I'm Jonathan.

I'm Jeanette. I'm Jeanette. Coming to you from Seal, Oregon or usa.

Rooftop, Montreal.

Where plant slats.

Where plants. Hey, sluts.

Hey, sluts. Happy Halloween. In honor of Halloween, we're spotlighting pumpkin and going into the history of the Jack O Lantern.

We'll also talk about Victorian poison gardens, talk to our dead plants through supernatural means, and pull a tarot card to find out how we'll survive the first frost.

First, it's time to grab a mug, pick some herbs, and spill the tea. Jonathan, you said you have some garden tea for this episode?

Yes, I do. I do.

Let's go.

You know how I'm always saying that the universe has a truly twisted sense of humor?

Yes.

Well, no, but yes. Well, you know that. That's what I think, even if I don't say that.

Sure.

So recently, my ex just bought a new place.

Okay. And is it next door to you or anything weird?

Honestly, it's on my way to the market. Yes, it is very close. In this twisted turn of events, you know where I had a difficult time getting him involved in a lot of the house stuff like gardening and that kind of thing. Told me he loved it, but in the end, he didn't. So he asks me, after he bought this house if I would be able to design him a garden for the front of his house.

Okay. Okay, wait, let me process. I don't know if we've told everyone that you started landscape design school.

Landscape architecture. It's like, one level up in terms of bougie.

And it's your master's in landscape architecture.

Yes.

You started a program.

Exactly.

But also, he watched you design your gardens.

That's right, he did.

And then thought to reach out to you.

Yes.

Having, like, a very specific skill and having someone reach out to do it for free is something I am familiar with as a illustrator.

Yes. I didn't even think about that.

Like, you love that. It's so fun. Just spend a couple 10, 12, 15 hours. Come on.

It's like I'm dedicating three years to it of school to get money for doing that.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's your fun hobby.

Yeah. So basically, you know, he was like, oh, like, it would be so good for your podcast. Like, you could do a segment on, like, what it's like, what it's like to design a garden.

It's good for the podcast, but not in the way he thinks.

Yeah. Like, oh, you know, oh, don't worry. Like, I. This is gonna be for the podcast. So I mean, in the end, I was like, yeah, okay, I'll do it.

You can't resist designing a garden.

It's also such a small amount of land, and plus, if it's on the way to the market, I'll be able to see it and to, like, check on it and to see it, you know, grow.

It can be one of your extra gardens that you pick things from.

It'll be part of my. My per culture zoneage.

Yeah.

But I thought, you know, why not really put a lot more effort into it and, like, really think about, like, what kind of garden I would want to create for him. Oh. And that's where I kind of came across this idea of, like, a Victorian poison garden.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. I was like, they. They did that.

Victorian poison garden.

It's very on trend. I think it fits into the. To the neighborhood. Yeah. So why not just have, I don't know, foxglove. Towering spires of foxglove, which apparently you can't even eat anything that's been nearby because the minuscule seeds are so poisonous and sprinkled themselves all over.

I didn't know that.

Yes. It stops your heart.

Oh.

Yep.

So don't plant it next to your tomatoes.

Exactly. Or your lettuce. Exactly. I actually have some growing very close to food, but I should probably move that. Maybe some monkshood aconitum. I'm not really sure how to pronounce that. It's also known as wolfsbane, so it looks pretty delicate, but it's actually one of the most poisonous plants in the world. Very goth cottagecore.

Ooh.

And have you heard of the castor bean plant?

No, it's.

It's a giant. It's like a giant plant. And I believe it's where you get castor bean oil, which is like an additive in a lot of different, I believe, cosmetics. The beans actually contain ricin, which is where the name ricinous communist comes from, which is the name for castor bean plants.

Okay.

Brugmansia, also known as angel's trumpet. That's what I'll be planting for. A little bit of fragrance. It's a dangerous hallucinogenic.

So does your ex listen to this podcast?

Yes, I think he does. He has made comments about it.

Oh, okay. So he'll be very excited to hear about his new Victorian poison garden.

