and it’s, it’s warmer for a longer period of time. I mean, some of these leaves they’ll be you know, twice as wide as I am and knowing now that all that stuff is edible. You know, it definitely has me curious. I we because we just moved into this house. I’m definitely looking for some things to plant and I’ve seen a lot of my Neighbors grow that because deer will not eat cocoa yam. So I, I can, I will look for some of those tubers in the, in the, in the spring, and I’ll plant some of those. And then I’ll have to get the recipes from you for how to cook. Dr. Isaac Zama 25:17Yeah, you know, if I may just add that, you know, to get a good harvest, I would suggest that you begin early in March, you know, you go to store and just buy those cocoa yams, you know, in the plastic sachets when you come back, you know, from a store, just living in Back to Search, just just tied mouth, and then just live it, maybe after one or two weeks, you’ll see it start shooting, once you start shooting, and the weather’s warm enough, you know, just plant it so that you will have a longer life, it will start producing faster, and then you’ll be able to have a lot of it before, you know the winter comes. Because it will die in the you know, in a winter. So I didn’t start it very, very early, but this year, I plan to start it, you know, in March, I’ll just go buy the aquarium and you know, leave it in the plastic sachets, you know in the store sachets, and you know it’s tight so that, you know the heat in the kitchen, you know would make it you know what speed up the, you know, the route shooting out. And then once the roof shoots, you just once the weather starts getting warm, just put it in the you know, you know the soil and whoo. MO 26:40You know, it’s interesting, because that exact process is exactly what I’ve done for ginger in the past. And well, let me be more honest, when I grew ginger at the very first time I had it in our pantry when I was living with a bunch of roommates in DC. And I completely forgot about it. And then when I was looking through the I think was looking through the pantry and then I saw this thing I was like, oh my god, what is that, and then I realized that it was the ginger because there were all these roots, all these shoots all over the place. And so I broke them up and then planted them and I got a pretty good, pretty good harvest out of it. But that’s because like you said, I started in March and then harvested it in November. And so this year, one of the things that we’re planning on doing because right now we have carrots in the ground. Um, you know, and they can go all winter, it’s when we dig up those carrots, we’re going to put ginger in the, in the beds where the carrots are, and that way it’ll you know, the soil already be loose for them to be able to expand, you know, all those root crops definitely need the finest soil. So that so that they can expand and less, except for sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes, I, we had that stuff growing in our soil, that’s just, you know, almost pure clay. And they just, you know, they just pushed everything out the way or absorbed everything into it. You know what I think both were going on. But um, because we pulled out some we pulled out some sweet potatoes that were the size of you know, that were, you know, my whole forearm and hand but as wide as my thigh. You know, it was like, What are we going to do with this? Nobody’s going to buy this child sized Yam. But, um, but you know, like you said, you know, we get to chop that stuff up, put in the dehydrator, you know what I mean? And yes, maybe some tips or something from it. Dr. Isaac Zama 28:49Yeah, please. If I may, um, when we’re growing up, you know, this, this just this just came to my mind when we’re growing up. There is, you know, we used to eat potatoes, you know, to dehydrate it. And we used to call it biscuits. So, what, what what our mothers will do is they’ll get sweet potato, the toilet, and then you know, they take out the peelings, they slice it into, into into, into slices and then they’ll dry it and the sun and it when it dries up it you know, it becomes like, you know, we call them biscuits. And what they used to do is when kids are going to secondary school, you know, your mom would give you this dried sweet potatoes, you know you put it in your in your trunk or you take them to you know to school, for those who are living in the dormitory. And you know, during a break or whatever You take a piece or two, and you chew it, and then you drink water. That is that is your snack. So, you know, that just we talked about sweet potato that just reminded me. So how can we make the same snack over here? With the sweet potatoes? Or you’re growing? Because, you know, you were you were saying that when if people saw it was said, but now what kind of sweet potato is that? You know, you can use that, yeah. You know, you can either dry it raw, you know, using a simple solar dryer, hopefully we’ll talk about the solar dryer, or even even try the system that was that we grew up trying, you know, drying, you know, boil it, and then, and then you slice it, and then you dry in a solar dryer. You know, the difference is that the sweet potatoes here is a little bit soft, is much softer than what we have on the continent. So, you know, to boil it, so that it’s not very soft, you have to avoid using, you know, you make sure you don’t put into water, there’s something there’s something that, you know, having a kitchen, I don’t forget what it’s called, but you know, you put it in a pot, and then you know, you put something on it, and then what is on there is steaming. Yeah, the steamer. Right. So you know, if you boil it on a steamer so that water doesn’t touch it, and then you know, you monitor it so that it doesn’t stay on the on the store for too long. That way. It’s, it’s, it doesn’t become too soft. You can you know, take it out and you know, peel it, slice it, and then you dried in the, you know, in the solar dryer. So that is something which I think you should try you know, in the summer and see what comes out of it. MO 31:58Yeah, um, yeah, that’s a very interesting thing. I mean, because especially, especially, my wife and I are really trying to be able to get to make healthier snacks. And, and it really doesn’t take any effort at all to grow sweet potatoes. They, I mean, because they’ll grow on your kitchen countertop, you know? Um, but, um, but, uh, yeah, when you were saying that about about the making the biscuits, I was like, huh, because sweet potatoes definitely do get mushy. But, um, I think I think that dehydrating them in that way could work. could work? Well, I mean, I mean, just like just making, you know, everybody makes chips and fries and stuff out of them. But, um, but I’ll have to try steaming them. But like I said, I also have to figure out what kind of pot I can get it. Because these some of those, I mean, we left we forgot about them, you know what I mean? Because, Oh, we didn’t forget about them. We were like, we planted them. When did we plant them? I think we planted them in June. And it was our first time growing them. And when we pulled them up in October, I think we just left some of them too long, we needed to do a more progressive harvest so that they don’t get that big. And or plant them a little bit later so that we can because a lot of people want them for Thanksgiving and Christmas and stuff like that, as opposed to when we had them in the early part of October. So we just need to delay that a little bit longer probably plant those when we’re done with corn, or when the corn is more established. But anyway, um, yeah, I mean, well, why don’t we take this time then to talk about the different because you are, although you have been growing, the thing that you are primarily focused on growing is people’s proficiency in these different techniques. And one of these techniques that you’ve talked about is the solar dehydrator the solar dryer, so please, you know, share with us all your thoughts on the solar dryer. Dr. Isaac Zama 34:27Okay, um, the solar dryer that I’m talking about. It’s a it’s what is what they call in development, lingo. Appropriate Technology. Right? Yeah. So it’s technology that I wouldn’t say poor people, but I would say that farmers themselves can build wherever they are, wherever village they are in a continent or even here Nik is very, very simple. And all you need is just plastic paper, and wood. You know, depending on what design you’re, you’re you want or what size you want, you know, you can, you can build a solar dryer that you can put, you know, out, you know, out in your, in your yard, or your backyard, and you’ll be able to design, I mean to dry, essentially, anything, any food that you want to preserve, the technology is so revolutionary, that, you know, there are lots of people back home or back on the continent who, during harvesting season, let’s say let’s take mango season, the mangoes would be so much because everybody has it, it just rots. But if then if they could have a solar dryer, they would, you know, get this mangoes or pineapples or, or pears or what have you, and, and dry them. And in that process, you prolong the shelf life of this of this food, it adds more value, you know to it, you can sell it at a much higher value than, you know trying to sell it fresh. So it’s you know, it’s a technique, which I’m sure you’re you know that there is that designs that have been done here that scientists or universities have done. But I hope you you’re able to put that on your website so that people can see it, and try it, you know, you don’t to build yours. In the US, it should cause you know, under, you know, depending on the sides $100 or $200 or the max. And it’s very efficient, very, very efficient. You know, you can use it to dry your sweet potatoes, as you said, you can even you know dry a lot of tomatoes, you talked about a friend of yours who was you know, who build a smoker, the smoke for tomatoes, I don’t know what, what we’re using, whether we’re using wood, or they were using electricity to you know, to dry these tomatoes, but a solar dryer, you know, just use this sun. And in the summer, we have enough sun sunshine here in the US that you can actually dry enough fruits or vegetables, you know, for your family. You know, for those who may be interested in starting a small business, but it’s something which the people continent for using this solar dryers, you know, to dry mangoes and pineapples and on pears and things like that, that they’re actually selling. So the solar dryer is a very well revolutionary technology, which is very simple. And it can really prevent hunger. You know, it can prevent hunger, particularly in the continent where you have two seasons, you have the dry season, or you have the rainy season. In the rainy season, that’s where you have all the food, all the fresh fruits, it’s so much that most of it rots. While the dry season, when there’s no rain, there’s a lot of hunger, you know, you don’t have any fresh foods. So if you even use a solar dryer in the rainy season to preserve all the fresh foods that you grow fat in the summer, you’ll be able to prevent hunger or you’ll be able to sell and you know, things like that. So the solar dryer is something which it’s a very simple, proper technology that I think your your your your listeners or your viewers should consider you know trying it and why not let’s do it as a challenge competition wherever you know whoever does it anyway, we can share ideas and see what comes out of it. MO 39:35Right. Yeah, so I you would you would reference it before we started talking. And so I pulled up the chimney solar dryer from UC Davis. And yeah, this is a very simple, very simple device. And I can absolutely see how it can operate very quickly. I think in the past I’ve definitely made I’ve confused myself with making solar ovens and solar dryers the same thing. They’re very different things, obviously. But yeah, something like this as it relates to preserving anything would work. I mean, anything that we grow on the farm can be put in here. And yeah, then then this with, you know, a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder for some of these things, depending on how dry you can you get something I imagine that you just leave it out, or can leave the trays out, or, you know, store the trays inside and then bring put them back in there, right there to really bring something all the way like bone dry so that it can can be yes. You know, and then making, you know, dehydrating tomatoes all the way dehydrating. I mean, because Paprika is just ground up peppers, right. And so it’s it’s, uh, you know, making something like a, you know, the base for tomato soup is just Tomato, tomato sauce, I mean tomatoes that are just ground up, and then with a bunch of different seasonings, and there you go. Yep. And the same thing for making um, because one thing that we do have a lot of that goes bad very quickly, our greens, yes, kale, collards, all the all of the leaves from cabbage, all of the leaves from broccoli, yeah, cauliflower, those are all still collard greens, you know, and all of those things could be ground up or dried, and then ground up and made into, you know, a green powder. For for nutrition, or even before that just ground up or just dried to make chips. Yes, it’s like how they have seaweed or, or, you know, I’ve made kale chips in the oven before. But, uh, you know, drying these things up, like that could be a really great way to improve the nutritional content in a really easy way. Because like you said, when you’re producing like that, once you once you have these things dialed in, for some things, is too much food to eat, you know, and now you have this weird problem on your hands, where, especially maybe even if you’re growing in your backyard or something, you’re going so much your neighbors don’t even want to eat it. And, and that sort of thing with this solar solar dryer, it’s way less cost than it would be to can something. And way less tricky. Because canning canning can get really bad if you do it wrong. And something like this, with this chimney dryer, where it just heats. I mean, everything is done passively after you build it. And it’s not something offensive looking either. So it could be just set up in a backyard, even in even in an urban space. So I will yeah, like I said, I’ll definitely include that with the, with the show notes and everything like that. So, no, you go, Dr. Isaac Zama 43:32yeah, I was gonna suggest that, um, you know, for those of us who live in a city, we can you know, a couple of people who are growing, who have a quarter acre and they’re growing this so much food, that you know, they come together and build a single solar dry and share it. Right, so today is your own day tomorrow. It’s mine the next day, this person’s solar drone, I mean, they so that, you know, we we use the solar dryer, you know, as a community that could also serve as a, you know, a way of bringing a community together. You know, you know, to share resources. That way, you don’t have to spend 200 bucks to you know, to build one I spent 200 bucks to go, we can build one and unshare it. You know, we all learn together things like that. MO 44:23And especially in the in the DMV, DC, Maryland and Virginia. And in some other states. We don’t have it down here in Charlotte or in Carolina, in in the Carolinas but up north they have cottage kitchen laws. And something like this could work extremely well for anybody in a cottage kitchen situation. Because you can grow the stuff in your backyard, be hydrated in your backyard, and then take it to the market and sell it And especially, you know, like what I wanted, what I want for people as it is within that talk that I gave it routing DC. You know what, and it’s been proven meaning down here in Charlotte when we’ve been growing, you can’t get fresher greens or any fresh produce that we produce, you cannot get it as close to downtown anywhere closer to downtown than where we are, right? Because we can see the skyline from where we are, right. And so I know that people are talking about local food, but sometimes, you know, local food might be like you, you, you’re going to go get local honey, right from from giant, or Safeway. But the honey that you’re getting in Fairfax comes all the way from the Shenandoah Valley, you know what I mean? That’s really far away, yes, um, you know, uh, but like what we’re doing, I mean, we’re doing ultra local, you know, it’s like, this is your same zip code, or one or two zip codes away, you know, within, within, you know, within 15 minutes of you, that kind of food, and especially when we, you know, when you grow stuff that also has medicinal properties, like, like ginger or something like that, or even, like I said, with all the rest of these greens and stuff like that, developing the nutrient or the, the medicinal qualities of these things, I mean, you can, you can charge a premium for those for those things. And so, what I wanted to say was proving the hyper local model as as it being able to put a premium on your produce, but then also being able to do a urban cooperative situation, because like you said, if we have a solar this chimney solar dryer, then somebody who is supplying us with onions, can also use that, say, if we’re making something like, like a hot sauce, or whatever, but now, it’s a weird area in time, now, we can sort of all team up to use this solar dryer, and, you know, now you can have this onion powder, or these dried onions for seasoning, or whatever, you know, this is a I think, and I’m really glad that you brought this to my attention, because I’ll probably spend on another podcast episode talking about all of the different ideas that I had have for this because, yeah, I mean, just in looking at it, it is an extremely simple device to make that it. I mean, I’m sure that they have, they probably have plans within the manual somewhere for it. And so, I mean, you could take those plans and take them to Home Depot and have them cut up all the wood for you. And then just, you know, take you know, just hammer it all together, right in your backyard or whatever. Um, and and even somebody who is even more industrious if they wanted to, could sell that, it, you know, sell the sell the service of constructing it, or sell the sell the manufacturing of it, you know, what I mean? There’s so many different opportunities for something like this, um, and even and even like you were saying, as it relates to international development, having this as something that you can do to go somewhere else, and build up somebody else’s soils with something like this can be extremely revolutionary for the people because like you said, My, like my aunt uncle live in Puerto Rico. When we went to Puerto Rico. My dad was kind of astounded because it was similar to stuff that he’d seen in Sierra Leone, when he went and Peace Corps in the 70s people have mango trees, cashew trees, or whatever kind of trees, and the fruit is just on the sidewalk, because nobody’s there to eat it because it’s just too much too much food. And so, you know, and on Puerto Rico, they had like horses, but they the horses would just eat stuff. But it’s still like, man, like, how are people not utilizing? And it’s because they don’t have technology, the appropriate technology for able to derive profit from their surplus? Yeah, um, so yeah, there’s the the solar dryer is is awesome. And most importantly, your people are finding success? Yes. Dr. Isaac Zama 49:40Yeah, actually, yeah, people are finding success. You know, young, young people are becoming, you know, entrepreneurs, you know, using this appropriate technology to start businesses that are actually flourishing. You know, the one of the I’ll tell you this, one of the major challenges that we have on a continent, with our educational system is that our educational system is not designed to solve our own problems. You know, the educational system is designed, or was designed at a time to, to train bureaucrats who would work for the government. And because people, because the educational system is not designed to solve problems, you know, once you go to school, you don’t use that knowledge, you know, to see how you can improve your environment. That is why, you know, this solar technology or the solar dryer has not permitted the whole society, you know, agricultural technicians, what I would say that they would favor, you know, importing a $20 million dryer that uses electricity, you know, to come dry fruits, where, you know, there are no roads to transport, you know, the food from the rural areas to where you have the $20 million dryer, or oven. And, you know, the electricity is so spotty, that if you invested that amount of money, five times out of 10, you don’t have electricity, and so your investment becomes useless. That’s why you have lots of this white elephant investments in many African countries, because the technology, our education, has made us such that we have to have everything coming from abroad, which are not really suited for our own environment. But, you know, a technology like this solar dryer, is technology that every single neighborhood, in every village should have. Because, you know, you have very experienced carpenters, who can build these things, if just, they just knew how to do it. And, you know, farmers can afford these things, you know, if you cannot, if you cannot buy it up upfront, you know, it just, you know, the the people or the entrepreneurs or whoever, who can come up with, with it with, with a model, where, you know, you can provide these things to these farmers, and they pay over time, and then they own it. And, you know, over time, they will make up, you know, the money that they used in buying this. So these are very, very simple things, which if we think about it really well, it could solve problems, even here in the US, you know, I know of farmers who are down south who are bedevil with all these huge loans, because, you know, you have to buy the top of the line equipment, in order to be able to produce and stay competitive, when, you know, you have simple things like this, where if, you know, you’re growing your squash, or you’re growing lots of fresh vegetables, I mean, fresh spices, you know, the people who grow tons of spices, just, you know, harvest these things, put them in a solar dryer, grab them while you’re in business, right. But because especially in the continent, because we’ve been conditioned through our educational system to think that, you know, you have to import a $20 million spice drying rack or drying machine, you know, to be able to dry these things, that’s why you don’t have these things, you know, in all the villages in, you know, wherever, you know, on the continent. So, you know, I’m really, really happy that we’re having this discussion, and that you have a means of, of, of educating our people that there are simple things that could be done here in the US that would not cost you an arm and a leg in terms of dollars or in terms of man hours, you know, to be to you know, to be able to play douce and make, you know a decent income MO 55:09preeminent psychologist Dr. Amos Wilson always talked about how educate the purpose of education is to be able to develop the brain to solve the problems for your people. Right. And, and because otherwise you’re solving somebody else’s problems. And like you were saying, you know, that the the particular education, the Cologne, I mean, it’s still a colonial education system, right? I mean, we have a similar education system here as it relates to how can you train factory workers, that’s basically the education system in the United States, right. But that does have an inherent problem solving ability, because you do have to figure out how to do something. But as it relates to what you’re talking about in the creation of this white elephant technology, you want to solve problems that are going to get you recognition, as opposed to solving problems that are actually going to do something. And, and obviously, it doesn’t work. Like you were, you know, everybody listens to podcasts. No, I’m all the way on it on black soldier flies and stuff like that. And one of the things that I’ve seen people do is read these black soldier flies and those complicated apparatuses that we’ve talked about. But then also, there is one company that I was reading about that the guy who founded it sold it, which is a testament to its use, um, he sold it, what he was doing was rearing black soldier flies, drying them, and then making cakes out of them for feed for fish, especially within an aqua culture on aquaponics capacity. Right. And I’m, and this operation was so fine tuned that he was able to sell the business, which is a lot of aspects of business that our people aren’t really aware of about creating a machine that can operate autonomously, that you can then sell for eight, you know, well beyond what you were selling each individual product or the aggregate of products for. And so, while you were talking about education, I was thinking about this as it relates to even having a separate a separate dryer for, for these black soldier flies that are coming out, you know, and then taking those pupil, dehydrating them, and then being able to sell those to people who as pet food, you know, to all of these different people who, you know, maybe you know, somebody who is raising chickens, who doesn’t have who doesn’t want to do this, somebody who has a reptile, somebody who has fish, you know, because those you know, I mean, it seems in my experience, that it is, I mean, I know that it will change at some point, but it seems to be a linear progression, if one bucket will make 2000 flies another bucket a further a little bit further away will also make 2000 flies, collecting those larva, dehydrating them in this way. I mean, you know, just just from our waist, that is a thing that, you know, is is really awesome. And even, I mean, it like you said there’s so many different ways to utilize just just this as an appropriate technology. Because even thinking about even drying different things like drying compost and stuff like that for the different aggregate the nutrients that are there within it, that you know, because that will make it so much easier to transport. You know, I mean, they Oh my gosh, you know, Dr. Isaac Zama 59:16you just reminded me of something you know, for people who have who want to keep chicken for example, yeah, you can go to you know, you can go to a bar that brews beer and pick up the spent grain and come back and you know, I was just saying that for you know, for people who want to keep checking, MO 59:50right? No, I heard you I was just chatting on a heater. Dr. Isaac Zama 59:53Yeah. So you know, you can go to one of these Mom and Pop places Is that brew beer and pick up the spent great, you know, for free, right? You, you come back you dried in your solo dryer, and then you use this membrane to feed your chicken, you know, in the, you know, in the winter, so it cuts down on your cost of, you know, feeding your chicken. So, you know, the potential of this solar dryer is limb is, is limited just to our imagination. You know, there are people who are growing, who are raising mealworms MO 1:00:41Yeah. Dr. Isaac Zama 1:00:43I don’t know if you know about this, but I’m going to tell you about one of the sisters in Atlanta who has won the grabs, she grows mealworms and she uses it in making cookies, new worms, something like like worms, but you know, they’re, you know, some, you know, people can Google it and find what new ones are. And, you know, she grows mealworms. And she feeds them with all kinds of grain. So, if you’re a meal, one grower, you know, you can go to, to this. People who brew beer, and you know, pick up the spinning grain and dry it, and you use it to feed your mealworms or you use it to feed your children, or you use it to feed your pigs. So you can try it, you know, as a method of preserving it. So that, you know, you can use it in, you know, in the winter, in the winter in the winter, when you know that you don’t have enough sunlight in order to continue the drying process. So the solar dryer is a it’s a revolutionary technology, which, you know, people can use for, you know, for themselves. For me personally, what I’m really interested in is self sufficiency. You know, doing it as a business, you know, needs careful thinking and careful planning, but if we just focus on making sure that, you know, people have that nobody goes hungry people have enough to eat, then those who want to, you know, go go to the next step or the next level, doing as a business, you know, there are always ways of doing that at a very, very affordable and affordable way of you know, getting to, you know, use it using this technology to you know, to do business. MO 1:02:51Yeah, I mean, you have to have surplus in order to be able to enter into to selling it. And so absolutely, I, I assume that you when you’re talking about wonder grubs, you’re talking about this sister Akissi Stokes? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:03:07Yes. Yeah. Akissi Stokes. MO 1:03:09Yeah. Um, yeah. The, the, the, the, I mean, Booker T. Washington said a long time ago, you know, uh, you know, you got to start from where you are exactly where you are. And, yeah, you know, the business in, in the business aspects of it. I’m talking to, I guess, the people, you know, to people stateside, you know what I mean? Because much of those things are largely figured out, but I mean, I know, like you said, a lot of people burdened with loans. Um, uh, in this, I was just listening to this episode. I have to, I’ll put it in the show notes. But it was from the podcast. It was very inspirational to me the regenerative agriculture podcast with John Kempf, um, he was interviewing this one farmer. And he was talking about how I think it was Rick Clark. Or, or Adam Chapelle. I don’t remember one of the two but they were talking about how they’ve been seeing increased profitability on their farms as they continue to farm less and less land. And one of the things that they were doing in that is utilizing cover crops to keep their land covered all the time. One of the things that they talked about, I think it was I don’t remember which guy it was, but he was talking about being able to flip cows like how people flip homes right, meaning he went to the to the dairy auction and bought the worst looking cows that he could find that were Like $200 ahead. And those cows, even the people who were selling him, the cows were saying they might not survive getting back to the farm. So you bought 42 of these cows at $200 ahead, and two of them died on the way to back to his farm. Right. So 40 Cows now, he let them loose on his pasture that was cover crop and didn’t see them for like three days, he had to buy a drone to find these these on his land. But then, and He fed them just the cover crops that have already been growing. And then he was able in March, he bought them in November, and now it’s March, he sold them for $900 ahead. Also just cover crops, right. And so meaning that those cows must have been so healthy, right, just off of basically eating stuff that you just just storing out there. And so when you’re talking about self sufficiency, right, because I know that I know that, um, you you had some posts, for people who are doing like, you had a video about small ruminants, right, like an ant on like, like goats and stuff like that. But even people growing pigs, you know, that being able to develop the soil enough to grow the food that you can’t even eat, right, um, but the stuff that they love to eat, or the stuff that you know that you all the different ways and stuff like that, to be able to grow a pig that can become so healthy, right, that it has this higher value attached to it is this stuff that we need to be doing on an individual level, to feed us to sustain us to be able to go and then get into the very tough world and ambitious world of business? Dr. Isaac Zama 1:07:00Yeah, correct. Alright.

Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Join Instructor Mason Trappio to gain an understanding of how climate change affects the urban farmer and the growth of new crops. This course informs the urban and peri-urban farmer about how climate change affects them and provides strategies for how to successfully adapt. Our growing environments are affected, to varing degrees, by climate change. Increased temperatures, greenhouse emissions, and insect populations all challenge our farming operations. In this course, you will gain an understanding of how climate change affects the urban farmer, and new crops to grow in this New Normal. Credentials Earned: This a noncredit stand-alone course. What You Will Learn: – How climate change can impact farming operations – How to use cover crops to mitigate climate change – How to use climate-smart crops in the face of climate change Link to the slides. Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) All right, so let’s begin. Objectives, you will gain an understanding of the myriad effects climate change is having on the urban and semi urban farmer. Will learn some suggested solutions to the potentially negative effects of climate change, and Will share some tested varieties of common crops capable of handling the changing climate. The future ain’t what it used to be is a the title of a very popular song from 1977 with very somber lyrics could also be the title for Climate Change scenario that we are facing today. The changes that we are expected to see or hear the last decade was the hottest on record, thanks to global warming. According to expert experts at the National Oceanic administration, Atmospheric Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. At the University of the District of Columbia, a land grant university, our primary focus is on addressing the very critical questions related to urban agriculture. If you set aside the jokes about it, one thing is for sure, Mother Nature always bats last. Her batting average is very good these days. My personal identification and interaction with the change in climate occurred in the 90s. While running a very small certified organic farm in Jessup, Maryland. I noticed that the early spring rains were extremely excessive. scientists agree that the earth is getting warmer every year is warmer than the previous year. Also, if you are very in tune farmer, you have probably noticed that the frost free seed growing season is getting a little longer. Therefore, we suggest the two of the most important tools in the urban and Peri urban farmers arsenal are imagination and practicing the art of being flexible. Which means that you must be ready to change. Farmers must be prepared to change crop varieties, crop planting dates and irrigation schedules. And we must be ready to learn immersing ourselves more in the pest and disease management and whatever other factors may affect urban agriculture. As the planet warms, we have some suggested areas that growers need to look at solutions for these and how to implement adaptation for successful crop production. In this era of climate instability. We are entering the era of bigger and more prolific weeds. The four major green greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapor. Carbon dioxide is the one that probably affects urban growers the most. The reason is that carbon dioxide is essential to plant growth. As atmospheric carbon dioxide increases, plant growth is also expected to increase in some cases that might mean higher crop yields. But it also could mean higher lead populations. Some of the let me know how I’m going to do that. Linda Yannone 13:34It could mean greater compost to greater access to compost, that’s a positive. MO 13:40Absolutely. So some of the urban effects, weed ecology and weed science are related and are very interesting courses at the university level. When I was a student some years ago, I could not wait to enroll in a weed science course, to my dismay, the course did not offer any strategies for ecological weed management. When I asked my professor about that, he rolled his eyes and said, Sorry, sir, you are in the wrong class for that and continued to teach the conventional toxic cocktail weed prevention and management methods. At that point, I realized that I had to, I quickly had to learn both methods of weed management, chemical and non toxic. It is now documented that urban centers have higher temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels in the summer than suburban areas do. Perhaps some growers do not have weed problems in their plots, but I’m sure many do. If you ever if you ever have an opportunity to take a short vacation from your garden plot, you will experience what happens when you are not there to perform weed management in a timely manner. How much damage can a weed cause in some cases you can have 100% crop loss. That is especially true for crops where the plant canopy architecture does not shade the soil from light which causes constant germination of small weeds seeds on the surface of the soil. Carbon dioxide is food for your plants and weeds. Weeds are opportunists and are widely adaptable to a range of environmental conditions. And as weather becomes more irrational and extreme, as seasonal fluctuations become more evident, as temperatures rise and rain changes, weeds with their high genetic variation and plasticity, are likely to be the ecological winners. Weeds are like super athletes. They are highly competitive and have an excellent work ethic which you cannot match. Some scientists proclaim that weeds will be at a disadvantage as carbon dioxide reduces crop and weed competition due to some various specific plant physiological traits. Another frustrating factor, especially early in the season, where we control is important is that you cannot always distinguish between the crop and the weed because they look alike. This is especially true when you direct seed crops into the soil. Sometimes they can look the same as they emerge from the soil. Later in the growing season. After the weed has had a chance to compete for light nutrients or water, growers may realize that they have been nurturing an imposter in their garden, it is sometimes too late to save the crop without a huge amount of weeding. Thus, one of the best management strategies you can employ as an urban grower his use of summer and fall cover crops here are the six best and easiest ones to use in our region Mid Atlantic to help address this issue, I just wanted to make a slight emphasis of this point number two earlier we were talking about brassicas there especially some like that can be kind of difficult. Now it’s not so much of the case. But early in the spring when wild, wild canola rape, whatever you want to call it starts coming up or with garlic mustard, those can look exactly like what we want to grow. And so those are the that’s some of the things that we’re talking about. Yes, absolutely. The Absolutely. Absolutely case and especially um you know, I think one of my master gardener class one of the one of the teachers was talking about pine fines, sorry, just for you know, for listeners sake in the future, user asked “Are mulch, mulch or straw good alternatives for weed management. Some people just use a tarp to overwinter.” Yes. So yes, absolutely anything that is going to basically keep the soil covered is exactly what you want to do. And we’ll go into that in our very next slide. Mother Nature does not like our soil to be uncovered, and neither should urban farmers. One of the practices that we see least the least often in urban food plots is the use of cover crops. That should not be the case, cover crops can be used to mitigate and adapt to climate change. More studies are coming out on the benefits of using cover crops to address climate change. The ancient practice of cover cropping is extremely critical in nutrient management, the restoration of nitrogen and returning other nutrients into the soil. So using a tarp to overwinter is good. But what you don’t do is necessarily keep that soil alive with something growing, or something decomposing, that tarp will just sort of insulate that and keep that warm. If you were going to do something like that to overwinter I would suggest building a hoop house. instead. If you’re still going to involve that climate that way you can have something growing throughout the entirety of the winter. So we have some more benefits to cover cropping. Returning these cover crops back into the soil also puts carbon dioxide back into the soil. That process is called carbon sequestration, and addresses global climate change. The use of cover crops or green manures as they were once called, is like in ground composting. Those crops shade out heavy weeds. Loosen heavy soil and prevent soil compaction by heavy rain or snow and also prevent soil erosion. Cover cropping is perhaps one of the easiest and most beneficial things that you can do for your soil. I just want to check and see okay, no additional people. All right. Let me just get a little bit coffee here. Cover Crop selections. There are many cover or there are many crops to choose from. Depending on your location. There are nitrogen fixing and non nitrogen fixing cover crops. The nitrogen fixing cover crops are also known as legumes have the unique ability to extract nitrogen from the air or atmosphere and transfer it to their roots for later use by plants and microbes. Because I’ve done this in every class, I’m just going to do it here. Because right now, well, I’m just going to do it here. The way that I’ve been describing this, for people who don’t know or are not familiar, is that the way that the way that this nitrogen fixing occurs is that there are symbiotic bacteria that live on nodules of the roots of these plants. They hang out in these sort of little knuckle areas, like if my fingers were to be roots. And so what they do is they live symbiotically from what I understand plant the plants exchange calcium and other nutrients with the with the with those bacteria like rhizobia and then the the nitrogen or those bacteria store nitrogen within those nodules. Later, as I’ll talk about when you disrupt the ecology, meaning kill the plants, then those bacteria also die and then that nitrogen is released into the soil. So that’s how we fixing nitrogen into the soil. So depending on the location, we have many cover crops to choose from. There are cool season and warm season cover crops. cool season cover crops are the ones that you plant in the fall and don’t touch again until the following spring. That includes excuse me, oats, cereal, rye, crimson clover, and field peas are the best ones for the Mid Atlantic region. warm season cover crops include buckwheat, cowpeas, sorghum, Sudangrass hybrids and yellow sweet blossom clover, we’re going to examine all of those in detail. So cool season cover crops, oats, here we go. We they plant them in the fall or in the fall after that cash crop harvest, and they’ll winter kill the after they die because of the temperatures. These residues here once they just fall over well outcompete the winter weeds, and then when the temperatures heat up, the soil heats up again. The residues decomposing in the spring will suppress weed germination for a few weeks, meaning that you can plant directly into those in those few weeks of suppressed weed germination. And these have a great soil tolerances. I’ve told previous classes that you can go see, well, this was last summer. So I you know, there is a hotel and on the waterfront downtown in southwest that has oats as a sort of ornamental crop. You know, I was I was driving by and I was like, Whoa, you know, what’s that I didn’t recognize that. Most people only recognize oats, as you know, through the logo or of the Quaker Oats guy. But you know, they’re actually planted, they look like this and those those are rolled oats. But you can go and see him real life down there. And that I’ve been saying is a example of the great soil tolerance because Southwest doesn’t have really good soil like that Southwest DC. All right. Next, cereal rye. Here’s a picture of the cereal rye. So cereal rye will scavenge nutrients after the cash crop. They’ll suppress weed germination after reincorporation into the soil, their deep fibrous roots work to alleviate compacted soils, and they can be planted later in the year. These say I think, let’s say that these are about four feet tall. With some of these plants, it’s generally like a one to one relationship in terms of how how these the potential for their roots to grow down. So as it’s growing up that tall, it’s also growing down that deep. And so that’s what we’re talking about alleviating compacted soils in that way. Then as soon as the roots grow down into the soil, especially into those clay layers, they’ll they’ll you and then you sort of reincorporate them and you you know mom down or something like that those roots will die, but the space that they left will become a vacuum. Because Mother Nature abhors a vacuum, what will happen is that, you know, worms might come in eat them or other bacteria might will bacteria, other microbial life will come and decompose and digest those roots or the weeds will just dry up and then I’ll leave a cavern all the way or tunnel rather, all the way from the surface of the of the soil all the way down to wherever they go. And as that happens, water comes down, other nutrients will come down and we’ll start building soil below. Alright, so as we talked about before with user here, we got crimson clover. It’s not quite the cool season yet, so you might want to wait like we talked about earlier until the temperature Stop hitting the 90s But crimson clover here very pretty fixes nitrogen in the soil, lowers soil surface temperatures, because it’s covering, and because of the thick mulch that it will produce these beautiful flowers not only attract us, but pollinators and beneficial insects. And because of the thick mulch and biomass, it will build soil as it decomposes, the roots will increase the ability for the soil to tolerate erosion, and it’ll improve the water infiltration. Like I said before, with the roots, giving all these channels for water to go in. With what I’ve been reading, and what I’ve been learning recently, as I’ve told previous classes is that this is probably about the right time to cut down the crimson clover. If it was like this in the in the springtime, that would be the best time mow it down, take your spade and put it work it into the soil. Because at that point in time, then where we see like this is about, I mean, it’s getting there. But rough, like we can say maybe in a couple of days or so once this flower stalk is looking to be about 50% in bloom, that’s where you want to, that’s when you would want to mow everything down, because that’s when the nitrogen concentrations are the highest within the nodules of those bacteria. And so once you do that, then those bacteria will die in the maximum amount of nitrogen will be released into the soil. Now all of us are learning here, and we’re not commodity growing. But that may be important to market gardeners, market farmers who are trying to get the most efficacy out of our most productivity out of their plots. So we don’t want to, we don’t want to pull it out, because that will disrupt the entire nitrogen fixing process. So user asked “crimson clover roots are very shallow clover can be pulled out or should it?” and so I would say no, because you want, that’s all of where the roots are is where the nitrogen that has been fixed is. So what you want to do is just mow it, and then mow it and then mow it. And after a couple of Mows down, the the roots will be exhausted, the plant will be exhausted and it won’t come back. But you don’t want to pull it up. Unless you– don’t want to pull it up. Even, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t recommend it. If you if you if you didn’t want to pull it up, I would just move it to somewhere else, like a garden path or something like that. Because something like that you don’t want to get rid of because of all the different benefits that that the clover can have. Linda Yannone 27:42Hmm. MO 27:45Well, if you i would i would plant into it. So she asked, or the user asked, “Can you plant into it? I would plant into clover, after you mowed it.” You wouldn’t want to plant into it at this point in time. Okay, yeah. So yeah, I mean, just like just like I talked about with with, with cutting it down and stuff like that. I mean, transplanting just as moving is as traumatic as it is for, for us, you know, moving is one of the most stressful things that we can do. It’s even more for plants because they’re not a mobile species. Or even Kingdom right, I think or domain Yeah, I you know, sorry, that’s, that’s a little bit maybe a little bit too to classical science. So another cool season cover crop here, our field peas, another legume nitrogen fixing they’re quickly available source of nitrogen after incorporation into the soil after full bloom like I was talking about before, this very dense picture shows perfectly the large amount of biomass that they have, they’re very moisture efficient, which is good because you don’t want to be using all this water all the time. And they have a long blooming period for pollinators, and all these things, all these nitrogen fixing crops you want to take you want to take them down, like after they bloom. But you know, if you start seeing seed pods like that, take them up because you know you it’s not that you don’t want to grow them but you can also grow your own cover crops, everything will adapt to your soils and stuff like that. But you want to take them down before before they start really producing seeds like that. Alright, so warm season cover crops. buckwheat here, it’s quick growth can suppress weeds. It’s got a very long flowering period, after three weeks of growth, and then will bloom more for another 10 more weeks, which is the entire summer. It will sequester phosphorus and make it more available for the next crop and has very low moisture usage. I previously stated, Oh, she user asked “I have peas self-germinating under woodchips. Is it worth moving them?” I mean, I don’t know that’s, that’s up to you. I mean, like, like we, like we talked about before you can just you can just cut them down. And if you want to just cut them snip them right at the where they are emerging from the woodchips. You know it? I guess I don’t know why you’re asking is it worth moving them? That that probably is a better question to ask. What I’ve told people before, is that with the Yeah, absolutely. buckwheat attracts bees. That’s what yeah, I should have. That’s exactly what we’re talking about here with this long flowering period. That the that all sorts of beneficial things will come, whether it’s honeybees, native bees, and then other other like beneficial bugs like ladybugs and stuff like that. And especially my favorite, which are predatory insects, like parasitoid wasps and stuff like that will come and feed on the nectar before they start feeding on something like a tomato hornworm. Oh my gosh. All right, so warm, another warm season cover crop here we have cowpeas, another legume excellent sources of fall nitrogen when summer planted, like we talked about, you cut them down and then you have that nitrogen available to you in the fall. If you want to plant something like like those brassicas in and they need a quick boost, the extra floral nectaries that they have will attract beneficial insects meaning they have even more nectar than most flowers do. And they thrive in high heat. This soil around here in this corner here looks pretty dry. And I would attribute that to some of that heat. And if I am correct, then this explosive growth is because of that. And they and despite that they use a low soil moisture usage in comparison to two other other cover crops which is exactly what you need in the summertime in the warm season. And then user if you have if you’ve been having or having having had luck in the past with transplanting peas, then go for it, dig them out, and then you know and put them where you want them to go. All right, so another warm season cover crop, Sorghum-Sudangrass hybrids, sorghum Sudan grass has allelopathic nematodes, Seidel, and herbicide ill effects. The deep root system penetrates and breaks up compacted soils, they build soil by buildings by increasing soil biomass. And they have a wide pH, a pH range for the soil. Just to just to sort of explain, I’ll get to the questions that that user and the things that Sharon and user have talked about just a little bit allelopathy can be a little bit of a kind of complicated topic. So this means like, killing of the other or something like that. And what what, what Sorghum-Sudangrass hybrids do is that they secrete compounds in the soil that prevent germination of other plants. So around Sorghum Sudangrass, you’re likely only really going to see Sorghum-Sudangrass thriving, because they are long they they sort of make it toxic for other plants to grow. Same thing with the nematodicidal compounds, they make it toxic for the nematodes to be there. And then like I said before, with preventing the germination, they can be also considered herbicidal, especially when these things are incorporated into the soil. They do a lot of that once the once the plant has been killed, then they have these compounds within their within the plants body. And then they they will sort of exude that into the soil after they were to die. I’m not sure if the Sorghum Sudangrass is something that you want to eat. It may be edible, but I’m not sure if it’s going to be delectable. I think I don’t I don’t know exactly what the natural process was in in creating this Sorghum Sudangrass hybrid. Um, but you could probably eat it, but I don’t think Yeah, I don’t think that it would be as delicious as consuming Sorghum. like regular Sorghum though. It might be like, like, trying to eat dent corn as sweet corn. You know, it’s like it’s not going to be the same or trying to eat popping corn as sweet corn. It’s it’s corn. But it’s not the same corn. Linda Yannone 35:03I think I have a book on African grains and it’s in there, you know, something to look into. MO 35:13Yeah, absolutely. I had a I had a book that I had learned about a lot of the, the different ones like Tef and yes, Tef and Fonio and and different things like that and I mean, really? It depends on the Edit there edibility depends on how good of a cook you are. Unknown Speaker 35:34And how much rinsing you want to do and preparation MO 35:38Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, Sharon asked, “I tried growing sorghum Sudan grass one year, but it didn’t grow much about one foot but not taller. Was the soil depleted of something for its growth?” Quite possibly, you know, in other classes, I didn’t say it last time, but like, in other classes, I’ve talked about the necessity for soil testing. It could be the case that the soil may have been just too tough. I mean, like these these plants. Alright, so you know, right. Currently, I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we were walking through the walking through one of these parks, Crowder’s mountain, the amount of topsoil that was present on that mountain where it near the path was ridiculous, it was maybe like an eighth of an inch before it was some serious clay underneath. And, you know, it’s it was kind of crazy, because there’s a lot a lot of pines, cedars, are not cedars, but a lot of like hemlocks and stuff like that. And those things can make it work. But there wasn’t a lot of undergrowth, there are a lot of mushrooms, and a lot a lot of a lot of a lot of decomposition. But what I’m saying is, is that it could be where wherever you planted it that that the soil may be a little bit tougher than you thought. Initially. So I mean, like I said, possibly it is not, I mean, is a very plausible thing. It’s kind of hard to say whether or not without sort of having seen the plant or doing this sort of for like a soil forensics. And just sort of knowing what what your what your what your garden was like. before user I didn’t address this user said “with