Trail Mix: Seedy BDSM

Hey, plant lovers and plant killers. I'm Jonathan.

And I'm Jeanette.

We're two old high school friends, current geriatric millennials.

This is Plant Sluts, the podcast where plants meet pop culture, sex, gossip, and

all the dirt in between.

Coming to you from a backyard in

Salem, Oregon, and a rooftop in Montreal,

Quebec, where Plant Sluts.

We're Plant Sluts.

Oh, my God.

Hey, Sluts. Welcome to the first episode of our trail mix series.

Over the next few episodes, we'll be digging into that mixed bag of seeds, nuts and sweets enjoyed by hikers, road trippers, and anyone who's ever eaten chocolate at 9:00am because, you know, it's basically protein.

First, let's share our garden status updates. So what have you been up to, Jeanette?

It is definitely seed season here. Yes, this will be a seed heavy episode. My biggest update is I've been planning out the garden for the spring and ordering seeds, organizing my seeds. I took my seeds out first to get ready for a seed swap next week. Now I've gone and made like a garden planning notebook. I've been drawing like the different parts of my yard and using post it notes to kind of represent when I'll be planting different things this way. Like nothing's permanent. I'm just like cutting little flag tabs and putting them different places. And I've divided what's something I plant in March, April, May, June.

And they're all color coordinated.

Yeah. And it's color coordinated. And this is my first year ever having like a official gardening book and not just my notes app on my phone. I'm also excited about the new seeds I ordered. I'm trying to get away from just like all the basic bitch seeds and getting some more interesting things that I really want.

What kind of seeds did you buy first?

I ordered from the Territorial seed Company and I got baby boo pumpkin that's a little 2 to 3 inch white pumpkin. It says I got those because I can never seem to get a regular size pumpkin. I've never had one.

Right. That's smart.

I believe they only grow when you throw them away in the trash and like they, they're those surprise.

Like a compost heap.

Yeah.

Compost heap pumpkin kind of thing. Yeah.

Has anyone ever grown one that wasn't just from that? Have you?

Have I grown a pumpkin? Not directly, but I was in one of the collective gardens. There was a. A pumpkin that was grown and I was surprised that it grew successfully because I've also had really hard time growing pumpkins myself.

Yeah. So I thought little baby ones. That should be easier. We'll see. I did get a tomato, even though we all know I don't really like tomatoes. But I got the umpqu Beauty slicing tomato. I figured one tomato couldn't hurt. I also got bowling ball poppies. Oh, they're poppies the size of bowling balls. The picture and the packet says they have enormous pods on sturdy 36 to 48 inch tall stems. I don't know. That'll be interesting.

We'll believe it when we see it.

Exactly. Yeah. And then I finally got calendula for the first time.

What color?

Strawberry blonde.

Ooh, that's cute. Yeah. Because calendula is always in yellows and oranges and it's kind of boring.

Yeah. I got edamame beans, because I know peas and beans were really easy for me to grow last year, so I thought I would get the ones that I actually eat because I don't eat that many freaking, like green beans and sweet peas. And then I'm excited about this zinger hibiscus. It's specifically for tea. This one. I was tempted to buy hibiscus in the past, but I didn't know if it was the right kind for tea. So I'm glad I got this. But it's grown as an annual here, so that's kind of going to be interesting.

I mean, nothing stops you from bringing it in. Bringing it in in the fall and seeing if it survives inside and then putting it back out.

Ooh, that's true. Then I have Tulsi holy basil, which is fun. Oh, these are from Renee's garden. The hibiscus, edamame, and tulsi holy basil.

Who's Renee?

I don't know.

Okay, so it's not your friend Renee. It's actually the company.

Yeah, it's a company. I actually used them and hopefully it's good because I googled my ultimate wish list seed, which I received, which is the da da da da loofah.

Ooh, Yeah. I know that you've been talking about loofah for a couple of years now.

I'm growing my own loofah. And now this morning I was arguing with Nathan over, like, where we're going to put a trellis and like, how that will all work. Yeah, I'm excited to hopefully grow loofahs and these you start indoors. So I'll start them soon. I'm going to use this little, like, warming bar cart that I got at antique store a couple years ago. It warms on the top to keep Plates warm. So you plug it in.

Okay.

Oh, I'm not sure, like, how much I'll use it because I'm a little scared of setting my house on fire because it's, like, from the 50s. So what are you and perhaps your seeds up to?

Well, I also have been trying to organize my seeds. I also ordered new seeds. Nothing really to report on in terms of something interesting, but I don't know if I mentioned this. Last time, I bought basil seeds, which are called British basil, and apparently it's basil that's been bred to withstand the cold. I'm not expecting that it's going to last during the winter, but, you know, basil kind of stops doing well under, what, maybe like, 12 degrees C?