Well, hopefully by that time, it'll already be all planted, and then he'll walk out on his porch and be like, oh, my God, this is all deadly.

That's amazing.

Or. Or maybe he Won't. Maybe he won't, and he'll just make a little tea and nod off to sleep and never wake up. Either way, whatever I end up deciding to do, I think it'll be just a good way to put in place a new garden from scratch. Because I feel like I've learned a lot.

It's something nicer to look at when you do have to pass his house constantly. Instead of being like, well, there's his other house, you know, you can think about. Oh, the garden. Oh, look, it's coming in. Oh, this worked really well. Oh, maybe I should change some things. It will give you a little bit more of a positive look.

Oh, that really came around.

It did. Therapy. If you have any garden tea, send us an [email protected].

All right, Jeanette. So for this segment, we wanted to talk to the dead, but not our relatives, not our great great grandparents, but our dead plants. Plants that have passed. Plants that we once loved but are now gone. They've left us for some reason that we have no clue why. Yeah, because we just cared for them so much.

Cared too much.

So tell me, how is this gonna go?

So we found an online Ouija board to contact our dead plants and find out. Was it. Was it me? Was it us? Was it you? Was it just your time? What happened here? Can we learn anything? So John and I will each pick one of our dead plants and see what this online Ouija board says through the plant. First, we have to take a second to empty our mind, get in contact with the dead, create a protective bubble of something so demons can't get us. Okay, I feel ready.

So what's your question? Tonight.

I had a clematis vine that I planted earlier this spring along a fence in the back. I. It said partial sun, and it just. Just withered up and died. It did flower, and I'm not really sure what I did wrong because I planted other things near it that have all thrived. So I'd really like to talk to my clematis that didn't make it. So I'm going to hold the pointer with one finger and see what it has to say.

N.

O S you. And no sun. It didn't get any sun. That's true. It was in the darkest part. It didn't have enough sun. I thought it was partial sun, but I didn't really actually measure how much sun that spot gets. Wow. I needed more sun than I could offer it.

That's sad.

That is sad.

My question is about my elderberry. I Actually had several elderberries that I planted last year and none of them survived. They all died. And I don't understand because they're supposed to be spreading. Very much, very hearty. So what I am asking is, why did you leave me, dear elderberry?

Let's see.

It's just kind of trembling. O N O T S.

E.

Not C.

Not.

Oh, not seen. Wow.

Do you think you didn't see your elderberry enough?

Yeah, maybe I. Maybe I neglected it.

Was it at the community garden?

It was on the roof, but I. I brought it down.

Interesting.

Let's take a moment of silence for the elderberry and the clematis.

Thanks our spirits for contacting us through the online Ouija board. For our next segment, I'm going to pull some tarot cards. I want to find out how the dormant season will treat Jonathan and I and our gardens. And I'll pull a card for our listeners as well.

We're looking at my personal life as well as garden. Or is it just like for the winter while everything is asleep? Like, what will my life be like?

Yeah, what will your life be like? And think of it in relation to gardening.

Okay.

And I'll pull three cards.

Okay. I'm witnessing Jeanette properly shuffling without rigging any of the cards.

Yeah, we're not going to use an online tarot card reader for this one.

What kind of tarot cards do you have, Jeanette?

I have the rider Waite Smith deck.

Okay.

It's. This is like the standard traditional. Yeah. That you would see where the other ones kind of came from. Okay, let's see. First, I have the Knight of Swords. Interesting.

Oh, what?

The tower.

What's that? What does that mean?

Let me, Let me pull the last one. And the chariot with the Knight of Swords. There's this knight charging on a horse going really fast with his sword out and his mouth open and.

Sounds like me.

It can symbolize kind of rushing into the unknown with no fear, kind of going fast or maybe speaking quickly without thinking. This could symbolize maybe a burst of motivation, diving into a new project, maybe planting something impulsively trying something bold and new. A poison garden, perhaps. Then we have the tower card, which anyone who does tarot knows can be kind of a scarier card than death. But it's not always something bad. It kind of represents a sudden, like upheaval, something suddenly happening. And I'll show you the card. It's. It's a tower with an electric bolt hitting it and people jumping out.