all the rain, we’re seeing mushrooms sprouting in the lawns and the woodchips should we remove them or let them be?” I say keep them because you know i’m i’m of a very particular school of, you know, natural, regenerative agricultural thought, as the mushrooms are breaking down the things in the soil, they are freeing nutrients and making them bioavailable in the soil. That is my particular opinion not maybe not of I’m not saying that UDC is saying that I’m saying Mason Trappio as an individual entity is saying that. I’ve been seeing a lot of those fairy rings of various amanitas and seeing a lot of those things is very awesome to see I really like it. I would just say don’t eat them, you know. And I’ll speak on behalf of the university also do not eat any random mushrooms that are growing in your soils. But I would keep them because what it’s showing you is that the soil is very much alive. All right, warm season cover crops yellow sweet blossom clover. Yellow sweet blossom clover has an excellent nitrogen fixation ability. It is a deep root system up to five feet in some cases, and it produces a large amount of biomass, which is good for producing that thick mulch that we talked about earlier. And it attracts pollinators, and beneficial insects just like this choice picture here of this honeybee. keep clicking on the wrong thing. So we have some climate change growing tips. Here are some growing tips which can help the urban growers better address problems associated with climate change. We first we want to match our cover crop to the season and to the climate. Knowing your USDA zones will be imperative to this. We want to grow legumes to increase soil nitrogen levels. You also need to inoculate those legumes. You can either do this by Oh my gosh. oh nevermind. You can do this by having pre inoculated seeds. Or you can buy inoculant. Mist seeds with water and you can sprinkle the inoculant powder let me know That needs to be clarified. Well, I’ll just clarify just in case because I’ll be sending this out later. So the inoculant is the bacteria, right? And you need that, so that you can have the nitrogen fixation, fixing ability of the cover crops. Because like I said before, it’s not that clover fixes nitrogen, but is the bacteria that lives on the clover and in some aspects within the clover that fixes the nitrogen. Every now and then you might be able to find clover as I did in the past that already has the rhizobium or the other nitrogen fixing bacteria present in the soil. And something like that is sort of pre inoculated. So you could dig those up and transfer them and and they would grow but what you want to be able to do to be as efficient as possible, you want to be able to buy pre inoculated seeds that already are coated with with the bacteria or like we said before, by the inoculant spread the seeds out. Mist seeds with water, you know, get them get them a little bit wet, and then you can sprinkle inoculant powder in them get them evenly coated, so that when they grow the seed head pops as they pop through the bacteria coats the the the roots, and as they grow, everybody grows. So the last tip is that we want to cut the cover crops down into very small pieces, to the most important valuable tools that are used to manage cover crops are flat edged garden spade, and a battery operated hedge trimmer Oh, somebody is here.My bad. and a battery operated hedge trimmer. These small pieces break down quicker. So before you know you went you want to be able to work these things into the soil. Not necessarily till that’s not my I wouldn’t recommend anybody tilling. Welcome Abidisamad, let me know if I’m pronouncing that absolutely incorrectly and let me know how to pronounce your name. Welcome to class, and I’m excited to have you. But I’m Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So much. Yeah. Okay, so you just arrived just in time for the the summary of what we just talked about? I’ve had to turn it over to terminate it. How low? Oh, sorry, I’ve cut down right grass. Oh, I just got to notice that my internet connection was unstable. “Okay, I’ve cut down ryegrass it will grow back, I’ve had to turn it over to terminate it, how low should it be cut down? That’s a very interesting question. And like I would, I would say that it would be the same as, as the like something like like the clover, where you may have to mow it twice, or mow it even lower, you need to make sure that you’re cutting below where the meristem is. Maybe in the past, when you when you’ve cut it, the meris, you cut slightly above the marriage stem. And so it was just like cool, it was just like growing hair, you know, where the plant was, you know, say, say the meristem is that my elbow and you cut it off here at the forearm, then it’s just going to grow back from the elbow. But you may have to cut, you may have to mow it down a little bit further than you thought. So that may be one thing. But I also know that in a commodity agriculture capacity, what they do with rye grass is that they they run it over with this thing called a roller crimper. And so it’s like a steamroller, but it has blades on the end of it. And so as at what happens is that the the the the tractor will run through the through the plot, and that the the roller crimper will turn them over and then chop up the chop or crimp the stalk at various places. And so it is injuring the planet at the same time as it’s knocking it over. And that way it would like just completely exhaust the plan. The plants need like sugar reserves and everything like that, to sort of kill the plant and habit decomposed as quickly as possible. So in summary, we have carbon dioxide gases are on the rise. These are good for the crops and the weeds. We have to grow cover crops to suppress weeds and carbon and lower carbon dioxide concentrations. And we want to choose our cover crops depending on the location and we want to choose a mix of nitrogen fixing And non nitrogen fixing crops from this podcast I was listening to, I think it was cover crop cover crop podcast, or was no-till podcast, those are the names of these things. But they’re you know, these are these are commodity agriculture podcasts. And by commodity agriculture, what I mean is that these are people growing, like wheat for flour and stuff like that, or corn, they’re growing corn, wheat or soy beans, those are the three commodity crops that I’m referring to when I say commodity agriculture. What these guys were talking about is that they were seeing that there wasn’t, it is the best to have a mix of cover crops and varying up the species, but there really isn’t a difference in species and in benefits to the soil and to the viability and the biological activity of the soil, past like eight different species of things growing. Now a lot of what these commodity agriculture dudes do is also grow all these cover crops as supplemental feed for their cows at the same time, so the cows eat, and then defecate. And then, you know, everything is really active, but they weren’t seeing, you know, so having like a 16 seed cover crop mix, you know, is just going to be spending more money than you need to you just buy twice as much of the eight cover crop seed mix. All right. Oh, so any, are there any further questions? Oh, wow. Oh, “many of them terminate the cover crop with glyphosate.” Absolutely. And that was something that I didn’t learn until maybe like a year or so ago that I realized that without, you know, without glyphosate without Monsanto, a lot of this very interesting regenerative agriculture, stuff wouldn’t have been possible. But the evolution in technology, especially if the roller crimper really changed the game. And it really made a lot of organic cover cropping and organic no till possible. Prior to that notill was known as a beneficial practice. But it needed the needed glyphosate or another heavy duty pesticide like that. Or another heavy duty herbicide to be able to, to to make it possible. And yes, Lowe’s shelves are full of Roundup. I remember when we were growing seeds down by Howard University where we were growing, we’re going a plot down by Howard University, in somebody’s backyard. We were talking about all the different things that are there and what we need to be able to do and how we’re going to do this without any chemicals. And then we come outside and somebody else does in the alley is spraying some spraying something with with with Roundup. Oh, awesome. Awesome. So thank you for thank you for digitally traveling so far. It really is an honor to have you here all the way from Mogadishu. “seems hot weather has helped with its termination in comparison to cooler temperatures to help decompose the residue. Sometimes you can wait into the late spring, early summer, if you want to plant various types of spring crops. “ Absolutely. Hot weather is going to increase biological activity. Like they say with compost, you need to take it all the way up to like 140 degrees 140 degrees Fahrenheit, or something like that in order for the microbial activity to be absolutely to be working for you. But that’s a whole nother conversation. But yes, you know, the increased temperature always increases activity. We know this, you know the temperature of the universe is I think like three degrees Kelvin, or three Kelvin, sorry, no degrees with Kelvin. But, you know, at zero Kelvin is obviously nothing is going on. But it’s crazy. You know, imagine if things are like five Kelvin? It’ll be crazy. All right, part two, insect ecology, plant disease and climate change. So, insects are cold blooded, thus, their behavior is related to temperature. So how will the warmer climate in more extreme temperatures affect the Urban agriculturalists and crop production? definitive answers are elusive. But there is some research that might give general guidelines for what we might expect. As the urban environment warms. One of the first signs of a rapidly warming climate is the number of insect generations in season. The warmer it gets, the faster insects develop and breed as winter cold Keep insects in check. Warming winters may be beneficial to insect survival. Warming winters, for example, are a key factor in the survival and destructive impact of pine bark beetles throughout North America. This is moving their habitat northward. Oh sorry. Also, insects will shift their habitat northward, and there are some indications that plant characteristics can change. The effects of rising carbon dioxide concentrations can have one reducing plant protein can result in greater feeding rates by insects to obtain the necessary protein. Carbon Dioxide changes could cause changes in leaf thickness, and reduce infestation of leaf sucking insects, although not in every case, also, carbon dioxide could reduce the ability of a plant to produce defensive compounds that keep insects at bay. insect and plant interactions are very complex, you would need a crystal ball to make specific predictions for specific crops, it would be equally foolish to ignore the consequences of those interactions in an era of high carbon dioxide and the very erratic climate that we now have. But also plant diseases will be on the rise due to an unpredictable climate. Hot and wet conditions which are expected in some areas are the perfect combination for disease development in many crops. For example, mild winters and warm weather are associated with increases in potato blight, powdery mildew, leaf spot disease, leafed rust, leaf rust, and other soil borne root diseases. Mason is there any good news? Yes, plants might build resistance by defensively closing their their plant pores to disease carrying fungal spores. The rise in carbon dioxide may improve plant water loss by closing some of the plant pores which could moderate leaf moisture evaporation. We have always relied on mainly three resources for insect and disease management. The first is Rodale’s color Handbook of garden insects. The second is Rodale’s ultimate Encyclopedia of organic gardening. And of course, our imagination. to fully utilize our imagination requires knowing pests, and plant diseases intuitively. Climate smart crops. For our 2019 2020 Farmer to Farmer National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant in collaboration with Tuskegee University, we chose to look at specific varietal selections of heat tolerant crops. We looked at leafy green and fruiting crops that were sure to produce under consistent high summer temperatures, the specific crops that were chosen, were also Oh, where well I’ll get I’ll show you why I’ll show you I’ll just show you in the next slide rather than reading them twice. So we of course and then after this, this will give you an ability to find more online. Alright, so the specific crops that we tested were fruiting and vegetable crops, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers and melons, eggplant, green and lima beans, squash, corn, sweet potato okra, and then for our leafy greens, which we’ve found some specific varieties of lettuce, mustard green Malabar Spinach in New Zealand Spinach and Purslane. excuse me. So let’s go on tomatoes, we need to look for a heat set varieties. Some tomatoes don’t fruit after the temperature reaches the 90 degree mark. So look for heat set varieties. Sup- like super sweet 100 pictured here is a cherry tomato. Solar set, Surefire Oregon spring, an Oregon star, you know if you want to screenshot this slide in the next couple slides, or if you can wait. There will be later a fact sheet with basically everything that I’ve already said. Separate from the things that I added. None of these are heirloom tomatoes. These are specifically bred tomatoes, not engineered but bred tomatoes. Some of these like some of these, like some of the ones that we’ll talk about later, were found at various extension places. And so maybe those can be considered but like I think when you’re talking about heirloom you’re talking about in a way that like like Baker Creek seeds might offer or something like that. And some of these, you may be able to find heatset varieties within those But what I would recommend for heirloom crops that you want that are adapted, I would start looking for plants. I would start by looking for looking say somewhere. Yes, I will definitely, I’ll definitely share it let me write let me write your email down. See, this is a, our w ac 103 Yes, a decent amount, I will, I will, I will send I will send that to you. So sorry, what I what I would say Sharon would be to go in Baker Creek, rareseeds.com This is I’m not sure. Um, I just I just compiled these from and found some pictures. But I guess the supersweet 100 may get as the temperatures approach 100. What I would say if you were looking for heirloom tomatoes would be to look on somewhere where the sites have reviews. And I generally those places that have reviews will also have a location in the review. And so I would look for somebody that is giving a review from say, Arizona, or or lower Arizona, Nevada, Southern California. And if they’re having success, you know, then you you’re more likely to have them especially anywhere on the east coast. Or if you find somebody down in Alabama or some you know, in the deep south, where temperatures are getting really really hot, and there’s still fruiting you want to get. You want to try and find that person and get some of those seeds or find where find out where they bought those seeds. Many peppers don’t have a heat set gene. Hot peppers are genetically closer to their wild pepper heritage. But some varieties that they tested were cubanelle Gypsy Gator peppers, vidi peppers and sweet banana peppers. This right are the cubanelle peppers. If you’re growing hot peppers, you don’t have to worry about the heat. Even hot peppers love the heat because when it’s when it’s hot and then the soil dries out or whatever they start showing their wilt or whatever, they start producing more than capsaicin compounds and they you know produce a more desirable product, In my opinion. Corn is thought of as a tasty, traditional summer treat that is perfect to grow in the mid summer heat. But some varieties of corn do not pollinate well when the temperatures surpass the mid 90s. Especially in hot dry areas. The pollen dries out and your fill and you get poorly filled ears of corn watering helps but it’s not the solution. So some of the varieties are Lancelot and breeders choice pictured I think this is the breeders choice pictured here. The Urban farmer podcast. The guy’s first name is Greg. I forget his last name, but he is in Phoenix or in the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area. And they talk about growing corn and Phoenix. What they do is they get up early in the morning before the temperatures hit the mid 90s they take the tassel which is the pollen producing part of the of the corn and then they’ll rub it on the silk. So if you look here, this is the part of the part of the silk where they would rub the tassel on and the pollen will travel all the way down to silk to each individual kernel and you’ll get a full year corn. They do that with their heirloom corns by the way like the like the glass bead or something like that. They they they have had a lot of success doing that not only in Phoenix but also in places like Denver where where the you know growing growing at that altitude thing changed considerably. Because you know plants aren’t used but they’re having success all over the place by these more manual methods. Cucumbers and melons. What happens to cucumbers and melons during a very hot and humid summer. The plant produces some fruit, but the heat in the long days causes the plants to farm to many male flowers which do not produce fruit. You need to look for heat tolerant and disease resistant varieties like the mark more 86 cucumber salad, Bush cucumber planners jumbo melon, the pictured Ambrosia Melon and the edisto 47. I want to show you guys something because I’m very proud of this. Hold on This right here is my big boy, or big girl and doesn’t matter this, the seeds don’t have a gender necessarily, or fruits don’t. But this is a, you know, I was pretty pleased to, to get this, get this because I grew this from a grocery store butternut squash that I bought in 2017. And I planted it, and I got this one and a couple other ones, but this one I’ve been growing, or I’ve been, I haven’t done anything with because I was just sort of too proud. You know, it was just something just like a like a, a trophy for me. And validation of my own practices and beliefs, you know. So next time you get something, you know, when we when we grow these sorts of crops, you know, they they’re grown to be eaten, right? But what happens is that the best crops generally don’t, the genetic material doesn’t survive. Right. Now, I don’t know what’s going on inside of here with regards to the seeds or not. But what I am saying is that whenever you do eat something that is, I mean, just particularly good, you have to be able to save those seeds. Because what what what we’re kind of doing is producing a sort of negative a negative selection at the same time, because we’ll get it tomato, and you’d be like, Oh my gosh, so juicy, so delicious. So, so flavorful, but then the seeds go in the trash, right? And so we don’t, we don’t cultivate that same thing, you know, will produce it will produce a fruit that looks extremely good. But then the rest of the ones that are grown, who knows what the genetic material is, who knows what the nutrient availability is, who knows, but if you get something that looks good, tastes good, feels good. Make sure you save those seeds and keep those things growing. I’m gonna put this back. Alright, we’re almost done. I know we’re over time a little bit. But um, everybody seems to be enjoying themselves. So we’re just going to keep going on. Like I said, we’re almost done. only like two more slides, Leafy greens. So I didn’t want to find pictures for all these because some of these the varieties don’t matter. So there are a few nutritious leafy greens that can be grown in the high heat, days of summer. But many varieties of lettuces do not thrive under high temperatures and long sunny days. bolting occurs when lettuce flowers prematurely. That condition is caused mainly by mainly by the long sunlit Days of Summer rather than high temperatures. A little shading of the lettuce helps to remediate remedy that situation. There are a few slow bolt varieties on the market. So you want to you want to look for those swiss chard is a is a is a another one that we can grow. User was asking earlier about things that we can grow in the fall you swiss chard grows well in hot or cold weather. Just watch out for those oxalates and then Asian mustard greens do very well under high high temperatures. New Zealand spinach and I should have added Malabar spinach also. But just with New Zealand spinach contains a large concentration of high omega threes. However it is an acquired taste but it goes very well in high heat. And Malabar spinach is the same way I’m not sure about its nutrient content. I know that people in India southern India, really eat a lot of it, but it’s kind of slimy a little bit like like okra can be so like, like they said with New Zealand spinach it has it is an acquired taste. And so um lastly here we have amaranth it grows like a weed and is consumed throughout this tropics, especially in the Caribbean, where it’s called callaloo. You can see wild varieties of the amaranth and it’s called pig weed. It goes it gets really tall, and I’m not Oh, maybe hold on. Well, nevermind I used to last year, we had a lot of amaranth growing in the plot that we had and I let the I let the amaranth grow. I’m 5’11” so it got to be about my height and then I cut it down at the base and then I had to just do the maintenance that you know I’m saying and watch out for offshoots from the stalk. But what I did is that I took that and then cut all of the branches off. And I saved it because now I have a pole for trellising. And I’d used it for propping up my monstera. But the monstera got too heavy and it broke, I’ll show you the monstera. Now, here’s my monstera in the corner. That new leaf here is is brand new. I’m very proud. Anyway. So those are those are the those are the plants that we recommend. And of course, I’ll be sending this out to everybody. And amaranth like corn and some other plants is a C4 carbon fixating plant. Which means that the hotter the temperature is, the more it’ll grow, which is really good, especially if you’re trying to get leaves off of it. This is there are two main varieties of amaranth that are consumed. There’s a leaf amaranth, and then there’s a grain amaranth. I grew the grain amaranth and consume the seeds, and consumer leaves, but it didn’t produce as much leads as a leaf amaranth would. So I would say that you want to look for the amaranth if you’re interested in growing amaranth you should look for the amaranths that are also called callaloo in that in that way, and they kind of tastes like a sort of gamey spinach if you if if that makes sense because it’s it’s wild. So other climate smart crops. Here we have the green beans, we have Romano and the McCasian for lima beans see Ava and a Florida butter beans. Almost any variety of okra will grow well and in this in this new normal and we’re describing the time long green egg plant will grow very well. And the varieties, Beauregard and vardaman of the sweet potato will also grow very well. And as we know you can also as I found out last year, you can also eat the greens and the sweet potato they’re supposed to be very nutritious. So if you if you also need some more leafy greens, consider sweet potato greens, they can be grown like enough or they can be eaten like collards. So here are the references. And to start off the questions, I will I will just answer talk about what Sharon was talking about just now. She said I received pumpkin seedling from a gardener. It was very sweet and produced 30 pumpkins, I saved the seeds but next year seeds wouldn’t grow. Could the genetics have been modified? Yes, sweet potato greens tastes sweet cooks down like spinach. Okay, that’s great. Yeah, I I really look forward to doing that. It’s all good. I