Yeah.

So I'm hoping that this will actually be able to, like, open up a really a larger window for fresh pesto. Yeah, I feel like I know what you're talking about in terms of needing. Feeling like you need to be organized. I've also struggled with, like, when to sew, what. When to. You know, because there is kind of a window. Right. And if you miss that window, you're kind of. Yeah, I. What I started to do is I started to dictate to AI my seed catalog. And after giving it instructions, like, I will name you a seed and the year and the company, and you will say, okay, next. And then I will tell you the next one that it seems to kind of work. I'm not completely done, but it's made a chart with the name of the seed, the year, the company, and some sewing tips.

Oh, interesting.

So hopefully that'll. Yeah, hopefully I'll be able to, like, ask it questions and try and have it organize it by season or by month maybe of when I should be sewing what seeds.

Oh, that seems like a good way to use AI Instead of as our therapist.

Yeah, you really need a real therapist.

Jeanette, have you heard about, you know, how, like, AI is bad for the environment kind of, like, thing?

Yeah, I have.

So I was talking to the computer science teacher, and they were talking about how, yes, it uses water. And, yes, it depends on where it's getting the water from. So if you're in, you know, Seattle versus Arizona, it could be taking it from the water table. Water table, or, you know, a deep, deep groundwater. But also, and I'm not sure because I haven't researched this comparatively, with, like, a beef patty, you know, you would need to do, like, 3,000 searches to use up the amount of water. Like, eating beef fuses.

I've also heard you Know, the critique that it uses up a lot of water, but the thing is, is that I think we're comparing apples to oranges. What happens is these servers, they take groundwater in order to cool the server. Like the, the equipment, they don't like, use up the water and it disappears. It's taken up and then either injected back into the aquifer or sometimes it might be then put into another water system. So it could be like a creek or river. And the, the difference is that when you're using it for irrigation, well, when you're irrigating a field, it's actually evaporating afterwards. Right. So that's actually water that's lost. And it's the same thing with, with Beef. All of those water resources that are going in, those are, that's water that's being used in the process and is kind of lost in the system. It's like hard to compare. I mean, obviously there's other effects, like maybe there's certain contaminants that are released in doing this. In theory, the water is just being rooted through pipes that then absorb the residual heat and then, you know, whisk it away. So there shouldn't be much pollution, if any at all. I'm, I'm, I'm saying this without really knowing much about what, what pollutants might be involved, but I think that there's just like a lot of people that are poo pooing. Yeah, I think there's, there's a lot of people that are just like, quick to be like, oh, you know, this is environmentally destructive. When you're, you know, asking AI to show you what you look like with a new haircut, you know, that's where

like knowing, you know, where are the servers, are they in areas that need more access to drinkable water or countries? Yeah, cooling a server by itself isn't necessarily anti environment. And using computers and using the Internet that also has servers. So I guess they're saying like AI uses more than just what we have been traditionally using for our own like memory on the Internet. I mean, I will continue to tell my mom that AI is bad for the environment when she sends me fake pictures of her and family members. Glamorized, but total waste of resources. Like, hey, this is wasting water.

Delete. No, I'm sorry, mom.

Sorry that's such a AI tangent.

I like that you brought it up because I do sometimes feel weird about talking about how much I use AI for different things. But, but in moderation, I think it's all right.

And it can be a useful tool.

Yeah, yeah. And it still uses up a lot of energy, you know, but you also have to think like how much energy would be going in to doing this task anyways, you know, like organizing everything, finding out all this information. But yeah, let me continue.

Oh yeah. And what else has been going on with your garden?

Yeah, so I've sewn some, some seeds already. So I, I sowed peppers and eggplants.

Peppers.

I follow someone called, I believe, Canadian Gardener. So she's somewhere in Canada. To be honest, I'm not sure where. I, I think, I assume she's somewhere in northern B.C. and every month she has a video where she's like, what's good to. So from my understanding is because peppers are a long kind of growing season, you could start them now to have like a good crop earlier in the season. And this, this is for like sweet peppers. So larger, like larger bell peppers. And same thing with eggplants.

Do you need to heat the soil?

Yeah, well, it definitely speeds it up when I do and I, I just have it above the heater in the house.

Oh, okay.

It's not up in the greenhouse. The greenhouse is way too cold still.

Oh, okay, that makes more sense.

They will be moved into the greenhouse in a few weeks. Actually, yesterday and today the greenhouse was 30 degrees Celsius, which is like hot. I think that's like 85 degrees Fahrenheit or something.

Oh, wow.

Anyways, that's my update. Now it's time for us to try weeds. Oh my God.