It's on fire. Is that right?

Yeah. It's on fire as well, and the crown is popping off of it. So it kind of just means, like, something sudden, unexpected will happen. But it always happens in the way of, like, clearing out the old to bring in the new.

Okay.

So this could kind of symbolize maybe clearing out your garden to start fresh. Which winter really is that tower moment in all of our gardens. Maybe you decide to rip some things out or change the systems you've been doing, or maybe you have to because something happens, but then that death will allow for some new growth that you weren't expecting and, you know, compost the chaos and make space for that new growth. Sometimes you need everything to be shaken up to get that new mindset.

Okay.

And then you have the chariot last, which is really moving forward. Determination. It's a person in a chariot with two, like, lion figures below, almost like sphinxes. I know this is the card for cancer, the cancer zodiac sign.

Okay.

And it's like, determination moving forward after a challenge. So it looks like you're gonna go really fast with that knight of swords into something. The tower will come, interrupt what you were planning, and then you're gonna drive forward harder afterwards. Use what you learned from that tower to cultivate something stronger, more intentional, more resilient.

I wonder if any of that has to do with, you know, quitting my job and going to study landscape architecture.

Oh, yeah.

Just how it feels. Like I just kind of ran into was, like. It, in a way, felt a bit impulsive. But, yeah, I knew that I had to get out of that situation and the necessary destruction. Yeah.

So I'm gonna pull three cards for me for my winter, for my dormant season. Let's see. I'm shuffling. I actually hate pulling cards for myself.

Really? Yeah.

Like, I don't do it very often. The ten of wands.

Really? The ten of wands.

The ten of wands.

Oh, my God. You always come up with that one. Even I know that, like, it happens so often that, like, I know, like, that that happens with you.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

That means you're carrying too much, right? You're doing too much. You're too busy. You're carrying too much responsibility.

Yeah, yeah. When I have the 10 of wands, it's. It's just. It always represents when I have too much going on and I need to put something down. I need to put one of these wands down. And so I'm curious if one of the wands I'll be putting down, which is actually works out well in the winter, will be, you know, Gardening. Oh, yeah, no work. I still have to go there. Having a lot of gardening off of my plate might help with that. Or is there something else that I need to put down? I know we're planning a podcast break for December and January, so maybe that will help. Put down one thing, even though we love making this podcast, but I do take probably too many hours to edit it, as I'm doing right now, and probably can hear myself say, we are.

Very thankful for that.

The next card I got was the seven of pentacles.

Okay.

And this is actually interesting to get when I'm talking about gardening. It's a man kind of on his hoe. Okay, that sounded bad. It's a man leaning on his hoe in the garden.

Various plant sluts.

Yeah, very plant sluts. He's looking at his nine pentacles, kind of growing from vines and kind of admiring the fruits of his labor.

Interesting.

The seven of pentacles is about kind of putting in effort and waiting for the results. It's about kind of like, slow growth, a lot like gardening. And that's what I really like about gardening is it's not quick, like ordering something on Amazon and then it's here. It's the opposite. You have to wait so long, like, putting garlic in the ground now to have it next summer, or. Or, you know, obviously, always planting bulbs or seeds, wildflower seeds that need that cold stratification. It's about kind of patience and waiting and wondering if it'll work. You know, I think it's saying, trust the process and just watch and wait. And things are growing. That's a good one to see for me, I think. But then the last card, always. It always likes to. With me in the end, the eight of swords. And the eight of swords is this woman, like, wrapped up in a rope on a cliff. And there are a lot of swords next to her. Eight of them, to be precise. And eight of swords can kind of represent a crisis moment. Feeling trapped, feeling stuck, tied up. So I might feel like maybe stuck and not sure what to do with the garden, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong. I feel trapped. I need a fresh start. Maybe something will happen where, like, I feel stuck with the direction I'm going in my garden, and I need to, like, not feel trapped with everything I have to do. Need to, like, change my perspective and to feel less, like, overwhelmed. So this kind of all together is like ten of wands is like, you're doing too much. Seven of pentacles is like, pause Reassess. Look at all this growth that's happening.