will do some odd I will be sending the the presentation out later. So there’s there’s no worries. So could this seed genetics have been modified? Well, technically, anytime we grow, as we understand, as I understand epigenetics to be the case, anytime that we grow, we are modifying, we’re modifying our genetics whether it’s in our thought or in our agricultural practices, you know, every year the plant is adapting to the every year it is adapting to its current situation. And so Linda Yannone 1:08:30genetically modifying based on what everything that happened to it, so it adapts and then produces seed. MO 1:08:39Exactly. And so in your, in your, in your case, Sharon You know, when people sell things for seed, you have to have a really high threshold for when you for for selling them, I think it in those thresholds change depending on the crop. And so with your circumstance there, I mean, just like we talked about earlier, there there are there’s a whole list of potential issues that could have happened whether it was planning depth, time, soil moisture, light, soil temperature, nematode populations, you know, something suppressing them, if you had the seed and it looked like it popped, but it but meaning you know, it started germinating and then died. That’s something if it never germinated, that’s something else. Whether or not the seeds were even ready to do so whether or not the seeds didn’t grow, or our act are or ready to grow, you know, just as humans have stillbirths. Something like that could have been the case the the seed itself could have started growing and then and aborted itself. There are many different way reasons why the seeds wouldn’t have grown. But I wouldn’t necessarily say that, um, that that it was because of where you grew them that they didn’t grow that would be that is, um, that to me, the only way I can think about it is that is that’s taking a bridge a step towards a more metaphysical agricultural thing by saying like, Hmm, maybe this pumpkin like grew here, but it didn’t, it didn’t. It didn’t want to grow in the next year, sorry, some germination, but when placed in the soil, it wouldn’t continue their growth. It’s been a couple years now. So I’m just going to continue on with the metaphysical thing, I would then see if that would be the case with other cucurbits. You know, if you’re not having luck with those in that in that same plot, then it just may not be the case. And you might want to rotate some things going on in that place. But it sounds like a Linda has something to say. And maybe may have read that wrong, though. So, um, yeah, I mean, it’s no, Linda Yannone 1:11:13no, yeah, you covered everything, but it’s probably it could have been immature seed, it is all those things you listed. MO 1:11:21Okay. Um, so, yeah, I would just try and, and rotate some crops through there that sort of get further away from the Cucurbit family, and then try it again. in a couple years, unfortunately, or do something where you, you can grow some of these you just get, you know, you get a like a big pot, like ones that they have in like restaurants for trees or something like that. And then you you transplant your, your, your squash into there, and immediately set it up for upward trellising, and just, you know, top dress with compost, make some compost tea and feed the mess out of that thing. That’s what I would recommend if you know if you really want to, if you really want to test this, because it because if it is, if it may be an issue of transplantation or something like that, and so you can take some of the soil and test it. In that way I had started, um, I don’t have a picture of it. unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of it that I can readily find right now. But I started some squash seeds that that squash that I just showed you all I started that in a solo cup. You know, I just cut like, push poke three holes in the bottom, you know, poke three holes in the bottom of it, and put some soil amended with perlite in there. And, and you know, just put the seed, I put a couple seeds in there and I just was like, you know, whatever happens happens. And, and then I think, no, I kept those. I kept that in there for a while. And then I transferred it to in the ground, I think. Yeah, I’ve been I put it in the ground. Um into a prepared bed. But um, I would say and then this year, I you know, I had some or this year earlier this summer. This was last summer I had some growing in my compost bin. But you know, I you know, I enjoyed the growth. I had tomatoes growing out of their mulberry tree growing out of there, and some squash growing there. But, you know, I didn’t know this until this year, just like just like we experienced. Yeah, I had too many male flowers. I only had male flowers. And it didn’t know that it was I thought that it was some weird mineral thing. Like I wasn’t, I wasn’t providing the plants with everything that they needed to grow. Self-esteem was lowering. I didn’t know that it was just a environmental thing. You know, like we talked about in the very beginning of class. Mother Nature always bats last. And although I really appreciated the sight of the of the of the, of the squash, the compost bin really wasn’t a place for it. And I really I was so anyway, thats that I think I’m I think I’m just rambling because I’m a little bit caffeinated. User asks, “What can we do with all this rain? What’s ruining many crops that have to be ditched? Just for focus on for growing now?” Yeah, that’s tough. Um, you know, uh, yeah, because a lot of this is ruined. I mean, the soil is already saturated, saturated. So Many things are being flooded out. And it is kind of attributed to the exact same thing I was talking about last, just just now, where Mother Nature is batting last again. I remember a couple years ago was it last year actually, we had these same into the end of the year into the growing year rains that we’re having right now, we had those in the beginning last year. And I’m, oh, I have a book, I have a book on this, where’s that book, we had those things, and a lot of farmers, a lot of these commodity farmers were getting trounced by this rain. And that is something where crop insurance would come in come into the place. So yeah, I would I would focus on on fall crops, um, you know, and just sort of learning from your experience and seeing what’s really thriving, if anything is at all. And learning from like taking a sort of meta analysis of what you’re learning a higher level analysis, rather, of what your plots are looking like, and thinking about how you may be able to improve drainage. Where within your plot, does it seem that things may be a little bit higher or lower, just looking at at your plot as a larger ecosystem, and seeing how you can help it in the future. Sharon says nutsedge has been concerned after weeks of heavy rain and wooded areas, but it’s hard to get up the nuts and more will grow. What’s the best way to management, our soil deficiencies allowing its rapid growth? Or is mainly a sign of a wet environment? If I had the answer to this, I would have a lot of money for because nutsedge is a really a problem. It’s in the middle of the country. I there’s a book, I’ll type it in the chat. There’s a book by Rodale, I have a I have a copy. Thank you, Linda, really appreciate you being here. and assisting and and validating and encouraging me and everybody else that was here in the chat. Linda Yannone 1:17:25Thank you, you did a great job. Really appreciate looking forward to more. MO 1:17:30Yeah. Oh, yeah, I have to answer that question. Because user user asked me that in the future. But I’ll get I’ll get to that later. weeds and why they grow is the name of that book that talks about a lot of that, like that talk that talks about the first part of the answer your question where it says the basically the thesis of the book is you balanced the soil, you’ll balance the weeds, meaning you may have a concentration of too much organic matter. And once you bring down the organic matter, then a certain weed will go away. You may not have enough iron, and so or you may have too much iron and once you sort of balanced the soil, the the wheat populations will go down. I’m trying to Oh, I know where it is. I’ll be right back. I’ll show you. All right. This is another copy of the same book. It’s called Oh, this is backwards. It’s called weeds control without poisons. I’ll type it in the chat. It’s by Charles Walters and it’s published by anchors USA um, I’m gonna check the index real quick to see if it has anything about nutsedge Alright, see purple nutsedge and yellow nutsedge. Do you is it I’m going to assume that it’s yellow nutsedge because that’s what I’ve seen a lot of is that is that the case either is the little flower thing at the top yellow. Yeah. There’s very good info on reason I waited bag of the plot for years and then decided to play soil over top of it. The soil seems to be better. Seems to be better when nutsedge wouldn’t grow his yellow flowers. Alright, so I found a thing, but I’m trying to find exactly what they say. And then I’ll just read what they have to say, for the edification of everybody in the class, there are four pages where this is where it’s mentioned. But I would definitely, I mean, absolutely recommend getting this book, I was able to get it through the interlibrary loan. So, you may not be able to get it. But, um, you know, I’m I, but I’ll try and make more of these same concepts available, but I believe the book is like 20-30 bucks, maybe. An enormous value. And sometimes it has really nice sketches of I really liked this plant Datura. It’s very pretty flowers smell like pepper. But it’s, it’s, it was one of those things I was talking about before where it grows, because of the a lot of organic matter in the soil. Okay, so this is alright, just I think I found, okay, so in this thing, he’s talking about grasses being a problem to row crop producers. So like, and then the very one of the very last ones, he says yellow nutsedge cyperus esculentus. He says, I’m very basically, as Dr. Carey reeminstructed sour grass weeds, such as quiet grass are indicative of calcium deficiencies, qualitatively if not quantitatively. Broadleaf weeds broadleaf weeds are indicative of an improper and phosphate to potash ratio. Using the LaMotte soil testing method, this ratio should be two pounds of phosphate to one pounds of potash for row crops, and four pounds of phosphate to one one pound of potash for alfalfa and grass crops, succulent type plants, such as purslane are indicative of soils, deficient in biologically active carbons. I don’t know if that was helpful to you. But that is the sort of methodology and stuff that is given within this book, where they’re talking about how to amend the soils after, after you discovered this thing. I’ll look on page 119, again, is the next place where it was mentioned. So I have it here. Now, the acres USA catalog, I’m just going to let you know, it depends on how kinda esoteric you like things to be, because their entire publishing house is kind of based on this sort of like, almost a spiritual nature of working with agriculture. I am particularly partial to that sort of thing. But some of the stuff that they talk about is kind of counter to mainstream scientific thought. So I just wanted to let you guys know that once you start reading this thing, and they start talking about Hieronymus Bosch, and Rudolf Steiner, and stuff like that. So yeah, cuz you’re talking about they’re talking about a bunch of different stuff here. So let me go because Oh, so yeah, the next the next thing that they talked about here was using a specific, a specific device that they call in a scientific method they call radionics. And they were measuring the rate with which is sort of talking about its general vitality, hence, its efficacy and predicting projecting negative or dying energy to the same weed in the field. So yes, it’s it’s, it’s a little bit different. And so they have the thing here and then the radionic rate, I don’t know necessarily what what that’s about. So I’m going to go to the The last place that it’s mentioned and of course if anybody else has any other questions and then we can get to them so the last page that it was mentioned is on page 240. And I think this is the part of the book that I really enjoyed the most, where it goes through each particular species and talks about in a rough sort of scenario, what what they actually are. But 240 Here we go. All right, yellow nutsedge this is what I was looking for. The entire time, found all over the United States and cultivated fields, gardens grainfields richer sandy soils, yellow nutsedge cyperus esculentus is a serious perennial weed. it reproduces by seeds, and weak threadlike stolons. That end by heart tubers, stems at this meter tall symbol and triangular in shape. The pale green leaves i three ranked about as long as the stem with Close, close, oh my god, closed Shiva is mostly at bass, yellow nutsedge produces spikelets point five to three centimeters long, and 1.5 to three millimeters wide, that yellow to golden brown, strongly flattened mostly for ranked along the wide angle radius, blunt tip, the tip acute surround appearance of yellow nutsedge. Here we go. appearance of yellow nutsedge indicates soils seriously out of sorts with very low levels of calcium and phosphate, and very high levels of potassium, and magnesium. I’ll read that again. appearance of nuss nutsedge indicates soils seriously out of sorts with very low levels of calcium and phosphate, and very high levels of potassium and magnesium, iron sulfate, beijer, boron, selenium, salt and aluminum levels are likely to be high soils are likely to have low humaneness and porosity, high moisture, anaerobic bacteria, and poor drainage and residual decay. So in my opinion, that um, Oh, nevermind. Nevermind, I was wrong. So let me know how much that that that worked for you sharing. And of course, I’ve been recording this entire thing. So you’ll be able to get access to to to that particular passage. Later, I’m not sure about like typing it up and giving it out on behalf of the university or something like that. But like I said, it can be found in acres USA. This is the I think this is the second edition of this book. It was published in 1991. And then in a unit ID 96. So yeah, if nobody else has any questions and have decent mind, I will. I’ll be I’ll be producing everything. I’ll be sort of so like you came into class, like halfway through? I’ve been. Yes. Yeah. It’s extremely intimate. It is an extremely helpful book. This is a picture of the author here. Charles Walters. Oh, wow. Oh, nevermind. Thank you for sharing that. I’ll make sure to include that. I’m gonna, I’m gonna download this. Yeah, a decent, I just gave us a book in the chat. Thank you so much. I’ll be sharing that with everybody else later. But what I’m going to do, like I said is I’m going to take the class, I’m going to take all 544 other recordings, make them into one recording with the additional questions and comments, and then I’ll send that out to everybody. If you’d like to get in touch with me, my email address is here. I have a podcast that I talked about here. And feel free to check those out. email me anytime with any questions about plants. I’d love to talk about them, as we’ve talked about them for about an hour and a half. Otherwise, I really appreciate you all being here sharing your time with us and sharing your information and expertise and experience on sharing your question. Oh, future topics? That’s an excellent question. I’m going to have to work with che Axum who divined Who Who? Who created this. This sheet. I’m not necessarily sure yet what I’ll be teaching next. But I am very much looking forward to teaching. And, you know, I hope to be able to do something again like this in the wintertime, I know that he was working on a fall planting sheet. And I will be in touch with him. I’m gonna call him as soon as we finish the class. And and I’ll talk about what what we’ll be able to do in the future. Is that cool? And I mean, I have everybody’s emails from from before, I don’t, I mean, I haven’t been able to identify who you are user. But if you’ve, if you haven’t been getting obviously you’ve been getting the emails because you came to class today. But what I’ll do is I’ll let everybody knows through the fat email. You know what I’m teaching next. Okay, so thank you all and after an hour and a half, I’m going to close class I’ll be in touch with you all on beginning getting all this stuff out. I want to get this stuff out very soon. And, and I really appreciate you all coming to the last class it it really feels good to be able to share this information with you all. So thank you and have an excellent Haven’t you know what I want you guys to have an excellent Friday, because Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m turning 30 tomorrow and and I want you guys to do a really big for me because we won’t be able to obviously do it in person. If you all if you all happen to drink. Drink a little bit of tequila for me is my favorite. But if not, you know just make sure to stay hydrated. Stay healthy because all this stuff is is so crazy. Sharon says also peas and oats can be planted during the springtime. It’s in Johnny’s seed mix. There you go. Thank you, Sharon. And thank you for the Happy birthday. Yes, yes, Abdisamad. I’ll be reaching out to you right after class. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that birthday and thank you used for the Happy birthday. I look forward to to seeing you all again on zoom in the future. So I’m going to stop recording and and i will say peace and thank you

Smelling Funk to Power You mean to tell me this whole time I’ve been making funky compost, it could crank a crankshaft?? Meaning, in this episode we discuss how we arrived at our next experiment, Anaerobic Digestion and the creation and opportunity of Biomethane. Enjoy! Works Referenced:CompostsWhen Odors Warn: What Does the Nose Know?Microbes with characteristic smells (good and bad)Researchers Find Pathogens in CompostPhilosophical BackgroundAnaerobic DigestionDigestateDigeponicsCircular food: crops from digested waste in a controlled environmentEnergy Fields Biogas Production – BotswanaKenyan Farmers Make Use of BiogasBiogas in St. Vincent and the GrenadinesSolar CITIES IBC Biogas System Tutorial CompleteHow we run our 4K generator on BiogasCompressing Biogas into a BBQ Bottle Propane tank for us in the USABiogas scrubbers – removing the CO2 and H2S – part 1HOW TO COMPRESS BIOGAS IN CYLINDER BHow do you purify biogas to increase the methane content?Biogas at home Cheap and EasyHydrothermal Vent – Black Smokers and White Smokers Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) Peace, I am Mason Olonade and this is Jìgìjìgì: Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul, so we share strategies for how to do both. To do both we ask two questions: How do you grow while you grow Kale, Collards, Tomatoes, and Melons? And why, do you think, the healthiest soils are Black? Smelling Funk to Power Given that you are listening to my show, you may have heard the people in the natural farming circles say that compost shouldn’t smell. Or you may have heard that healthy compost will smell fresh, like petrichor, or geosmin. Others like me, have said that compost can smell sweet! We sought to investigate these claims, because, well we couldn’t let our nose grow any longer. We couldn’t possibly give up the funk. What we found was extremely surprising and vindicating. It was the end of Okra season and lots of it lay in the path. The plants had either been cut or pulled out of the row and began to slime and rot. The Carolina Clay, Rain, and footsteps reduced this once 8ft tall stand into green traction over a muddy area. It must be cleaned up. So for the next two hours we cut okra off of the plant and put it in a bucket. Despite taking my allergy pill that morning, nature, with enough exposure finds a way to overcome antihistamines and those okra hairs enable your mast cells to express themselves. Taking a shower afterwards felt painfully good with the heat amplifying and soothing the pain of a late harvest. We harvested about 5 gallons worth of Okra pods. Seeds and all disappeared under the weight of a big rock holding it underwater. I set it and forgot it. Some weeks later I came back to my Okra bucket and opened the lid. A nice bubbly liquid skin, or pellicle formed and I interpreted this as not only a good sign but that it was ready. And by ready I meant it was ready to act as the compost seed for the next stage of the compost building. The compost bins at the farm were in a state of despair. They had been simply forgotten about. There is always another project on any farm, and that number jumps exponentially with interns. The compost also forgot to attract microbes and so no processes were growing on except a lone, enormous tomato plant with thick white roots weaving a mat of squash seeds and egg shells into a portrait of organic sandstone. It is now my pleasure to bring more life to this compost. Every layer of the compost is more impenetrable than the last. The sands of time have aggregated, hydrated, and formed an organic clay that will definitely ripen into many abundant harvests. Noon strikes and for this Saturday, farm work is done, and I forgot all about my Okra. Next week arrives and it is time to finished what I started and seed my turned compost bins with my Okra mash. I peeked under the lid and the bucket belched a beyond funky “wasssssssssaapppp” Earlier in the growing season a large load of weedy compost and wood chips were delivered to the farm and sat underneath the Three Trees of the Three Sisters. Under the shade of our ancestresses their daughter, Tiffany, was delivering a sermon to the young men of the farm on educational strategies they should take advantage of during the pandemic. Her advice was ethically ambiguous, and though it had a logic to it, the possibility, and plausibility, and probability of the boys acting on it was very low. I kept my mouth shut and continued to work. Before I went to collect the mulch I dumped the liquid off into some rows, and into one compost bin that had been seeded. Now that the Okra bucket is just a bucket with Okra residue fused to the walls, I carried it over to the compost under the Trees of the Sisters and collect some compost for more experiments. To be completely clear, what I am trying to do by recomposting compost is to amplify the amount of microbial life in the compost, because I don’t want to be turning compost and all that. That, to me, is unnecessary work. I shoveled, listening to the advice of the educational seminar. As I walked back to my bins she asked to the attendees, “is that manure?” I kept my mouth shut and kept walking. Later I reflected on her question as I was building soil and working on my method of composting. Her question made me very proud. With some assistance from the Omnisicer and the microbes, Okra was transformed into manure. And in my opinion, if it smells like manure, then it may contain many of the microbes that are present within the gastrointestinal tract of the animal it smells like. Throughout the rest of the season I told this story to others when asked, “what’s in those buckets?” I failed to realize they were being respectful and didn’t really want an answer, but wanted to be nice because it smells like bull dung. Okay, Mason, that’s a nice story but what’s that got to do with the healthiest soils being black? Right right, well I had become very curious, because I am a huge fan of P-Funk and music in general that makes my face scrunch and distort. I think that the sloppiness of the groove in funk is the same as the blue note that gives Black American Music its characteristic hue. By this I proclaim a new tenet of Jigijigi Africultural Theory. Let it be known that, We Want The Funk! Gotta have that Funk! Many people have told you that compost shouldn’t smell bad, that if it does then it has gone bad, or it has pathogens or something. Our research hasn’t found that only pathogenic bacteria smell. Of course there are harmful bacteria that smell, but there are also