Is it supposed to be plural weeds or just weeds?

I have no idea. It doesn't matter. The. I guess weeds. Weeds would be better because weed makes it sound like it's marijuana.

It is not marijuana, kids. We've already tried that. Oh yeah, today I'm gonna try purple dead nettle. I see this all over my yard, especially in spring.

So is it stinging? Is it like a stinging nettle?

No, it's not a stinging nettle. I'm not aware of ever seeing stinging nettles, so I don't really know what it looks like, but.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's not a true nettle. It's in the mint family. It has like little heart shaped kind of leaves and tiny little purple flowers and it pops up everywhere. When I was walking my dogs this morning before I got it out of my yard, I saw a big patch in someone else's yard and I almost went to steal some, but you know, I don't know what they do with their yard, so I didn't so it doesn't sting like true nettles. It's edible and you can use it like in to just eat or in tea like I'm going to. And people have used it for herbal remedies because the anti inflammatory properties, which kind of makes sense everything we've learned about mint like lemon balm in the mint family. It feels like we should all be having a lot of mint all the time.

Right. It's all anti inflammatory.

It's easy to find and know that you've got the right thing because one, there aren't any look alikes like really close look alikes but it has the square stem like all mint family plants.

Okay.

It kind of has like fuzzy leaves. People say, you know, you can use it to make like wild greens like salad or pesto with like chickweed and dandelion greens and other backyard weeds. I have some nipple wart I've been eyeing that grows all over my lawn.

Some. Excuse me, some.

Yeah, nipple wart. Maybe next time I'll try the nipple wart.

Nipple warts.

I saw something about blending it into smoothies. Maybe I'll have a nipple wart smoothie. But anyway, back to purple dead nettle, sometimes known as red dead nett. But you have to be careful because large amounts could have a laxative, mild laxative effect. So I don't have a large amount on me right now. So what I did was I didn't have time to dry it because I just picked it this morning. But I rinsed it, soaked it and then I put it in a cup with hot water for tea. I put it in the diffuser but then I put some leaves in with. So I'm just going to try it. I mean the water still looks pretty clear, like nothing's changed.

Okay.

It smells like. Yeah, it smells like just like outside, like grass, I don't know, just like outdoors. Let me. I'm gonna have my first sip of purple dead nettle and I'll be super anti inflamed.

Okay. You went for a second sip.

It's not good. It's like earthy. It's not bad. It's just like not good. It's not mint. You know, I didn't put any like honey or anything in it so it just kind of.

Right.

I could see drinking this medicinally if I was looking for that. Maybe saving some and drying it to have on hand if I was trying to have like an anti inflammatory mix. But I think I would mix it with something else. There's not much flavor. Yeah, and there's something very like chlorophyll about it. Is that a flavor, would you say?

It's a bit grassy?

Grassy? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, then you could mix it with like lemon. Lemon balm or something like that.

Right.

And it would have a better. A better taste.

That's what I could see. And I. I grow a lot of, you know, those flavored mint. So I could see mixing it with something and give it a little more oomph. I'm trying the. The leaf that was soaking by itself. Now there's no strong taste to it. Yeah, I don't really taste anything when I chew on the leaf. They're interesting because they're the first flowering mints that come out in the spring. So really good for pollinators. I didn't want to pick too many today because I wanted to save some for the bees.

So they're flowering right now in your backyard?

Yeah, they're flowering right now in my yard and other people's yards. I remember I tried to collect some last year and by the time I was ready, they were kind of gone. So I think they kind of are fleeting and then they'll probably be too tough. So you definitely, if you want to try them, try harvesting or foraging for them now and save them up for some like dry tea. I'm glad I finally tried them.

So you'd rate it like a low kind of like 2 or 3 out

of 10 for flavor. It's definitely low. I think for medicinal properties it's probably better. I would have to look into it more. The mallow was a little more like, oh, I can see like needing to put something in a salad and grabbing some fresh leaves from that. But learn what it is so you can just like pick one up and eat it to impress and scare your friends. Do you think you would ever drink that spruce tea from last episode or

have you been the Austrian pine tea? No, I haven't given it much thought, to be honest. But actually, no, that's not correct because I have been thinking about it in that the are a lot of these old timey cough syrups that you could get at the pharmacy. And I realized that they have a lot of like pine and fur in them. I have one that I take sometimes when I'm feeling really sick. That's what came to my head, you know, since I've had that tea is like, oh, actually, you know, it is something. It is some sort of folk medicine that's still kind of around. Today. It's going to be a little Bit different. We're going to talk about seeds. I mean, seeds are a huge component of trail mix, and they come in all different kinds of shapes and sizes. So it fits perfectly with our trail mix series. Jeanette, do you save seeds?