beneficial bacteria that smell, and worse, harmful bacteria that smell good. Some pathogenic fungi even can pass undetected, as EPA researchers found in industrially composted products that you could buy off the shelf. I wonder if the bacteria that make the fresh soil smell, coexisted in those contaminated composts with the pathogenic bacteria. Further, we found that the Funk means something. The method of composting that I had formalized in the Summer of 2019 with Mandela at Nu Ray Research Garden turned 100lbs of frozen produce refuse from Sweet SoSumba into a black mush in about two months. Sure it stunk, but it was ready. According to everything that I had read, that wasn’t possible with compost. And everything I read was right, because I wasn’t composting. Composting is the aerobic digestion of organic matter. I was submerging organic matter into water and leaving it. I thought I was fermenting organic matter, but her question led me to the actual answer. I was performing anaerobic digestion. In anaerobic digestion, anaerobic bacteria and archaea utilize different electron acceptors to power themselves as they consume whatever complex material surrounds them while releasing energy from those complex materials. They do this in environments outside of the presence of oxygen, as our case, in a 5 gallon bucket underwater. Although this process is less efficient in releasing energy than an aerobic process, it however opens up a completely different realm of possibilities to the enterprising farmer. First, bacteria hydrolyze, or break the complex sugars, proteins, and fatty acids, creating simple sugars, amino acids, volatile fatty acids, hydrogen and acetate. Next, fermentative bacteria ferment those carbohydrates and amino acids creating ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and other molecules. In this fermentative step is where the funk begins. At this point the Okra ceases to exist. It has become a sludge called the digestate, that is subject to step 3, acetogenesis. Acetogens eat and produce acetic acid as well as more CO2 and hydrogen. Lastly, the archaea show up in their deep sankofa way, arriving in the present from the beginning of time to convert the vinegar into methane. As that off gasses out of my home depot buckets the Okra has returned to an essence, a seed of abundance for the compost. The Okra exists now only as a memory of a question, “is that manure?” So as we have found, it seems like the rest of the world knows, except for those of us over here in the US, that with the slightly slower process you can get not only two fine agricultural products, with liquid and solid fertilizers, but you can also capture and store methane for cooking, heating, or powering a generator or spinning a turbine to generate electricity. Smelling Funk to Power The implications of this are huge, but not for those reasons, but also because with this method you can also digest organic material that other compost techniques cannot. The anaerobic digesters can degrade meat, oils, cooked foods, and all manure, including yours. Her question and my opinion joined together to form a position that is both accurate and precise. It turns out that the methane produce will cease if you don’t feed the digester, and it will crank up again when it is fed. It seems then that we are creating, in a container, another animal, that eats our waste and produces gases and solids like we do. Or, in another natural example, we are creating in a container the bottom of under the ocean floor. There methane is generated by methanogens found within the earth’s crust, if not by the volcanic processes of the inner workings of the earth. This methane flows into the ocean through a hydrothermal vent called a Black Smoker. Surrounding the black smoker, microbial life forms thick mats and that copepods, shrimp, and snails eat. Fish descend to eat them, bigger fish eat them, and it goes up the food chain to our earliest mammalian ancestors who got the bright idea to move on up to the deluxe apartment in the sky. It is deeply emotional and fascinating watching the videos of brothers and sisters on the Continent talk about how much their lives have changed with the purchase and incorporation of these digesters. Beautiful crops and free gas! The interest doubles as we reflect on all of the biology classes we took and realized that we spent maybe two paragraphs on anaerobic digestion. The rest of the semester would then be spent on the ins and outs of oxidative phosphorylation despite that within you, right now, anaerobic digestion makes it all possible! In closing we will say that We Want The Funk, Gotta Have That Funk! For the Funk is Sankofa. Share Jìgìjìgì with your friends, family and closely related siblings of the soil. Leave us a five star review wherever you listen to and we will say then as we say now. Asante Sana, Medase Pa, Modupe O! Thank you, for listening, to Jìgìjìgì. Peace.

Charles Southward of IGH Gardens Charles is the founder of IGH Gardens in Los Angeles, California. I first came across him by way of his instagram account, a picture linked below with him and a bag of blood meal and the shiniest Swiss Chard I have ever seen. I am really excited for you to hear his wisdom! Works ReferencedInterview with Voyage LAIn God’s HandsInstagram – IGHgardensCharlie’s cameo in Raising ArizonaWhoever edited this video did a very interesting edit, not that it matters so much because look at Charlie’s wonderful mane!!! WOW! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Charles Southward (@ighgardens) Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) MO 0:00Peace, I am Mason Olonade and this is Jigijigi Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul and we share strategies for how to do both. To do both, we ask two questions. How do you grow while you grow kale, collards, tomatoes, melons? And why do you think the healthiest soils are black? We’re so excited today to have Charlie Southward on. I came across Charlie on his Instagram page ighgardens in God’s hands. It is Gardens is the is just the username. And like we were just talking about right before the show, Charlie had been growing the largest greens that I had ever seen. And I remember that he had one one particular picture which we may use for the show of him with a huge bag of blood meal or bone meal. And I asked him about it and and he was telling me that that was at that point in time that that was the key. And so and and as in talking, I also found that the Charlie is quite proficient; I don’t know if he’s has the has the official title of the pitmaster. But Charlie, Charlie’s the man when it comes to these ribs. So I’m excited to meet Charlie in the future and in person and to taste those ribs and everything like that. I’m really excited to have him on the show. And so I say, welcome. CS 1:28Well, thank you very, very much. Oh, that introduction was great. It’s quite again, you have me and the crowd, you’re not thinking of a point of mystery, so maybe I better enlighten them a little bit about what you’re saying about the barbecue. Okay. Yes, he’s quite correct. My name is Charlie southward. Back in the day they called me Charlie was a barbecue Master, and worked solely in the entertainment industry in the recording industry. And I was fortunate and blessed to have that opportunity. I’ve had the pleasure of working with, you know, most of the major jazz musicians Miles Davis, Grover Washington Jr. Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, Rick James, Bobby Brown and New Edition, Judas Priest, lots and lots of people, lots of people, Flock of Seagulls, a lot of people and I did that for about 15 years in the state of Arizona, I was the only black entertainment caterer in the whole state. Which was quite challenging, to say the least. But it was a very, very rewarding career. I’m still I’m very fortunate and glad to be alive. You know, because I did what the rockstars did too you know, everybody get into it. But I did it also, you know, so it’s kind of true what they say about the life. But I’ve learned a lot I’ve met some wonderful, wonderful people that are still around. And I’m happy and very excited about getting back into that industry. Right after I get this one off the ground. So today we’re going to talk about gardening and I’m anxious to answer the questions that you have before me. And let the people know how I came about in establishing IGH Gardens. MO 3:27Perfect. So when did you first realize you were supposed to have your hands in the soil? CS 3:34Well, I’ve started gardening when I was five years old. I had an aunt her name was Angie. And she could grow anything and everything. She had the most immaculate and beautiful front yard with flowers and grass and and the backyard was full of fruit trees and vegetables. Everything was just incredible. So I tried my hand at it at five I saw potatoes, you know, you know in the covered numbers shooting the eyes out of it, you know and so I dug the eyes out and planted by the water spigot you know all the way down and dug a little trench and water it every day. I love, I used to love to watch the water run down. And so the potatoes came up and they grew real lush and everything. And then they just you know, kind of keeled over. So I dug them up, I saw a little Potato Head and and I had you know quite a nice little harvest of potatoes. They were small, but they were very good. And so I you know, I rushed them in the house and told my mother about them And she let me prepare them with her and gave me the opportunity. She let know first time she let me get on a chair and start cooking. So I started cooking when I was five years old too. So ever since then, I’ve always had been growing, planting and growing something you know, and you know at the time I thought it was just for fun. But you know, I didn’t realize that as a people that we were quite financially, you know, insufficient and, you know, that was a necessity. You know, by having a backyard garden and something growing, I didn’t realize that at the time, but that’s when I started age five. And I’ve been doing it ever since. MO 5:14You know, it’s it’s a, it’s a thing, I guess for most people that I generally have on the show that a lot of them tend to start early. And I guess is similar for me, having watched my parents have, you know, just some some things growing in the backyard, and stuff like that. And, and that kind of curiosity, it seems to stay stay with all of us for the rest of our lives. CS 5:39Yes, you know, I would say, you know, as a people, we have a long, long history in this comp, country. And I’ve been, you know, led, you know, to think that, you know, God placed this talent in me long, long ago, you know, long ago, even before my conception. So, I believe, you know, that we as a people, you know, been in this country a long time. And, you know, there are things that we have done for so long that I think it’s just, you know, it becomes a part of us, and we excel at those things, you know, and, you know, we just need the opportunity, you know, to be let out, you know what I mean? To blossom. You know, but it’s a struggle, you know, because I struggled in the entertainment industry, because I was the only black caterer in the whole state. You know, that was a real real struggle. But we, I overcame, I’ll put it that way. You know, I had a service that was needed, and it was in demand and I refuse to let anybody stop me from taking care of my clients. So I think you have to have grit and determination in anything that you do? That you have a passion for. MO 6:53Absolutely, absolutely. So so so what what all do you have growing on this year at at IGH Gardens? CS 7:05Well, IGH gardens are founded in 2014. At the Salvation Army build shelter for the homeless in Bell California. That shelter is the largest homeless shelter in the state of California so far. AT capacity, it has about 500 people. Of course during the Coronavirus, you know the population is much lower than that right now. But my job was to to raise organic vegetables and supply them to the kitchen. And they gave me allowed me to occupy about 1100 square feet and produce collard greens as my main crop you know, in the wintertime, along with kale, mustard greens, turnips, beets, Swiss chard, and also Collard Trees. Collard trees, you know, grow very good here in Los Angeles, and in Southern California, I don’t know, I guess they do grow good in Florida, I’ve seen some there, you know, in pictures, but I have that also. And I managed to produce about 3900 pounds a season which is spring/summer I mean summer well throughout the year, out of that spot. So you know, in the in the spring, I change over to cayenne chili peppers, jalapeno, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, my kale last until June. And my collards depending on the heat will last until the late April or early June. And then I’ve replaced that with okra and some watermelon and okra last all the way till early October. So I’ll have I do whats seasonal and what grows in my area. You know, it’s not you know, that’s what I do. I try not to grow anything that is super exotic or or I’m not accustomed to my zone. You know, I’ve just grown what is knowing what goes prolifically in my zone because I like production, you know, I have a job to do with feeding the homeless. And so it’s about the output what I get in weight. And so I’m also add to this year, you know, this is our six year, my six year doing this, I started it financially, solely on my social security for five years. And now the community is accepting and what we do, and we’re trying to expand to a larger location, so about seven times bigger than what I have, and we’re working very hard on that. But we’re really, really happy with the way things are going and how the community has accepted us. We’ve just taken on too long shelters. These are women and children’s shelters, victims of homelessness and domestic violence. And so they have cooking facilities and stuff in there. And so we will be providing fresh baked vegetables to them. Hopefully at least twice a month, you know, from here on out, we’re really happy to add them tomorrow services, we also drop the Los Angeles area, they’ve established community refrigerators, where the people in need and can come and you know, and get food, you know, that they don’t have because of the pandemic and everything. And I’ve been fortunate enough to hit three refrigerators in Los Angeles so far, in the most desperate areas. And it’s really sad to say, every time I’ve gone and they’ve been completely empty, I can’t say that corporate America, or even corporate California has been helping helping this out this separate out at all, I can’t say that, because I don’t see anything in the refrigerator. And I’m really, really happy to be iVh garden, you know, making an effort to help the people. MO 11:14Yeah, the the work that you’re doing, I mean, I’m getting chills talking about just even being able to acknowledge it, I had no idea that you were, you know, doing all all that you are doing. I didn’t even know that like the community refrigerators existed, I my knowledge failed in that regard. But you know, and it is, it is super impressive. And it is it is it is disappointing. What you are doing is is super impressive. And conversely, it is very disappointing that, you know, we can see all this thriving going on in California, but all the people are are deprived in that same capacity. And you know, and I am thankful for you and people like you that you’re able to do this stuff to get this food, you know, to people CS 12:06well, it’s my pleasure I feel it’s, you know, much You know, my duty, you know, I feel, I’m doing God’s work. I named the garden IGH Gardens in God’s hands, because I truly believe that that’s what it is and what I know, and my mission is to, to help the disabled, under serving, disadvantaged, you know helpless and homeless. I have a gardening style that, you know, is basically the same as everyone else. I, you know, I I, you know, use organic fertilizers, organic only. But I grow according to Biblical instructions. And those instructions are available to everyone around the world freely. And I invite people, you know, if they want to put it to the test, I’ll put it that way, I put it to the test. And it works. God said you will live by the sweat of your brow. And he meant that, you know, so I, I just follow those instructions. And you know, he takes it from there. And the results are you know are evident. You know, for those who want to see they can follow me on Instagram @Ighgardens. And My website is ighgardens.org. But truly put that into practice. It works. And my next year will be my seventh year if I’m at that location. And I have two garden spots. And so one is has been planted for six years, and one has been planted for four and a half I would say. So when I get to the seventh year, one side of my garden will not be planted, it will stay fallow for an entire year. Because that’s according to God’s instruction. So I will be putting that to the test also if I’m at that location another year. So I’m hoping that I’m not so that I can you know, be at a new location and grow more and more because I’m on an existing farm That is not to perse an operation right now, but I’m the only one operating on that location is acre and a half and it’s not running right. So I’m sorry to say that but I’m happy that I’m able to to satisfy the homeless after the shelter at this time until they get back in with you know, IGH is holding their home there and I’m very very happy that they’re satisfied with us. And you know and happy but we know that the Salvation Army Bell shelter you know, gifted me with that area six years ago, you know, we both then lived up to door to our end of the deal. So, you know, my hat’s off to them, the Salvation Army too. MO 15:11have a bit of a maybe a little bit theological kind of question. When when you’re talking about if you want to let the you know, approaching approaching the seventh year at the plot, right, and you wanted to have it lay fallow for that for that for a whole year? Would you would would it be out of bounds, I guess to plant like, like cover crops or something in in the fallow state? CS 15:45Well, I wouldn’t be I wouldn’t be paying attention very well, if I did that would I? The instructions are plain and simple and they’re complete. There you know, there really is no deviation. If it says leave it alone, leave it alone. So, you know, and that’s what God, you know, let God do what he do. The one thing I think that man, you know, you know, there’s a problem with I mean, yes, we are little G’s. But we have to stay plugged into the big source, in order to realize what we really are. The Little G’s, you see, we lose our way when we get when we get big headed, and think that we’re running everything. That’s what’s wrong with the food industry now. And many things that man put his hand on and try to over, do, you know, try to outdo God, you can’t see. And that’s one of the reasons we’re facing a lot of problems in the food in the chemicalizations and other problems that’s in our bodies. And that’s one of the reasons because we try to maximize and supersize everything we should be letting God do what he do. The instructions are there. Like I put it to the test, and it works, year in and year out. And people are amazed by it. I don’t really talk about it too much. Because people don’t believe it. So, you know, I just put it out there. That’s my invitation. You know, I’m not really a Bible beater, but I do have faith and I believe, you know, that’s my belief and my faith and my offer, for those of us who is interested to seek it out for themselves, because it’s right there. MO 17:16I see. Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s nobody can be any more efficient than how nature already makes it work. And so how have you grown while growing all that you got going on? Meaning? How is your well being improved by being in the soil? CS 17:40Well, I feel like I’m basically at one when I’m out there with the one, you know. I, I’ve always had the ability to visualize, I see the crop before it’s even out of the ground, I can see it at its beginning stage, and I see it at a very end stage. You know, before, you know, I’d see it, you know, it’s almost like a, you know, an artist with a, that paints a painting, you know, they see what they’re going to paint before it’s even on the canvas. So, that’s, I see it, you know, that’s how I garden. My just reward and fulfillment that I get is at harvest time, you know, after I allow God to do what I do, only thing I can do is be the caretaker, you know, but he does it. MO 18:35I just more recently, I’ve been gaining that sort of ability to see just, you know, from from, from germination at the, at the farm, that that I’ve been volunteering at, we planted some cover crops. And I could tell just from how I guess it, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s so difficult to describe these sorts of things quantitatively right, it can only really be done qualitatively. But it seemed to be just from the vigor of the seedlings. I was like, yeah, this is gonna be this is gonna work. And, you know, we that was maybe late October when we when we started putting those out there and we met some people in early or in late December. And man, we looked at those the those beds where the cover crop was planted, and it even surprised me more than then I could have imagined that I was like, oh man did the vigor with with with these, uh, with this crimson clover. It was just it was surprising and, and I hadn’t really thought about it in the way in that way until you just mentioned it just now. It was like, Oh, yeah, I’m, I’m really just starting to see to develop that. That that sense of visualization. It’s very interesting. CS 20:02Well, you know, you’re talking about cover crops, I don’t there’s nothing wrong with cover crops Don’t get me wrong, you know me, you know, because like, just like we’re not, you know, you know, leaving his fallow, you know, as, not as a time of the year goes mind, you know what is being fallow, that nature is going to put its own cover crop back there anyway. Yeah, it’s gonna come back, you see, and people don’t you know, and I believe me, I’m all for trying to put a little extra umph in my garden, you know, thinking that I’m going to make it grow better, you know, I’m only human, you know. And so what I’ve learned about plants and gardening and growing, is that plants are just like us, they require the same thing that we need. Air, light, food, and water, and care and attention. Yeah, so same thing. So if you have that in abundance, then they’re going to take in what they need when they need it, and do exactly what you’re supposed to do, and give back to you, you know, tenfold 20 fold, just like the Bible says, you know, you know, from that one seed. so but like i said, you know, I get I kind of get carried away with myself sometime too thinking about cover crops and, and, you know, the use of feather meal and this kind of stuff with me, everybody has a thing. But you know, everything in life lives and dies, you know, and goes back into the soil, you see, what is the natural cycle of life. You see? So, you know, it’s going to occur anyway. So, you know, or anything we can do, you know, embellishing it a little bit, I think it’s okay. But you know, I don’t think we should get carried away, you know, what over embellish in anything, you know, you’re trying to replace with nature itself, or supersize, or make nature work in a freakish way for us, you know, I don’t think that we should do that. MO 22:06Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that’s, that’s, that’s sort of the the sort of that I mean, I’m not even really all that dogmatic about them. Because I agree with you, like, you know, the, what is it they say, nature abhors a vacuum, right? And so you know, and, and the same thing, you know, Mother Nature will fill in the gaps, because she’s not trying to, she’s not trying to have you know, just like, just like your, your body covers up open wounds. And I sort of feel that same way about about the soil, I’m not equating the soil to necessarily an open wound. But what I am saying is that the gap will be filled at some point in time. And, you know, in certain instances, like, like at the farm, the reason why we plant crimson clover as opposed to anything else, is because there’s so much crabgrass everywhere. And, you know, we got it, we have to protect our investment in the land, so that we’re not fighting cover, not fighting crabgrass all year long, you know? CS 23:07That goes, that goes back to what I said about what God says about us living by the sweat of our brow, you can always have something to do, you got to do it, there’s always gonna be competition, you know, with something, you know, the days of protection, and bliss. You know, we gave that up a long, long, long, long time ago. So we got to live this out. And, you know, it’s gonna work, you know, you know, it’s gonna work. Yeah. With the, so,. I’m saving the rest, one of the one of the questions you’re gonna ask me I wanna say that, but I’m gonna wait for you ask me before I put that out. MO 23:48All right, well, we’ll advance it right along then. Do you believe that we as black folk have a special relationship with the soil? And if so, how do we potentially get that special relationship? CS 24:03I do believe that. We as black people have a special relationship with the soil. I believe indigenous people have a special relationship with soil. I believe in people that has any ounce of spiritualization or spirituality in order to win in touch with you. But you asked me about black people so, Yes, I believe that and I believe the only thing that we can, you know, we can look back at it’s basically history. We did everything. You know, don’t you think it that’d be something that is inherent in our in our genes? you know, for hundreds of years we cook we clean we grew, sowed, built? The whole nine yards, you see, so I don’t understand why when a person of color excels, you know, at something that they aren’t immediately you know,pounced upon, and, or, you know, other concept or whatever it is or stolen, you know, and and manipulate it and used you know, and cashed out, you know, but by others I won’t call out nobody. But I do believe that as a black people, we have a special connection because of our history. You know, and our basic great need of survival. You see. I really believe that. So we’ve been through a lot of trials and tribulations I think through history. You know, I think we have gotten the short end of the stick most of the time. You know, I’m not saying that, that the powers that be didn’t try to own up to what our country should be they did, Lincoln tried, you know, and, you know, it almost worked, you know, you know, it took me years to figure out what Reconstruction really meant, you know. But when I started finding out about the black representatives and senators and stuff that was elected back in those days, I started wondering how they did elected? who voted him in office? So when reconstruction, came, and all this happening, and the carpetbaggers, took the votes and throw them out, and everything. And that’s where we started, you know, pretty much anything, we’ve always wanted to be a part of the American mainstream and sharing the American dream, we did it, like black Wall Street, in many places have been burned out stretches of successes that we had, you know, been taken from us, you know, but yet we love this country, you know, but you know, it’s just don’t this country love us? No, no, you know, but you know, I just keep on fighting and keep on striving, because I know, God is love and, you know, I’m loved by Him and the only I can do is love. So love is gonna win overall, you know, as historical point from historical standpoint, what you asked me, I really believe that, you know, the answer is yes. MO 26:58so for the So, you know, like, so how do you how do you think that we improve upon that, upon that special relationship? It is it is it as simple as, as just, you know, putting our hands in the soil and growing more, and trying more, what do you what is your opinion? CS 27:13Well, my opinion is trial and error. And I mean, I grow on by faith, you know, follow the instructions on the package, but I let God do the rest. In nature, nature is at work, you know, we can’t see what’s going on underneath that ground. But we know it’s happening. You see, so, you know, the only thing we could be is good stewards of the Earth, the Bible said, We are stewards. And that’s what we should be as good stewards for the planet, you know the planet will take care of us, if we take care of it. So I don’t really think it’s complicated, you know, you know, but you have to be a tremendous will and desire, you know, and a joy to do this, you know, you know, you have to like it, you know, I mean, you know, I think, any kind of job or anything, that people you know, want to work, they have to enjoy what they work on, or they’ll be miserable. You know, nobody wants to work for a living and be in misery all the time. And don’t worry and hate what they do. You know, so, you know, for those that have found, you know, a calling or, you know, what they like to do in life and are able to make money at it, you know, they earn bliss, you know, I mean, I am so you know, and it’s just get started for the month, you know, this is not about money. For me. It’s about service. MO 28:23Yeah, yeah. So the thing, the the what you were saying about the about? You, you show? Was it? Exactly? By the, by the sweat of your brow? Can you can you say the passage again. CS 28:38God said you will live by the sweat of your brow? And that’s what we got? Yeah, we got through our, okay. Right. So that means we have to labor and we have to be, you know, we’re not going to get our just reward from the ground without going through the thorns and thistles and all that, you know, the reminder of our error, where we made a mistake. You see, it’s all reminders of what we did in the beginning. Okay. So, and this is why we didn’t say that we would, that we, you know, we wouldn’t be blessed, you know, we were, you know, that we wouldn’t, you know, have bouchy but we’re gonna have a sweat board. And I believe that series number is true, you know, because there’s not going to get you to miraculously happen. You see, you know, for us, based on whether based on this based on what a lot of things you’re gonna have to work for it, you got to put in, you know, you have to put an effort in, it’s just not going to happen. We don’t live in a, in a world where it’s perfect weather all the time, it rains, just the right amount, and no weeds go up and everything. It’s not like that anymore. So, so, that’s why that passage is very important to me, you know, and it’s also true. MO 29:54Yeah, that’s, you know, when most of the growing that I’ve had done prior to To working at three sisters market, um, had been more so experimental and trying to figure out what I could grow, like really within a city and within a backyard and stuff like that and feed myself just a little bit. But now that we are in now that I am doing agriculture for production, because we’re, we’re feeding the people out here in the in West Boulevard corridor, it’s a whole different, it’s a whole different type of labor. And it’s very interesting. Having to, you know, like, like the one we sold, we’re so we’re like we had where the farm is located right across the street from the library, which was an early polling facility. And so our polling facility or polling place, and so when they had the first week of early voting is here during the elections, the farm from, you know, Monday to Saturday had already sold 50 pounds of collards, and, you know, we only have got like, maybe a quarter a quarter of an acre, we don’t have that, that much space, and we maybe had maybe about 15 rows of collardss, maybe about 20 feet long and it was just, it was intense. And I remember the day that I picked about maybe 15 pounds of collards. And all I did was sleep for the rest of the day, cuz it was I was I was beat after that. But it was a it was, you know, that nap was probably one of the most rewarding naps that I’ve had in a long time. CS 31:35Yes, it is quite rewarding, you know, to I use a wheelbarrow when I, when I harvest, I used to get between 45 and 50, 60 pounds, you’re not in a wheelbarrow, you know, and that, you know, that takes about, I can do that in a month, you know, produce that month and clip it all at once the whole thing, and then the next month, I’ll have another 50 or 60, 70 pounds again, you know, I mean, so I’ve been doing it for so long, you know, I mean, you know, it’s like almost like a science now, you know, I mean, I know what what my output is going to be, you know, you know, and you know, sometimes I have trouble, because we have rabbits out there. And which I’ve done, I’ve gotten rid of rid of them. But you know, I’ve got some fish out. But right now, I’m in a battle with the gophers, it seems like I’ve won that battle, you know, I’ve gotten rid of them. And they haven’t done damage. And I didn’t kill them either, I’d use a no, ultrasonic sound. To get rid of them, it took a while, but it works. And so, you know, and we got coyotes out there. So they come along and wait on the gophers too. But, you know, we have all that out there to contend with. You know, I remember, before they had the facial sense, I’d go out there four, five o’clock in the morning and see the coyotes blue eyes in the darkness. You know what I mean? You know, they don’t bother me, because they’re scared of people, you know, they just run off, but I’m out there in the City of Los Angeles right out in the wild nature is right around us. You know, I’m kind of like out and we’re in the warehouse district basically. And there’s a lot of open area, coyotes and they run out, they come down, they really do come out. It’s wonderful being out in nature. It’s just wonderful. So I kind of got off the track, and we were talking about weight and collard greens way Sorry about that. MO 33:34It’s no problem. I had no idea that that, um, that, that that coyotes will be out there. And it’s sort of in a warehouse district. But you know, one of the one of the things that I always say, especially when faced with environmental stressor, or stressors and, and and, you know, especially pest pest pressure, I always say that everybody’s got to eat, you know, and CS 33:59that’s true, you know, but when you’re in you know, like, I mean, I don’t believe in killing animals. But believe me, that’s a battle if you’re getting into a fight with a garden, and some gophers trouble if you let the gophers get the other hand, the upper hand, you know, you’re really in trouble, you see, and they’ll destroy it, you know, and so you have to get them to get them out of there by hook or crook or you’re not going to have a garden in a matter of weeks. Because they’re gonna they’re gonna put so many tunnel under it the whole root structure, you know, it’s gone, you know, because there’s so many tunnels and everything under the roots are exposed underneath the ground, you know, and, you know, (and die) start from the top. I mean, it’s incredible. You know, if you’re plants are small enough and you’re out there watching pull em up, right underneath the nose pull up right down in the in front of you go right down the hole. So, so you have to stay on top of that to make sure you don’t have that and I lucked out and they have the sonic blasters or whatever their solar operated And I have to say it works. Now, it took a while I was complaining, I got 12 of them, you know, but I was complaining to the company and me, Well, you know, you’re just give it some time and I did. And so but it’s working. So I have to, I’m happy because I do not like to kill anything, you know, like that. So I’m happy to say that, that’s one thing that science has come up with that I think is beneficial. MO 35:28Yeah, that’s really cool. There was, um, there. on a previous episode, I was talking to one of my friends about ultrasound and, and, and also like, infrasound. And, and what what opportunities they may offer to to plants. Because sort of my, my, sort of looking into that was that, you know, if, you know, at least with my houseplants, right, I can see that they are thriving, by the way that I care for them. Like you said that, you know, they need the, I meant to mention mentioned this, but I don’t think I do a lot of people do forget about that plants also need attention, like you were saying, and, and so I sing to my plants when I can, and everything like that. And so I was seeing basically thinking like, Okay, well, if, if these plants are responding in this way, to me, you know, offering, you know, whatever vibrations are coming, by the way and moving the air through the notes that I’m singing, I wonder if the very, very orchestrated ultrasound and something like that can do something to arrange and, and, and, and work for, in a different sort of a more, I guess, mechanical fertilizing thing, because it’s not so much of not so much of giving the plant something. But, um, but that’s, that’s a whole nother thing. But, but CS 36:53I’m with you, I really believe that plants are sensitive to sound, and I believe that music has a definite impact on them. I used to play music in my plants all the time to know, I believe that, you know, you know, the music does have an effect, I think your your attitude, your vibrations, your awareness, or your your calmness, or your peace, the peace, the peace that comes off of you is picked up by the plants, I really believe that, you know, they, they feel you like you feel them. So, I really believe that. And so, you know, because I’ve walked through my plants, and I touched them, and I look at them, and I get really into them to see what’s going on, you know, if there’s aphids if its anything, you know, in there, or doing something that harming, you know, or something that I might be able to learn that I’ve never noticed before. So I, I pay very close attention to him. But music, I think they are very sensitive to just our presence, you know, I really believe that. So I think you’re on the right track when it comes to singing to them, I really do. MO 38:08Thank you. I am I really liked what you said and I, I have to go back into the, to the recording to get the exact thing but you said something like the you know, the piece that comes off of you is felt by your plants. And I really liked the way that that you said that because I in in some of the consulting that I’ve done for people when they’ve been worried about their plants, or whatever I come in, and I see that everything is fine, you know? And then I’m asking them, how what do you feel like when you’re when you’re with your plants? You know, like what what are you? What are you projecting on on to them and everything like that, because if you can see, you know, something like, one of one of one of my clients, she had these peace lilies that were so glossy, I thought it I thought it was fake. I couldn’t believe it, you know, and and just so healthy. Everything was standing right up. And it was almost, it was it was exalted, I’d say and, and she was like, Well, I’m not sure if it’s, you know, if it’s growing, you know how it should be and I’mlike, Are you kidding? This this you couldn’t have found this is almost like within the realm of the forms of what a piece Lily is supposed to look like. You know and and, and so but there have been other people were like especially, I talked about this on the very first episode with my mom, where she was convinced she had she she couldn’t keep anything going. And so, you know, we found the right plants to keep it going. And it was just merely the confidence of having one plant survive past the third week that really changed her entire perception about what it is to be in the care of plants and also to be cared for by plants, right CS 40:00Right. Mm hmm. MO 40:02You know, because, right, CS 40:04because they do care for us, I mean, and you know, and they, you know, you get a joy, I get a joyous feeling every time I’m out there, you know, I’m just, you know, overwhelmed with peace, and joy, and peace, positive thoughts. And, you know, my mind just starts, you know, you know, creating it, I get very creative, even in thought, you know, about future about what’s next. But, you know, everything in my mind is opens up, you know, and, you know, and I’m enveloped by everything, you know, including the plants, you know, I feel like I’ve become a part of that. So, you know, you know, and I guess that, you know, to other people’s amazement, I really don’t have a problem, you know, growing anything that I grow, because I’ve, you know, I just have a knowledge of things to know that they’re gonna, you know, that I’ve done everything that they placed everything there that they need. And, you know, and all that I can do with that is back up and let let spirit take it, you know, and it does what it’s supposed to do. You know, so, you know, as long as I’m, you know, doing my part by being a good steward, you know, of all the plants that are going to do their part. But I have to do mine, and backup, you know, because I can only do so much, you know, and you put the you know, it’s almost like raising a kid, you know, you know, once the kid is raised and he starts starts crawling, and he starts, you know, any starts walking, you know, you know, you don’t have to stand there and hold them no more. They’re on their own. MO 41:39I’ve thought about them recently. I thought about it because the plants are, you know, so much older than us. I was thinking that you know, I wanted to move people away from I guess kind of treating plants like babies or something or pets and I was saying you know, plants are really kind of like our older brothers and sisters almost and so you you really wouldn’t dote on your on your older brother, older sister, you know, you you give them what they need when they ask for it and then you let them do whatever they do, you know, and and and especially with working having that sort of coming to that understanding very recently with my plants um, a lot of them continue to surprise me because I haven’t been so much like oh my gosh, what’s going on what’s going on? And then you know, once I’m like I they’re all right, you know, they’ll make it and and, and they do CS 42:36yeah, they’re amazing. Absolutely amazing. MO 42:40Charlie What do you think the healthiest soils are black? CS 42:47Well, I’ve been thinking about that. And why I think the healthiest soils on black Okay, I think I’m mixing black let’s take the color black. The basic color for all the other colors is black. All life you know is alive and then it dies and decomposes and decomposes. Means darkness richness fertile ness. So the blacker the soil the better it is the better ingredients for the reproduction and the recreation of life plant life comes from black, which means it comes from the fertile it comes from life that has died and decomposed and is putting new life the food of new life back into the ground for the seeds to regenerate to new life. You see so that’s one of the reasons I believe that the best soils are done although now I live in California were in Los Angeles where the soil is sandy loam, okay which is a sandy light brown color of Sand. when it drains very very deep, okay. So I have to work by the sweat of my brow to make my dirt my soil dark. In other words, I have to work it in there. So I have to work it in there. So I have to go get whatever decomposed material if there is whether it’s these from around the farm chicken manure, decomposition is a key in nature does it on its own, you know, but since we are working on the ground working and working in on constantly, you know, we have to you know, add a little bit more than the nature of can put in it. You know, at the rate. I don’t live on the east coast of where its of heavy trees and and lots of leaf falling all the time. We don’t have it like that here. We have trees and leaves but nothing like what I think about out, you’re in the east coast aren’t you, in the south?. MO 45:06Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m in North Carolina in Charlotte. Yeah. CS 45:11And Charlotte, North Carolina. Okay. Well, hello, Charlotte. I’ve never been there. But I heard it’s a beautiful, beautiful place. excellent place to grow something from the plants that I have seen. So, but that’s why I believe the best soils are dark, you know, because it’s natural. And you know, and it’s just what it is. I hope I answered that. The best of everybody, you know, thought that’s just how I think about it. MO 45:41Well, that’s why we have you we went we went the we went the best of your thought, and that’s what you gave us. Our podcast is based on this Yoruba owe or proverb, Jigijigi ko see fa tu, A firmly rooted plant cannot be uprooted.. What is your favorite agriculture or plant related proverb? Or saying? CS 46:05As far as what you just said about a plant that can’t be uprooted? Are you asking me what plants that I would think that would be? MO 46:14I mean, you feel free to answer that question. Feel free to answer that. But the question that I’m asking you is, what’s your What’s your favorite plant related proverb? CS 46:26Ah, I’m dont know, I was just gonna say, the okra plant, you know, because the okra plant is a you know, once it gets gets in the ground, and everything is really hard to get out. You know, it’s very sturdy, and it’s very prolific. But, no, I don’t have a proverb per se. Based on, you know, the gardening, outside of, you know, going into gardener and, you know, first thing I do, when I get there is I say, the Lord’s Prayer. And, and then I commune with God, you know, for the rest of the time that I’m there in the silence. I believe, you know, of, you know, you get a better connection, and the silence, you know, you know, stillness, you know, and I tried to, you know, that’s where I connect with God, in the stillness, and the quietness of my mind, you know, and I’m getting right there, you can get it anywhere, you know, because all you have to do is go inside yourself, but I enjoy doing it there. I guess that would be my problem beyond what I would, you know, what I do on a daily, you know, I say, the Lord’s Prayer, and then I go into the silence. MO 47:41I found that I found that myself, I mean, they there is so much going on at the garden that it’s kind of like, it can be overwhelming to, to, to have music going on at the same time, because you, you have to hear almost how the wind moves through the plants. And especially where we are, because we got a lot of trees around, we got a lot of birds around. And, and you want to hear how the birds are kind of singing and interacting. And, and especially because we also have bees,you gotta you need to be able to hear for when those bees are getting close to you. CS 48:26While I’m glad, we don’t have that problem here like that. I mean, I’ve gotten stung a couple of times, but nothing, nothing like that. I mean, the wintertime when you’re out here in California, one of my favorite because, you know, and here in LA when it gets really nice and cool. Even the flies go away. You know what I mean, so. You know, that’s one thing I like about being too many flies. But I’ve been in other places and other states where I can’t even stand to go outside. I mean, I mean, but I guess I’m not I wouldn’t make a great farmer in some other places, but I’m really blessed to be here because I’m not you know, a big bug fan. You know what I mean? Especially the ones that make noise Yeah, MO 49:12yeah, the Yeah, I remember one day we were the the most recent time that I got stung. I took a beekeeping class in college and didn’t get stung the entire semester. But being out here with the with the bees that we’re keeping it at the farm, they were doing a hive kind of consolidation and and the bees did not like that and you know every now and again CS 49:39Yeah, like you know, there we go horning in on something where we supposed to be in you know what I mean, they knew what they was doing MO 49:48it was almost like, you know, when when you hear somebody playing music off in the distance, you can hear the bass or whatever, but it was like that. As soon as you there’s