Yeah, I do sometimes save seeds. I started doing it a lot more last year. I saved marigold seeds, basil seeds. It's a really good excuse to let your basil flower because you're like, I'm doing it to save the seeds.

Yeah.

Because everyone wants to tell you, pinch it off like, I need it. I need the seeds. How about you?

I do save seeds. I save. Well, I save a lot of beans, but I think everybody knows that by now. But I saved a lot of mustard and different lettuces, but I don't fuck with tomato seeds, to be honest.

I know.

I don't know if you've ever tried to do that, but you got to, like, fermented or something.

I tried last year and it just. I don't even know. They were all stuck to the paper towel. I was just like, all right, forget it.

So I thought that we could go through first what some of the particularities are of different seeds. So seeds sometimes have to go through a process of preparation. Have you. Have you had to prepare seeds before germination?

Yeah. Like making sure they get cold.

Exactly. Most people think you can just put a seed in the soil and it grows. But a lot of native seeds, and especially those in Canada and other, like, temperate locations, have dormancy issues, so they need specific triggers to wake up. The first is stratification. This is that some seeds refuse to put out unless they've been treated with a cold shoulder. So they kind of need a fake winter, which means a couple weeks in your fridge in a damp paper towel that convinces them that it's, like, safe to come out.

Yeah, I'm going to be doing that with my showy milkweed in the next few days.

Yeah. So some other seeds that need stratification. I can think of what I have actually in my fridge right now. Cone flour.

Yeah.

So echinacea needs stratification. I just put one called Ratibida pinnata, which is also known as prairie coneflower, which kind of looks like an echinacea, but it has, like, longer yellow petals that kind of bend back.

Poppy seeds need it.

Poppy seeds need it as well.

Yeah.

Okay.

Except this giant bowling ball one didn't say it needs it, but all my other ones have.

Okay, interesting.

You were talking about putting in the fridge, but for me, like, sometimes that would Just mean, like planting annual flower seeds in the fall so they do go through winter outside.

Yeah, yeah, you could do that. I mean, you could just be more precise. If you do it first in the fridge, and then you can sow them in trays and plant them where you want. You know, you have, like, less control

because the squirrels eat them.

If you want a wildflower garden, then, you know, you just sprinkle them around.

What are some other triggers seeds need to wake up besides cold stratification.

So have you heard of scarification?

No, I don't think so.

So it's like the BDSM of botany.

Okay.

Some seeds have seed coatings that are really thick and hard, like morning glory does. And so does nasturtiums and lupins. They literally need to be nicked with a knife or rubbed with a bit of sandpaper to let the water in.

I have heard of that.

Yeah. So they need to be broken, you know, before they bloom. And another need that some seeds might have is to be bathed in acid.

Wait, what?

They need an acid trip. They need to go through an animal's digestive tract, and it's the acid in the stomach that triggers it to then germinate. Obviously not inside of the bird. It's not that quick, but that way it knows that it's been brought somewhere else.

I've never heard of that. How do people imitate that? Or do they?

Well, that's for another podcast. Ew. No, no, I'm not really sure, but. But I have had some instructions of seeds that ask me to boil the seeds, and I think that might imitate the kind of, like, softening that would happen, you know, if it was bathed in acid. It's not a hard rule, but it's what kind of helps for it to then soften and germinate. Some of these might work with each other.

Yeah.

Scarification is the physical barrier. The seed needs to be broken. It wants to get.

Ooh, breaking the seal.

Yeah, it's about breaking the seal stratification. It prevents the plant from germinating too early because you don't want it to germinate in the fall, right before it's going to get fucking cold and die. Yeah, it gives it a good break to then start earlier on in the. In the season. There's also a double dormancy, which is the ultimate kind of diva double Ds. They need both a cold period as well as a warming period, and then another cold period.

Oh, I feel like I've heard of this.

I actually just received two seed Packets. One is red trillium, and the other one is red baneberry, which both require this double stratification. So I received the seeds already, having gone through the first cold period, and so now they're left out for 30 days, and then I have to put them back into the fridge after the 30 days.

Seeds are so dumb. They don't even know that it's only been 30 days and not a whole year.

Yeah, they're real dumb.

Are the red trilliums. You got this the same ones that you see in Oregon?

I'm not sure I know that trilliums are indigenous or native to this area, Quebec and Ontario. I think they're spread a little bit everywhere. I'm not sure if it's the same variety, but I know it's.

You're told not to, like, mess with them or pick them because it's so hard for them to be in the right conditions to grow. And so now hearing that they also have the double dormancy. It's like big diva behavior.