there’s kind of the the garden is kind of terraced and so when you got is like basically like four levels and once you got up to the third level you could kind of hear this very faint buzz. But if you can hear that and you’re nowhere near the bees that’s like a warning, you know like, don’t get any closer. CS 50:17Oh my god. Yeah. Wow, that’s incredible. MO 50:23Yeah. CS 50:25There’s we got quite a few honey farmers out here too, but I’ve never been there. I know one lady that I grew some grass corn for. She raises bees and stuff like that, but I don’t think I could do it. I’ll just stick with the plan. I mean, I don’t think I could do this through no bees and stuff. But yeah, y’all been demented and handle it and everything I know, it’s a beautiful thing. You know, the flowers and everything that they did they survive all over us have an incredible, beautiful, beautiful area for them. MO 50:56Oh, yeah, I mean, we have some, some lantana bushes that generally get about like eight feet wide, because of because of those bees, and everything, everything gets really prolific. The bees don’t really have to travel all that far to go get anything at all, because they’re there and they’re in there pollinating everything, but if I had it my way, although I do enjoy, enjoy, enjoy the honeybees being there. For for a public setting that the beat that the farm is the the the the the bees are kind of the kind of a liability in that regard. Like in the day that we saw that saw them, I would try and raise solitary bees, or more native bees like like mason bees or, or the various the various solitary bees that you can prop up. And they don’t have, they don’t sting. And they really, there really are like leafcutter bees and stuff like that there that will really stay out of the way. Because they really don’t want to interact with you. CS 52:06I guess they want to stay alive. I know, once they sting you, it’s over for them. So they know, wow. What an amazing conversation. I’m so honored. You know, this is my first podcast, I’ve never, you know, I’m quite honored to be exposed like this, you know, I’ve never been questioned this way before. And I’m really, really happy to be on your show. It’s a blessing to me. And you know, you’re you’re exposing me to the, to the country. And I’m really happy about that. I’m really happy that you reached out to me. MO 52:42I’m really glad that you that you responded, So immediately. And I mean, it’s not just the country, because every I look at some of the stats that we’ve got going on. And last last sometime in 2020. We had listeners in Sweden, and somebody in Indonesia, and, and the year before that we had people and some people in India, Switzerland. So you know, I, you know, we’re really, you know, you and I together are exposing ourselves to the real, the real, the larger, the larger population as a whole CS 53:23Wow its interesting. You know, I have a dear friend, her name is Victoria. She’s from Sweden. She’s a film director. And she made a documentary about IGH Gardens, I’m gonna send you the link to the show. And for your viewing pleasure, it’s it’s not released yet. She’s still working on the soundtrack. But it is going to be shown in film festivals around the world as far as her professor told her where they’re going to place it. So I was very honored to be up and coming. And I think you’ll like it. It’s called Charlie’s garden. MO 54:01Man. Everything’s coming up, Charlie, man, you got it. You got it. You got it. Got a documentary about you got a podcast about you. What’s next man? CS 54:09Well, I don’t know. I’ve had a lot happen in my life. You know, I was, you know, outside of being an educator in the cotton industry. I was lucky enough or dizzy. I was in a movie with Nicolas Cage. And you know, everybody saw it. It was all racing, Arizona. It’s all movie now. But I was in it with him and John Goodman. I had pleasure meeting him. And making movies is hard work. Now I’m gonna tell you that it wasn’t easy. I mean, I didn’t even have a speaking part. But I was in prison scene and you know, I had to sit right next to Nicholas Cage, um, you know, they were focused on this Marlboro cigarette that I was smoking. And after about 15 takes I had a headache because I had to have a cigarettein such and such a way and have it in my finger to such and such a way I didn’t realize it got putting a film together like that was so intricate. So, but it made me have appreciation for television and film, you know, a lot more than I did before I had the opportunity of being in one. So I’ve had a really interesting life and, you know, I feel like it’s just the beginning. It’s not the end. It’s like it’s just the beginning. So, I’m gonna onward and forward as they say, MO 55:24what is the title of this movie? CS 55:27It was called raising Arizona. MO 55:29Oh, raising Arizona raising Arizona. Wow. Okay, I’m gonna check that up. I’m gonna look for your, for your cameo. CS 55:38You’re seeing there’s a guy, one of the other brothers in the movie, his name is Ruben. And he’s got a deep voice and you’ll you’ll he’s talking about his menstrual cycle in prison is quite funny. And you’ll see me right before he says that on me. But I got really long hair, My hair was shoulder length, like Rick James was, but it was real, at the time. You know? So I think that’s what got me in the movie. Because at that time, there wasn’t too many people for head shoulder hair that was black That was actually real. So so I think that’s what got me the part, you know, whatever else was going on in that guys mind when he saw me in the restaurant that I was cheffing at in Scottsdale, Arizona. So that’s how that happened. MO 56:26Wow. I am ear to ear smiling over here just giggling over here, man. It’s so cool. All right, Charlie, what is a resource that you’d recommend for those looking to increase their agricultural understandings? CS 56:47Be open, be patient with yourself. Don’t Don’t beat yourself up, if you fail, you know what I mean? And follow instructions, no matter where you get them from, even if it’s off the package, they put it there for a reason. Okay, you know, a lot of people just put stuff into their no follow instructions, you know, so that’s what I was saying. Give yourself a chance. And be open with it, follow instructions and be happy, you know, and enjoy yourself while you’re in the fullness of nature, and with the Creator Himself, to stay open to it, and it’ll all unfold right before your eyes. MO 57:33I definitely have an issue with following instructions. I, you know, professionally, I’m a I’m a biologist. And so, you know, with all the protocols and everything, all we do is follow instruction. And so whenever I get out in the garden, I consider that this sort of free, free time, you know, and I’m just like, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna do that, I’m not gonna do that, and I’m gonna do my own thing. And then, you know, it’s just like, just like you said it, you know, eventually end up circling back around and be like, Alright, now that I did my own thing, let me see what they say. And, you know, in three weeks, you get the same results as it took me for, you know, for three months or something like that, because, you know, I was living, like, leaving out a crucial thing or, or something like that. It’s, you know, but that that’s, that’s the stubbornness, I guess. CS 58:25And see like I said, we’re only human. And you said, a very important thing about leaving out the crucial this and that, you know, it’s like, one thing, like, it’s like, if, when you’re reading a cookbook, the writer of the cookbook, is going to give you the basics, but because maybe of their energy? let’s say, they’re not gonna give you everything, you know, there’s always going to be something they’re gonna hold back, because they want to be the best at it. You see, and if there’s something, you know, that you’re not going to get, that’s why things get diluted when they’re passed down. You know, they get diluted, because something like a remain and you know, and somebody wants to keep a little secret of something that they know, and don’t want nobody else to know. You know, and that’s how things get diluted. And things think you’re getting the right something and don’t work out. Like if somebody don’t want you to have it. Right. You know, but you’ll figure it out. You know, and that’s how we get our own touches and everything, whether we pass it on to others, you know, depends on how open we are and if we’re not vain. Whether we give all the secrets away. I mean, like you know I don’t mind giving it away, you know, it takes a special person to absorb all of that. You have to be open to take in that type of information. You can’t resist it. So that’s all I can say, you know, you’ve got to be open and I think, you know, young people, I mean, yeah, you know, young people fully, there’s no energy and zeal and drive and all of that. Well, I know I was young once and I still am in my mind, but But I didn’t listen very well, you know, I mean, I’ve had to bump my head a lot of times, you know, before I understood things. And so, you know, now I’m very, very patient, and open and understanding very patient. And I’m brutally honest. And, you know, I don’t know, revelations come to me, you know, but honestly, I think, you know, you have to be honest with yourself, and honest with everything, you know, before true enlightenment comes, you know, in anything that you do. MO 1:00:34Wow. Yeah, I, what you said was very interesting, because I’ve been sort of thinking about what oral tradition means, even though and people’s sort of attitude about, you know, that is the most pristine way for the transmission of knowledge over time. But then people will say that knowing full well that they were in kindergarten at some point in time, and also played the telephone game, you know, CS 1:01:09I ain’t heard nobody say that, in a long time. Call up and tell people a refrigerator was running down the street too Yeah. MO 1:01:18And so you know, and so what you’re saying kind of adds adds to, to what I’m saying, because it’s like, yeah, if, if you did have the information, and you were vain, then you would withhold. And, and that would contribute, it’s like, it’s like what they say about walking in the woods, right? They say that you shouldn’t, if you think that you’re walking in a straight line in the woods, you’re wrong, because one of your legs is pretty, it’s statistically one of our legs is going to be shorter than another, right, and that you’re walking in a straight line, you’re actually walking on a very slight curve. So you walk into the woods, and then you try and turn around and go back. And then you keep that, you know, you’re always walking slightly to the left, and then you turn around, wherever you think the turning around is, and then you end up walking slightly to the left, and then you, and then you’re not at the exit of the woods. And so you turn around and start walking slightly to the left, and make all of these sorts of very weird things, and you just find yourself very lost in the woods. And I feel like a lot of a lot of the stuff that we’ve said that we’ve been passing down, over time has just left us a lot lost in the woods, especially as it relates to whatever wisdom that we think we might be possessing. CS 1:02:36Right, and, you know, I’m gonna be one of those type OG’s. That gives my wisdom I don’t want to leave here with it, I have to give it away. I have to, but I gotta find the right somebody to give it to. Everybody’s not going to be open to it. You see, so but you know, I’m working on it, you know, I got a an assistant, his name is Velva . And I’m really proud of that young man. He’s like, 30 years old, you know, very clean cut, you know, very quiet, but really, really into into learning, you know, any job, he’s a real quick study, I’m really proud to be working with him. You know? So, it’s gonna take years, you know, I mean, it didn’t, it’s not gonna happen overnight. You know, like anything else. Just like it took me you know, I didn’t just get this level overnight, you know, I mean, it took years, you know, for this to happen. So, be patient with yourself, enjoy it, all of it, you know, because it’s a hell of a ride, you know, beings you know, and it’s a joy, to plant your own stuff and harvest and feed yourself. There is no greater satisfaction than going out there and getting it yourself. You see, so and everybody can do it. But you know, hang in there and just, you know, just enjoy, you know, joy, your life and, you know, life is beautiful in life. You know, people really stop and look around and look at what the world really is and how beautiful nature is in itself. They’d be really impressed. You know, because if you really look at everything that we put up, in nature, it’s an abstraction. You know, everything we build, around nature is abstract to nature. There are very few few structures that man have made has made. That blends in with nature or are as beautiful as nature is. So we need to give ourselves time when we we, we are so go, go Go, go, go go on vacation, the dollar and everything we really don’t realize the magnificence that is around us or what we really mean. MO 1:04:50Absolutely, I completely, completely agree. What is one question you wish I asked you CS 1:05:02I can’t think of not one. Is there one that you might be hesitant to ask me? MO 1:05:10Um, no, I just have the, you know, the next two questions. But sometimes sometimes people have things that they promote or whatever that I haven’t asked him about. And so, or sometimes people like to talk about, like, I spoke with my one friend Marco. And we talked all about sort of the different natural farming practices. And I asked him about, I asked him the question, and he brought up bokashi composting, which he’s really proficient at. And so we, we talked about that, but that’s, that’s usually that’s us. I mean, if, if you don’t have anything, then I’ve been doing my job pretty well. So we can just CS 1:05:43say you, you are a fantastic interviewer. You know what I mean fantastic. You mean, I have. I’m not usually just calm and relaxed, you know, you know, but you’ve made, you know, because you made it very easy to talk to you know, the questions are, you know, are direct and they’re, they’re comforting, you know, and they’re easy to answer. And it’s been a pleasure for me to, you know, to sit here and share the little knowledge that I have, you know, in God’s big world, you know, I’m just happy to, you know, that you’ve given me the opportunity to talk about IGHGardens and what, you know, I’ve developed and everything, but you know, it’s really not me, I’m just, I’m doing God’s work, because, you know, we have, you know, roughly 50-60,000 homeless people sleeping on the streets of LA right now. No. So, you know, it’s a lot of work to do, though. And I just want to help, that’s all there is, you know, I just want to help. MO 1:06:51If you would like people to, how can people contact you? CS 1:06:56Well, you could contact me by way of my website, that’s ighgardens.org, or telephone numbers in there. If you’d like to get a via email, it’s [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you. If you have any questions, you can follow me on Instagram, direct message me even on Facebook, I’d be happy to answer your questions. Now, I live in Zone 10B which is Southern California. But I think growing is basic.In every time zone, as long as you know, the seasons, if you know the seasons, and you’ll know what you can do. And when you can do it this way. I think that’s one of the keys, you know, to gardening, especially in a climate like mine. I’m in the Mediterranean climate where you can grow all year round. And, you know, which is tricky. Because here in LA, we have two springs, a mild fall, and a very short winter. Okay, so our spring is getting ready to come up right now. March through May. And then it’ll happen again, September through November, and then it starts getting cold. So the second spring is so short, that, you know, your tomatoes, you know, during the summer start holding back, but then when the second spring come, they’ll start producing tomatoes again. And then the cold will come before those tomatoes get ripe. So you know, it, you know, every every climate zone has difficulty. So, you know, I stick with, you know, with what grows in each season, because everything has a season. And that’s what I do. I let everything that grows in the season grow. And I changed with the season. So like, you know, you have to know the seasons in order to know what’s going to grow. MO 1:08:50You know, I’m still gonna ask this last question, but it almost feel like you answered it just with with everything that you said, after you said that I’m in zone 10 B. Because, you know, as you know, what this whole podcast is all the listeners know, you know, from for, I believe that it’s more of a philosophical readiness that you have to have for growing plants, as opposed to some sort of prescriptive instruction based thing, you know, and, and so the question that I was going to ask you, that I already feel like you answered, but I still want your answer. And then I’ll and then I’ll continue on with the rest of what I’ve said. The question I’m going to ask you last question is, what is one question others should ask you first, before working with plants and the soil? CS 1:09:50What should they ask me first. MO 1:09:53Yeah. So if somebody was somebody says to you, “Charlie, I’m thinking about starting a garden” what what what what What should they? What would be, I guess the question that could they get ask for them to really develop an a real good understanding before they start actually putting their hands in the soil? CS 1:10:15Well, oh, I would ask them if they have a pet, a dog, or cat, or something that they really care for, you know, and if they take care of that animal, and you know, as part of a family or something like that, if they have that much love for their pet, and they want to, that’s the kind of love You’re going to have to have in order to maintain a garden. If you know, you can maintain it, you just like you put your love into your pet and put the pet put the love back into you. Same thing with a garden. Except it’s not moving, but it’s producing is not making noise or anything like that, but it’s producing for you. Because the love you put in it, and the love is given back to you. You see, you have to be ready to take on the responsibility of caring for the garden, just like you’re caring for your pet or yourself. So that takes love. So, you know, you know, if you love yourself. Then you won’t have a problem loving, you know, doing gardening work, you know, at all. MO 1:11:23Yeah, that I mean, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s really good. I mean, I may ask people that question. Be before, beforehand, because, um, because especially when people my age, people that are moving out, you know, their parents house and stuff like that, you know, they’re like, Okay, I’m gonna get all these plants. And then they’re really not ready for that yet. I don’t think and and then they’re surprised that that the the the plans dying, and then Worsley, they think that something’s wrong with them. Because the plants have died, not something necessarily wrong with their approach or their technique, which is really is more of, you know, CS 1:12:10you shouldn’t beat yourself up, even if you did make a mistake, if you did overwater it, or underwater or whatever, like that, you have to give yourself a chance and try it again. See, but that’s why it’s so important to even you know, to pay attention to even have a basic instructions that they did. And you can dither and tinker with those with those instructions, as you work with the plant yourself and adapt your own style of raising it, you know, by doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that, or whatever you think you would only you’re going to know that the way the plant grows and reacts, whether it works or not. MO 1:12:48Absolutely. The you know, for So, you know, my, my fiance and I are living here, and we’re having to work together to work on how we, you know, generally I water my plants, and she waters her plants, you know, and, and some of the things that we’ve seen with with some of the plants have been, well, you know, you can’t really, like for example, we have this we have a snake plant in the house. And, and earlier this year, it was having real trouble, you know, and, and I was watching it, and I was realizing that what was going on is that, we were kind of watering the plant, we were watering that particular plant on our schedule, not on its schedule. You know, and, and, you know, when I, when I do do consulting for people that that’s usually the number one problem is that they’re trying to take care of plants on their schedule, rather than what the plant actually is and, and they’re not watching for the plant to, They’re not watching the plant for the plant to give them signals about now it’s time for me to be watered. Now it’s time for me to be fertilized. You know what I mean? Now it’s time for you to come in, come in, talk to me, touch me look at the underside of my leaves and see that there’s something going on here, you know. CS 1:14:10Yeah, I noticed you’re talking about houseplants and so let me ask you this. Do you turn your house plants? MO 1:14:17But what? What uh, what is it turn? Can you elaborate on it that what does that mean? CS 1:14:22Sure. Well, if you’ve got houseplants, they’re in pots or containers right? And by turning them on, you turn them counterclockwise or clockwise from like, say, six o’clock and 12 o’clock or even light distribution all the way around a plane, whatever window you got your light coming through aeration plant, houseplants, and he would turn the pot, you know, from say 12 o’clock to three o’clock. You know, you know, you know, every other day or so. You know, just so, you know, they would have made a rotation because, you know, the way the light came through the one window. That’s why I asked if you turned it, you know? Yeah. That’s why because you know how to grow toward the light, you know? You don’t turn them up bend all the time towards the window. MO 1:15:21Yeah, so certain certain ones I do and certain ones I don’t. Um, because, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really dependent. I mean, so right now I’m looking at my I got a money tree over here. Pachira aquatica, and, and this plan has stuck, you know, stuck with me through all sorts of all sorts of different insect pressures. And it’s, it’s growing and leaning in one particular direction. And, and I could, I could turn it, but the way that the sunlight comes in the house, if I were to turn it, it would be countered to it also developing the same strength that it needs to grow straight up. CS 1:16:08And for you turn it around, it would look crooked. They don’t have to go back for the window and straighten itself up. MO 1:16:17Well, because because of the very interesting, yes, but yes, but in this situation. What I also want the plan to do at the same time is develop resilience. And so it’s also like, you know, I do turn it in and rotate it. But for this one, I have seen that when for some of my plants, what I do see is them saying Don’t Don’t be turning me like that. They say, you know, I’ll do it. When I feel like you know, CS 1:16:54I got it. I just wanted to check it out. Now, that little snarky question to you. Sorry about that. MO 1:17:02No, it’s all good. It’s all good Charles. So I want you to stay on the line after we’re done. But I’m gonna say that look little outro. And, but stay on, stay on stay on the line. Okay. CS 1:17:15Sure. Yeah. MO 1:17:17Okay, great. So we’re many many, many, many thanks to Charlie for sharing his wisdom and his experience. Please visit agriculture podcast comm for the full show notes. Share Jigijigi with your friends, family, and closely related siblings of the soil. Leave us a five star review wherever you listen to and we will say then as we say now, Asante Sana. Medase Pa Modupe O! Thank you for listening. To Jigijigi peace