Yeah. They're like, don't touch me, don't look at me, don't touch me, touch me.

Sounds like me.

Let me do my thing.

My God, I am trillium. Yeah. Seeds aren't really dumb, though. They sound very complex.

Yeah, I mean, they. They have really complex chemical components inside that need certain triggers that, you know, then begin to digest the seed or to release nutrients or, you know, it's all so specific and, like, beautiful in. In a way, like, you don't even give seeds much thought.

Yeah.

On that note, I wanted to also talk about the importance of seeds through something called a seed sanctuary or a seed vault. The sperm banks of the world.

Oh, the sperm banks of the world. Wait, what?

Like, have you heard of, like, a seed vault?

I have heard of seed vaults, and I am always confused about the best by date because I feel like you can't just grab a seed and hide it for a million years and hope it germinates later, but I don't know, maybe you can.

So there is one famous seed vault called the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It's in Norway, and I'm not sure if I pronounced that correctly. So it's the ultimate doomsday. Kind of like prepper stash. They've buried deep in the permafrost, a repository of seeds. And I think in those cases, they are kept at a certain temperature that they can be kept viable for a very long time.

Oh. Kind of like left leftovers.

It's like a deep freezer. It Acts like a safety deposit box. Different countries will send seeds there. So seeds that are important, you know, economically or culturally to a country and only that country can withdraw the seeds.

Oh, I have heard about Palestinian people saving seeds recently because a lot of pacific things are being wiped out by the genocide. Have you heard of any of those?

I have heard that Syria was the first country to make a withdrawal of seeds, and it was because of the war. There was a lot of destruction of agricultural lands and they needed a stock of seed to be able to, you know, restart the agricultural system.

Oh, wow, that's horrifying. But amazing that we've thought of it.

Nowadays with the corporate control of biological materials and with the industrialization of the agricultural system, it's really important to save these seeds. We don't know when we'll need to find a variety that's, you know, adaptable to whatever fucking emergency happens or wherever we're headed. Yeah.

And I feel like, I think most people have heard about, like, different types of apples being like, going kind of extinct because there was no, like, consumer demand. And so we're just losing things besides through war. We're losing things through, like, no one bothering to save it.

Yeah.

Hopefully there are more seed nerds out there.

Have you heard of seed libraries?

I have, yeah. I actually tried to find one today. Oh. I went to the Salem Public Library to see if they had a seed library. And according to the librarian that I bravely spoke to in person, they do not.

Oh, they don't.

And now I don't know, it could be just because it's early and maybe they'll have some seeds later because they'd lend out like pots and pans and skis and, you know, microwaves, waves and, you know, knitting needles. Yeah. I was surprised that they didn't have a seed library in the state capital's main library.

They have a local plant slut who might be able to, I don't know, advocate to have a seed library.

I'm going to get political as hell.

Yeah. So a lot of seed libraries operate like basically a library. So you'd borrow seeds in spring, you'd grow the plant, maybe you'd let some of them go to seed, and then you'd return the next generation of seeds in the fall.

That's actually amazing. I didn't think that it was a kind of return system.

So it basically breaks the cycle of buying seeds every year. And I guess in that way it's kind of an anti capitalist, community driven initiative that keeps heirloom varieties alive. You know, like you were saying, big agriculture doesn't care about, or at least they don't care about yet.

Yeah. And you always see this. Same seeds, the same plants. Like, if you only have access to, like, a Home Depot nursery, you're just seeing the same brands of the same seeds, and it's boring and it's to suck your money.

Well. And there's really not that much genetic diversity within those seed varieties. I have some experience at this library near me where I've gone and taken some seeds out. There was actually a really high demand. So they only allow you to take four different varieties at a time, and they only give you, like, a certain amount of seeds in each of the packets. Funny story. I will start this off by saying that I don't really eat many gummies, like THC or CBD gummies. It's not very often that I do that.

I've never heard of you doing that. Honestly, that sounded sarcastic, but I meant it like, that is not something that you're into, as far as I know.

But there is a time that I did take a gummy. I'm not sure what was in my mind, but then I took a gummy, and I think I was like, I'm going to go do errands. And one of the errands was to go to the library and pick up a book. Nothing to do with seeds. It was a landscape architecture book or something. I walk into the library and all of a sudden I'm like, oh. I'm like, oh. Actually, I'm like, really high right now. Should probably go back home. And like, right then I run into someone who was also a member at the collective garden that I was at the time, part of, and he's a librarian.

And.

And he's the one who started the seed library anyways. And so I don't really remember what was being talked about. But he's also very attractive. So, like, throw that in the awkwardness of me being like, oh, my God, he's so cute. I just, like, blabbered on and on and on. And at some point, all I. All I remember is I walked away from that conversation with, like, a huge pack of empty seed envelopes and the expectation that I would return with seeds. And honestly, I was so embarrassed because I definitely looked really high. I never went back to the seed library.

I can imagine you thought you were blabbering on and on, but in reality, you said, like, two words in, like, a really paranoid way. And in your memory you're like, I wouldn't stop talking. It was hours and hours. It was like 30 seconds of like, hey, oh, do you want to bring some seeds in? I know you love gardening. Okay, thanks. Bye. And you're like, I talk all day to this guy. Wait, did you ever see him again, though?

No, I'm not sure. This is many years ago, but I'm not, I, I not. I'm no longer part of the collective garden just because now I have my rooftop and that's taking up enough of my time.

But if he somehow listens to this podcast, Please email us plantsletspottedmail.com Jonathan wants to know what you're up to. Sorry. He was high that time at the library.

Okay, so you laugh, but. And you think that it was all in my head, but can I tell you another time that I told you?

Yes.

And okay, I don't know if this is, like, off subject. Good, but there was a kid that was run over by an SUV in this neighborhood in Montreal, and there was a demonstration of neighbors to, you know, ask the. Oh, you thought I would. You thought that I had run over? Is that what you thought that was gonna say? I got high? Like, I don't know if this is off subject. I'm about to admit to committing a crime. No. So there was a protest, or rather like a demonstration for better road safety. I was with me and my ex, we were together, we were on the way, and I was like, oh, I'll take a gummy right before I leave. And so I took the gummy and we arrive at this demonstration which basically had like 10 people in it. It was really small. They were all neighbors, they all knew each other. And so my ex and I stood kind of off to the side and held our little signs, which were really written on, I think, like 8 and a half by 11 letter sized paper I drew with a marker, you know, that I went over several times, you know, to make it look really thick and obvious. You know, when I was writing, all of a sudden I was like, I am really, really high. I shouldn't have taken that gummy. Like, what's going on? Next thing I know, like, I come to my present time where I'm like, you know, you know, like when you're really high, you kind of like fade in and out of, like, in your head, around you, in your head, what's actually happening around you, you know? So, like, at one point I'm like, what's happening? And there are five or six photographers who formed a circle around me and my ex and were taking photos of us. What, including, like, a camera crew for television. And it's because none of the parents had any signs. And my sign said, I'm high af. There is no such thing as a

traffic accident that's, like, so deep.

Which, like, at one point when I was high, I was like, wait, does it look like I'm denying that this kid was run over? Like, or that, like, am I? Like, am I. Does it sound like I'm accusing it as, like, a hit? You, like, someone had a hit on

the kid, you murdered this kid, and then you let them know it was not an accident?

I was just, like, in my head being like. And. And this guy from cbc, which is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The.

The.

The. Actually the Canada. So, like, the French one, like, started interviewing me and my ex, and I don't know what I was saying, but it was in French and I was high, so it's like, it was hell. I was like. I was just like, why am I so high? And why are people swarmed around me with photos?

I would be upset if that happened sober. Like, high is just terrifying.

In the next couple days, I. I got a lot of comments from, like, my colleagues and my uncle even saying, oh, I saw you on tv.

That's so embarrassing.

And just like, yeah. Anyways, so I have a history of taking gummies and really inopportune moments, and I think I've not taking gummies since. I think the second time it happened, I was like, no, this is not for me. I don't make good choices.

That in itself is a good choice.

Another example that I want to talk about is these more unstructured kind of networks of people. So one that comes to mind is the experimental farm network, which I think I talked about before. It's a massive open source kind of group project. So it's plant breeding that's not done by guys in a lab coat at Monsanto, but radical plant breeding. The experimental farm network connects plant breeders with thousands of volunteer gardeners that grow out kind of weird experimental new crops. And the goal is to breed plants that can survive climate change now, not in 20 years or 30 years or. Or like five years. So it's kind of like what you had asked about, the seed vaults, right? So the idea is that they are growing these seeds. It's an active project. It's not necessarily just sitting there. It's like being kind of moved around and distributed. And in that way, the plants end up being kind of iterative genetic families.

It sounds more like the seed library where you borrow but then you return because it's a live thing, you're keeping the cycle going. Versus when you hear about that seed vault where it's like just some stale ass seeds frozen somewhere, that's not as like reassuring as new seeds that are resistant to new bacteria or different bugs that have moved into different regions. Like how we have the. I think it's the northern lantern beetle that has come into the US or the emerald ash borer that's destroying trees in the Pacific Northwest.