“God made the Soil, but we made it Fertile” It is my sincerest pleasure and honor to share with you some excerpts from three articles that have been what I started this podcast to find. We add two new terms to our conceptual soil vocabulary, ߕߕߎߔߏߟߋ (tutupole), and ߔߐߙߑߟߟߋ (porleilei). ߕߕߎߔߏߟߋ (tutupole) means “dump site soils” in Loma and refers to the places, and the soils formed where the ߕߕߎ or dump site is. The dump site is where all of the organic rubbish and wastes go to be broken down. We apply some sankofa-ic license and conceptually transform ߕߕߎߔߏߟߋ to mean compost and also where you compost. ߔߐߙߑߟߟߋ (porleilei) means “black-black” soils in Mande and refers to the completion of the process of healthy soil formation. We conceptually refer to these healthy black soils that we create as ߔߐߙߑߟߟߋ. Works Referenced“God made the soil, but we made it fertile”: gender, knowledge, and practice in the formation and use of African dark earths in Liberia and Sierra Leone“Indigenous African soil enrichment as climate-smart sustainable agriculture alternative”Anthropogenic Dark Earths in the Landscapes of Upper Guinea, West Africa: Intentional or Inevitable?Odù to Sow Seeds To10 Things I Don’t Knowߛߊ߲ߞߐߝߊ (Sankɔfa)Dark Earths: West Africa Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) Peace, I am Mason Olonade and this is Jìgìjìgì: Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul, so we share strategies for how to do both. To do both we ask two questions: How do you grow while you grow Kale, Collards, Tomatoes, and Melons? And why, do you think, the healthiest soils are Black? God made the soil, but we made it fertile. As you probably have gathered by now this podcast was started out of our curiosity about Natural Farming. We continue to read academic papers and other substantive literature, as well as reflect upon the lived experiences of our friends and previous guests on the show, to study the efficacy of natural farming practices like KNF. In reading about these practices we noticed that those techniques are founded upon strong cultural, ideological, and spiritual concepts specific to the ethnic group that created the technique. So where does that leave us? If these people have their own techniques born out of their cultural traditions that led to them building their healthy soils, surely we have the same thing! This is what Jìgìjìgì is to uncover. As we’ve stated before, especially in the episodes 10 Things I Don’t Know, Odù to Sow Seeds To, and Sankofa, traditional African spiritual systems are at the foundation of our collective development of ENI. Therefore it is my pleasure to share, liberally, some excerpts and implications from these three articles. 1. “God made the soil, but we made it fertile”: gender, knowledge, and practice in the formation and use of African dark earths in Liberia and Sierra Leone 2. Indigenous African soil enrichment as a climate ­smart sustainable agriculture alternative 3. Anthropogenic Dark Earths in the Landscapes of Upper Guinea, West Africa: Intentional or Inevitable? From these articles we will add two very relevant words to our conceptualized soil vocabulary. Articles like these, well, the information from the narratives within them, are the exact reason why we created the podcast and you cannot imagine my excitement and honor to share these articles with you! Starting with the third article, Intentional or Inevitable?, the authors put forth that these African dark earths, meaning, black soils, of course, are not “intentional” in the sense of “I want to create healthy black soils over there,” but instead they are an inevitable consequence of habitation and the cultural practices of the Loma, Mende, and Ashanti people as they live in their specific areas. The researchers elaborate: AfDEs form through additions of three primary forms of charred organic material: (1) charred wood from fires lit for cooking, palm oil, soap, and potash production and blacksmiths’ forges; (2) charred palm kernel from oil production; and (3) charred organic by-products from the production of potash (usually from the seed pods of Pentaclethra macrophylla, kola, silk cotton trees, and palm fruit heads), together with diverse organic material (e.g., rice straw, old Raphia thatch and cooking waste; Frausin et al. forthcoming) The second paper gives significantly more information into the formation of the soils. There are tables of the plants grown, timelines and much more data. Interviewees in Liberia and Ghana described how AfDE form through additions of several types of waste: ash and char residues from cooking; byproducts from processing palm oil and producing homemade soap; animal-based organic inputs such as bones from food preparation; and harvest residues and plant-biomass-based domestic refuse such as palm thatch, palm-fruit heads, and rice straw. These continuous, high-intensity nutrient and carbon depositions lead to an ongoing formation of highly fertile and carbon-rich AfDE in and around settlements. For example, They “observed how after dumping in one spot for a certain amount of time (>one year), women burn the pile and spread the ashes and char out for planting. This action is certainly intentional, but the purpose, according to the women, is for crops to grow well, not to transform the soil per se, although this is a long-term outcome that they are certainly aware of. Indeed, different naming and tenuring of land with AfDEs and trees planted with placentas and during burials are all intentional acts related to AfDEs but not directly related to AfDE formation itself.”The places where the soil will be created are at dumpsites and thusly have the Loma name tutupole or dump site soil. This is our first vocabulary concept word. I will apply a lil bit of sankofa-ic license and and rename where we build our compost, and compost, to Tutupole. As tutupole literally means dump site soils, the new sankofa-ic license definition, how we will use it here at Jìgìjìgì, Tutupole means “The place where soils are created.” Fortunately, these articles contain some accounts from four esteemed elders, from Intentional or Inevitable?: The first elder is unfortunately unnamed but states that “when he was young, he recalls, towns and villages had black soils around them owing to the “dirt” (e.g., fresh and burnt organic waste) people used to throw.” Gayflor Zee Pewee, the old chief at Beleziau, described how tulupole soils have a different texture, taste, and smell compared to other kinds of soil, because, according to him, of the food that has decomposed there over time. Yassa Reed, of Wenwuta, noted the softness and richness of the soil through the sensation on her hands and hoe when planting taro. Wenwuta people noted the vibrancy of the plantain growing in tulupole and how for this reason visitors to the town often carry off plantain seedlings to plant where they live. Each morning we witnessed women’s sweeping of the yard—the bending and back-and-forth and taken- for-granted part of daily bodily routines, including gathering children’s, sheep’s, and chicken’s feces and throwing them into the kitchen garden, along with ash and charcoal. When processing palm oil or potash, or after cooking in farm huts, we observed people dumping the charred wastes around the site as an extension of the activity itself, a convenient way to get materials out of the working area. In the language of Harman (2011), experiences like these are the sensual qualities through which the Loma sensual object tulupole is created. Gayflor later states in the article, He was born in Zolowo, and his father brought him to Beleziau in 1950. When people arrived to settle there was no black soil, but when the town was established it began to form from the “dirt” that people threw:This village has a large amount of black soil because it is very old. If you look at the black soil around a town, you can tell how old it is. If you dig a hole you can see how far down the black soil goes, and this shows how old the town is. When we make a farm, black soil is on the surface, not underneath. The black soil in the old spot continues to form, leaves of trees fall and fertilize it.Another elder, the oldest man in Wenwuta, Yarkpazu, is about ninety and was town chief of Wenwuta during the Tubman era (1944–1971)…Yarkpazu claims that “god” made the tulupole around the town, but the people made it fertile by dumping there, a perspective also held by most of the town’s women. A fourth elder is Yarkparwolu, the chief of New Gbokolomie village. When he settled New Gbokolomie, he explained, the soil was not black like it is now. It became black from the thatch, sweeping, straw, and other things people threw away. The chief’s father told him that “when you plant banana you should throw things under it.” According to him charcoal and ash by-products from potash3 production are fertilizers. His father used to tell him that when they were re-thatching houses, he should throw all the old thatch over there because “it will rot and turn the soil black.” According to Yarkparwolu, “We are the ones that are making the soil around the town black with all the things we are throwing . . . [we’ve been] been dumping dirt, then it rots and becomes soil and becomes rich.” Elders at four different settlements in the Wenwuta landscape thus all see AfDE formation as an inevitable consequence of settled life. The second paper, is light on cultural details, and heavy in terms of the science. We’ll quote briefly from it. Most of the novelty expressed in these papers is the uncovering of heavily carbonized soils that are analogous to terra preta soils in the Amazon, outside of the Amazon, and definitely so in West Africa. As the authors say, We uncovered an existing, yet overlooked soil management system that has long been – and continues to be – an important feature of the indigenous West African agricultural repertoire. It transforms highly weathered, infertile, yellowish-to-red tropical soils (Oxisols and Ultisols) into black, highly fertile, carbon- rich soils. The pH of tutupole soils are less acidic than adjacent soils, reducing aluminum toxicity and increasing the bioavailability of nutrients for plant uptake. Furthermore, availability of phosphorous, nitrogen, and concentrations of calcium, magnesium and potassium are greater in the cultivated tutupole. The soils have a much higher cation exchange capacity, which facilitates nutrient exchange from soil to plants, while having a lower density than the adjacent soils. The lower density will make for a lighter soil which will allow for plants to grow larger and faster. In the third and first articles the authors state that the tutupole are often used as nursery soils for banana and plantain trees, where they are initially planted and tended to, and then moved to other areas when more mature. In the first article we are met with the extremely powerful phrase and title, “God made the soil, but we made it fertile.” It is also here that we are given more of our vocabulary to internalize.In Sierra Leone, villagers distinguish black soils (porlei) from ‘very’ or ‘black black’ soils (porleilei), describing the latter as a deeper black in colour, more fine grained and fertile, and with distinct soil organisms. Established dumpsite soils (AfDE) are porleilei, with porlei seemingly understood as an intermediate, transitional stage in AfDE formation. This theme is repeated throughout women and men’s narratives in the two countries. Thus as Gbolu Korlu, a female elder in Wenwuta, explained the differences between black and red soil:   “Black soil is found around the town, in certain places in the bush. God made the soil, but the dirt is the food for the plants. On the farm when they pile the straw up and burn it makes the soil black too. In some old farmland that is how the soil becomes black. Black soil is good because it is smooth, red soil is rocky. That’s why things grow better in the black soil than the red soil…Black soil is only found in small areas, but the red soil is found all over. Black soil in certain places is made by god, elsewhere by man.” An elderly woman in Wenwuta, Kortor Flomo, identified that black soil is the most fertile,  that it is mainly found around the town, and [named] some of the materials and processes that lead to its formation:   “What makes the soil so rich? The dirt we [put] there and burn over and over for a very long time will change the soil. The black soil is rich around the town because the things we throw there: rice straw, fire ash, other materials. Soils on the farm are not as rich as those around the town as they do not have things thrown on it like in the town…. The soil that god made, it never had pepper, bitter ball, okra, plantain, on it. But it was us that had that idea of planting things in the soil, and throwing things on the soil making the soil rich, it was not god.” In another Wenwuta narrative, Carmen Howard attributes the richness of AfDE to the actions of ancestors dumping, and how this has made the town soils the “chief” of all soils: “The black soil was made by god, but made rich by our old people way back. Those things that the old people used to throw in the soil way back are what made the soil rich for planting. Around the town you can plant pepper, bitter ball banana, plantain, they will grow best, better than on the farm. The reason for this is things we throw in the gardens around town. The black soil is the chief of all soil around here”.  Whereas some women describe fallow burning for farming as creating black soils, one elder woman (Yassa Ubu) claimed that they were mistaken, since it is only black on the surface:   “To know the type of soil you can’t just look at it, you’ve got to dig. The soil can  appear black but when I dig below it is red…there is only real black soil around   town…or in an old town spot. The reason why you only get black soil around the town is because that is where people throw dirt. It was god that made the soil but we are the ones who change the colour… I was born, observed the actions of people throwing dirt, this changed the soil. Soil does not become black here in t he field because we are not throwing things here.” Her narrative went on to recognise a distinction between a richer but narrow inner ring of AfDE at Wenwuta, where dumping is still taking place, and more extensive AfDE further out:   “You find black soil at Wenwuta and at old town spots for Wenwuta…the blackest  soil is found closest to the town and then as you move out you can also find a black soil, but not as black as the one closest to the town…The inner black soils are darkest because we are still throwing things there, the outer ones only had dirt thrown there way back. Further out black soil was made because town was bigger before but afterwards became smaller…when you see a big area of black soil at an old town spot, that means the town was big, if it is small then the town was small” Let’s revisit the phrase, that is now an òwe, or proverb here at Jìgìjìgì. “God made the soil, but we made it fertile.” What made me highlight this as an òwe is that it is so so so so counter to how we currently think about the environment. This thought challenges, at least my perception of, messianic environmentalism as put forth in the book of Genesis. Dominion is exactly how we got into this mess. Or, if Dominion were the most divine way to proceed, it would not be necessary to have developed natural farming techniques because they would have already been the common practice. Another difference is that this òwe is also conceptually, very far away from the new-age love and harmony ecological approach that we discussed in the episode Conflict. Said differently, we have what is similarly expressed in the phrase “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work.” By this we mean certain places naturally have this porleilei, the black-black soils, but they aren’t in locations that lend themselves towards agricultural or societal development. Those places have the talent, but don’t work, for us. With tutupole as the beginning of the formation of the porleilei, we become active in the process of healthy soil creation. and it is created, as a consequence of the natural processes of the lived lives of the Loma, Mende, and Asante peoples. However, for them, the formation porleilei is inevitable. For us it must become intentionally inevitable. By this we suggest having the forethought to create porleilei at the Tutupole, by having our lifestyle designed so that the foods we eat, the plants we grow, and the way we prepare all of those things result in porleilei. This òwe empowers us examine our talents and transform them into standardized processes that work hard for us and our community.This òwe reframes our anxiety, and now we become excited by the prospect of the Creator and Creatress challenging us by delivering us 75% of the way to creating porleilei. It is then our grand opportunity to become creative, to epitomize the most natural thing about us, our inherent divinity, to solve our problems. We’ll make our soil fertile. Share Jìgìjìgì with your friends, family, and closely related siblings of the soil. Leave us a 5-stare review wherever you listen to and we will say then as we say now, Asante Sana, Medase Pa, Modupe O!Thank you, for listening, to Jìgìjìgì, Peace.

Mushrooms as ߛߊ߲ߞߐߝߊ (Sankɔfa) We relay the entire history of the soil, and highlight the role of fungi and of the mushroom plays. Later we shift to the role you play as you create this healthy black soil. Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) Peace, I am Mason Olonade and this is Jìgìjìgì: Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul, so we share strategies for how to do both. To do both we ask two questions: How do you grow while you grow Kale, Collards, Tomatoes, and Melons. And why, do you think, the healthiest soils are Black? Mushrooms as Sankofa Many scientists agree that fungi were the first multicellular organisms on the surface of the Earth. As such they likely fed first on bacteria and various rock that had been on the surface long before them. From here a great feeding took place and provided the first cycling of nutrients. As the fungi live and die, the bacteria take their turn to thrive. This cycle lasts for millions of years until green algae make their way up and over the land. An abundance of food led to cooperation, creating lichens, symbiotic associations of fungi and algae that were more capable of digesting rocks. Carbon dioxide was also in abundance which created a need in algae to develop better structures to process this food, creating mosses, ferns, flowers, and trees. All along the way all life was complicating around plant life. Bacteria and fungi all thriving based on the work that our earliest living ancestors, the Archaea performed. All the while soil was being built. And while life is exchanging lives with one another, Another physical process occurs. Weathering. Mountains into molehills into minerals by wind, rain, sleet, snow, sun, lichen, fungi, and the new plant roots. As the biosphere is being composed, life also decomposes. This organic material at its full decomposition becomes the finest of all compounds. Humus. This compound along with its humic acid and fulvic acids give the healthiest soils their characteristic hue, their Blackness. I say all that to say that Sankofa isn’t just an adinkra, but a verb. Sankofa is an active process. Here we’ve gone back and fetched the beginning of the formation of the soil. And at that beginning we find fungi and mushrooms. And of course, we’ve found you! As you build your healthy soil and look amidst that blackness you’ll find thin white wisps on the outside of woodchips, and fuzzy tiny cotton balls. As the fungi grow you are harkening all of history at once, the first processes of life occurring on land are happening again, and as they always have, right underneath your feet. In your active composition of compost, of the soil, you are composing life, and the beginning of earth, as we know it, again! Share Jigijigi with your friends, family, and closely related siblings of the soil. Leave us a 5 star review wherever you listen to and we will say then as we say now, Asante Sana, Medase Pa, Modupe O! Thank you, for listening to Jìgìjìgì. Peace

Bioremediation Wrap Up: Helping Nature Do The Damn Thing Part 4 In our final episode in the series of Bioremediation, we finally express the reasons why we shared this information and reviewed the overall point of these practices. Works referencedRhizofiltration and Rhizodegradation – Helping Nature Do His Thing part 3Bioextraction/Phytostabilization – Helping Nature Do Her Thing Part 2Bioremediation – Helping Nature Do It’s ThingSoil Mycoremediation: A New, Native-Fungi Approach (2019)Blue Milky aka Lactarius indigoBlewitMandelaShrooms? In My Buckets?? Asante Sana ߊߛߊ߲ߕߌ ߛߣߊMedase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏThank you for listening to Jìgìjìgì ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ Where have you been??! Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2 Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal” Transcript (automated) Peace, I am Mason Olonade and this is Jìgìjìgì: Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul, so we share strategies for how to do both. To do both we ask two questions: How do you grow while you grow Kale, Collards, Tomatoes, and Melons. And why, do you think, the healthiest soils are Black? Bioremediation Wrap Up: Helping Nature do the Damn Thing In producing these episodes I’ve learned a lot and I hope you have too. It may not have been the clearest, I’m known to be a lil obtuse, so I just want to summarize some of the points. We discussed some ways to clean our soils and build our soils at the same time. Why is this important? Why here? Our communities, our lands, especially in suburban and doubly so in our urban environments will be among the most affected by pollution. As we mentioned before, where Mandela and I were growing near Howard University had been a previous spot where people cut corners and dumped lead pain chips into someone else’s backyard with no repercussions. Although I have no evidence for this, I am likely to believe that this has happened quite often in our communities. Figuring out ways for us to be able to extract, sequester, or release these toxins from our soil is just as important as using the vegetables we grow to rid the toxins from within our bodies. Figuring out ways to do this with the least expenses incurred is also necessary for our community. We’ve shown studies that demonstrate certain composts can become chelators and transform the chemistry of these toxins, facilitating better uptake by your plants while improving the structure and health of the soil at the same time! The caveat is that bioremediation takes time! It takes an entire season for Sunflowers to grow and accumulate enough biomass to store this lead in its tissue after removing it from the soils. Generally lead is stored in the more aerial parts of the plant, so as we discussed before, taking the grown sunflower to the municipal dump is one of the ways to extract the lead from your soils. As we continue our conversations about urban agriculture, sustainability, regeneration, food policy and food justice, it is also our responsibility to grow clean soils in order to grow healthy soils. I was very pleased to know that there is established and highly scientific literature out about building mycoremediation reactors. Although the presentation that we’re highlighting doesn’t go into detail about the construction of the myco-reactors, my understanding of the talk leads me to believe that they are constructed quite similarly to what I described in the episodes Rhizofiltration and Remediation, and Shrooms? In My buckets? Since moving here to Charlotte we’ve collected many different species of fungi that we’ve added to our myco-reactors like Blewits, Blue Milkys, and other mushrooms we’ve never seen before. Perhaps we’ll get results similar to our previous experiments. Perhaps you’ll share Jìgìjìgì with your friends, family, and closely related siblings of the soil. Leave us a 5-star review wherever you listen to and we will say then as we say now, Asante Sana, Medase Pa, Modupe O! Thank you, for listening, to Jìgìjìgì. Peace.