The important thing about groups like this is is that they're open source. If you breed something that's like a cool new tomato or something like this, it belongs to everyone. And there are some cool examples like for instance, they've developed a perennial sorghum that like a grass comes back every year, but doesn't require farmers to plow the soil and release carbon. Also a cold hardy avocado. Oh, that can survive a freeze.

People doing the important work for millennials.

Yeah, basically. Anyways, it's really cool and I really would like to explore more like what some of these projects are. And it brings me into another kind of example, which is seed sanctuaries. They're a little bit different, but I mean, all of these kind of overlap in some way.

So far. We have the seed vaults like the one in Norway. We have seed libraries, which are kind of everywhere except Salem's Library. And then we have seed networks, which is people kind of creating and sharing new seeds. And then this is the seed sanctuary.

Exactly. An example is one here in Canada, near what we know as Kingston, Ontario. In Tiandinaga Mohawk territory. There's an organization run by a group called Ratinin Toss. My apologies if I'm not good at pronouncing. It basically translates as quote. They are farmers of seeds. And the story is that for a long period of time there was a group of Catholic nuns called the Sisters of Providence that ended up moving to Kingston from Montreal because Montreal was rapidly urbanizing and they didn't have any more agricultural land. And they moved to this area near Kingston in order to keep farming land and they kept a repository of seeds in their community. And nowadays there's this whole movement towards decolonization. And in that spirit, they ended up transferring this repository to the indigenous community.

Were the seeds native to the area?

They're like heirloom seeds to, you know, that area of Canada. So the St. Lawrence Great Lakes region, they called the ceremony like a rematriation as opposed to a repatriation. And it kind of honors this idea of the Mother or women being central to indigenous cultures. To compare this to the doomsday kind of vault in Norway where seeds are frozen and asleep, this is a sanctuary. So the seeds are actually never frozen. They're grown out every year. And then those seeds are returned to the store.

To the store to get your money

back to the repository.

Like getting money out of Home Depot. Like, let me get a $5 refund for the receipt.

Do you have your receipt?

No. Can I just get a store credit?

And I guess the philosophy is in some way consistent to a lot of indigenous philosophies. Seeds are not objects, they're not resources, and they're not something that you can just store in a drawer or in some sort of vault. They're actually living relatives and ancestors. You have to sing to them, you have to grow them, you have to let them pollinate in order to keep them alive. So I thought that was a really great example.

And what's it called again?

The order, the Sisters of Providence. This is actually a religious order that has quite a big footprint. They even have a chapter in Oregon.

Oh, wow. So now that we've learned so much about seeds and how important it is to keep them and to share them, do you have any tips on knowing, like, what seeds to keep or what seeds to save or saving seeds that maybe we haven't thought of in our own gardens?

Mostly, I would say, work on saving the seeds of things that you plant, a lot of things that you really like. I have a certain lettuce, for instance, that I really, really enjoy. And. And so I let it go to seed, and I collect the seed, and I replant them next year. I mean, there's nothing that feels more special, I guess, than knowing that you have the fifth generation of this type of lettuce that you're planting out this year.

I always wonder, when is the seed ready? I know, like, waiting for the flowers to get brown, and then, like, a few plants, I think I waited too long. And because it gets so wet here in the winter, they got mushy and moldy.

Right. I mean, that's not a problem here. But sometimes seeds will also continue to ripen and be. Still be viable if you cut them off a little bit earlier than. Than you would think, and then letting them dry, like indoors or something like that. Okay, what are some seeds that you'd want to save this year? And do you have any tips that you would give to someone?

Well, from last year, I saved some grocery store basil seeds because I was growing purple basil and I Still have a lot of purple basil seeds left, so I didn't save any, but I didn't have any green basil, so I thought, oh, I won't buy any, I'll just save it. Marigolds are super easy to save. So I saved like way too many and then realized I really don't like marigolds because when the smell of them gets on my hands, like, I can't get that taste out of my mouth. So now I just have a ton of those. So let me know if you want some. Anyone listening?

A giveaway.

That's what I'm interested in. Like, the seed swap I'm going to next Saturday is taking all the excesses and things that either I don't like growing or we didn't eat after I grew it, which can happen with a lot of stuff I grow, swapping it for maybe something new and interesting that someone else has. I'm wondering if there's any dangers in seed swaps because I know that there can be some like, bacteria if you just like plant a random garlic in your soil. But I haven't heard if there's any dangers in planting like a seed from someone's garden.

And you don't know, my first thought would be it's not as big of a problem because garlic grows in the soil. And so there's a lot of soil borne viruses and stuff that could still be present, but with seeds, because they're not in that kind of environment and theoretically they're dry. They're. They're in a dry environment that they probably are less likely to carry those kind of things.

I guess the only thing you'd want to be careful of is like invasive species. So kind of knowing what plant it is, being able to look at the seeds and kind of recognize that they all look the same. That's why those seed mixes are so dangerous.

Like wildflower mixes.

Yeah. But I'm not scared of no seeds. It was interesting to hear about all the different ways we're saving seeds and getting excited about seeds, especially with the planting season starting right now.

Yes. Very timely. It's all I can think about.

I know they're, they're just all over my dining room table and I'm like, same Nathan. I will clean these up when I'm done with my maps and drawings and like, you know, like the conspiracy theory boards with the red string pointing one to the next. I'm like, okay, I plant the tomatoes, but then I start this and this has to be next to this.

Yeah.

And they'll get the most sun if they're in the front, but what should go in the back? Yeah, it's like a math problem.

And like, when should I sew these to make sure that they grow out once these are harvested and replace, you know.

Yeah. And I'm barely into that phase of gardening that you're talking about. Time for witchcraft.

Woo.

I didn't have like an astrological sign for seeds, and so I thought seeds in spells. And so I did some research and saw how people kind of use seeds in spells and kind of mushed a bunch up and made my own plant slot spell.

Okay.

But based on, like, some known witch things. I've never done this.

Witch things, you know.

Which. Which things? Yeah. It has a lot of parallels to therapy things. You'll see when we're thinking about seeds, we want to remember they're the offspring of plants and trees, and each one symbolizes new beginnings. They also undergo significant transformation to go from the seed to start germination. So that makes them really good for spells and rituals focused on that transformation and breaking habits.

I like that.

As you're starting with your seeds this season, there's a simple way to turn that moment to set intentions for the year or for the garden. And it works especially well with the new moon. The new moon symbolizes, like, fresh starts.

And when is the new moon?

The next one after this episode comes out is actually March 19, which is a great time for planting. Where I am, the new moon is like the beginning of the new phase. So it's a good time to try something like this, you know, for extra power. You want to, like, see how many power ups you can get when you're doing a spell. People often use the new moon to, like, set goals or start projects. So you'll need a spot or a container with soil. You'll need seeds, and you'll need water. And optional, you can leave your water out under the full moon to make moon water. John, have you ever made moon water? No, that's just when you put the water out under the full moon. That's the full explanation.

I mean, I'm sure I've left water out on a full moon.

That counts.

So I have maybe created full moon water. Moon water. Moon water.

As I read and try to see, like, legitimacy or history of any of these things. You know, people say, like, well, the. The entire earth is covered in moon water. Like, the ocean's all moon water.

So profound.

I think it's more about, like, setting intentions and using things like purposefully. So putting water out under, like, the new moon in a certain zodiac sign could symbolize something. Or in the summer, for, like, summer water that you would use in the win winter. But for this spell, what you'll want to do is hold your seeds for a second and think about what you want this season to represent. Maybe it's trying a new gardening technique system, or it could be something personal. And seeds are a great reminder that growth doesn't always happen on our timeline. Some things sprout fast, some take weeks. Some need that cold stratification or that BDSM to wake up.

Some need to be smacked a bit.

Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of how life works, too. So as you're planting your seeds in the soil, you're going to say, I'm starting something new this season. I'm making space to learn, change, and grow. If you don't say it, it's not witchcraft. It's just gardening. So you have to say something like that. Or you can change it. It doesn't matter. It's also very close to, like, being intentional, which your therapist probably tells you to do. It's like the same thing. The more you read about witchcraft, you realize your therapist is probably just a witch anyway. Then you cover your seeds with dirt, water them gently with your moon water, and think while you're watering. That growth takes time, and I'm allowed to grow at my own pace, even if these seeds ghost me. At least I tried. And then every time you water or check on your seeds, take a moment to reconnect with those intentions you set. And even if the seeds fail, because, to be honest, that happens a lot, it's the act of starting it that counts. And that new moon reminds us it's about beginnings, not perfection. Because against all odds, these tiny little capsules of life transform into some of the most magnificent living organisms on Earth.

Oh, Jeanette, that's so beautiful.

Thank you. Do you think you'll try a seed spell on one of your plantings?

Yeah, I think I would. It sounds like something I need to do.

And you can. You can say anything you want. You don't have to follow my script.

No. Is there a script?

As you plant it, you say, I'm starting something new this season.

Oh, right.

To learn, change, and grow.

Oh, right, right. I get it. I was like, wait, there's a script.

It's a whole recipe.

Can I also say something about someone else? Like, as you walk outside your door today, you will trip and hurt yourself. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Curses. That is the best part of witchcraft. That's why people learn it, I'm pretty sure. Except there's like the times three rule where you'll trip three times as hard. But whatever, it might be worth it. Sometimes it is.

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