Yeah.

And then the eight of Swords is like, you're not really in a cage. Change your approach. And to remember that my garden and my energy don't need to be perfect, but just cared for intentionally.

Yeah. It's a nice message.

And, you know, my perfectionism.

What? No.

And I'm just going to pull one card for the listeners and their garden and see what we come up with. So I pulled the Six of Swords. Six of Swords shows a man on a boat rowing. You can only see his back, and.

He'S listening to plant slats on his favorite podcasting app.

This card, the Six of Swords. The swords are in the boat as they. As they leave, and you just see everyone's back. So maybe you all have learned some hard lessons. Crops are failing. There's no gardening to do. It's winter. Maybe you've neglected your space, but now you're gently moving forward, and that's what this winter season will be about. Maybe you're going to switch to native plants, simplify your garden, let nature take the lead a little bit.

Or plant a Victorian poison garden.

Yeah. In your ex's yard. Don't rush the process of recovery. You need this winter time to, like, restore yourself. Leave behind the methods or plants or expectations that no longer serve you. Think about a gentle reset and not really this big overhaul this winter. This could also kind of hint at literally moving your plants and garden because of the boat. It's kind of saying you've weathered the storm. Now it's time to sail toward softer soil. This week's plant spotlight is pumpkin. John, tell us about pumpkin.

First, I want to say that it comes from the word. The Greek word pepon. That's why we call them a pepo type of plant. So pepon means large melon, and then the French adapted it to the word pompon, which is the English, which then the English morphed into the word pumpian, and then American colonists finally landed on the word pumpkin. And that's why in North America, we call it pumpkin.

Thank God we landed on that. I love it.

And on the whole colonial thing. Have you ever heard of a pumpkin head?

No.

Okay. Really?

A pumpkinhead? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. My mom called me pumpkinhead. My whole childhood, that was her nickname for me. Pumpkinhead.

Well, apparently in the 17th century, calling someone a pumpkin head was a really derogatory way to describe a New England colonist. So apparently it was an insult on two levels. So it mocked the fact that in the colonies they relied so heavily on pumpkin as a food source. And also it made fun of their simple, like, bowl haircuts that they thought looked like pumpkins.

I think my mom called me a pumpkin head because my head was just so huge.

Oh, I'm sorry.

So tell me about the plant itself. Where do we begin with this iconic plant, pumpkin.

Okay, so I want to start with a bit of an identity crisis that it goes through. So if I were to put a pumpkin in front of you and asked you, is this a fruit or a vegetable, what would you say?

Yeah, a pumpkin is a vegetable because we, like, put it in soup. And I don't. I don't. Yeah, it's a vegetable.

So botanically it is actually 100 a fruit.

Really?

So. And even more specific, this is where it gets kind of funny is it's actually a berry.

What? A berry?

Yes, a berry. Technically, a berry is a fruit that is fleshy, comes from one flower and one ovary, and contains like many seeds within them. So that basically describes a pumpkin, Right? Like a gourd. Technically, it's in the same kind of classification as blueberry or grape. Just a hell of a lot bigger, more voluptuous and a little bit out there and obscene.

That's crazy that it's the same family as a blueberry or a grape. Would that count for all gourds? Yeah, all gourds are just big, hard shelled grapes.

Yeah. You can say, do you know the difference between like a summer. So you say gourd but also like squash, Right? I think those are interchangeable. So do you know the difference between a summer squash and a winter squash?

I just think. I think winter squashes have harder shells and they last longer through the winter, and that's why we call them winter squash. And maybe summer squashes have the thinner skin and grow during the summer. Maybe a winter squash grows in the fall.

So a summer squash is the kind of squash that you would, like, cut off the vine and eat fresh, like right away. Whereas a winter squash are the kinds that you would leave on the stem and they actually have like a curing process that they would go through where the skin would get tougher, like in the way you were describing. And that makes it last then throughout the winter. That's why it would be called the winter squash. And you're right, it's grown in the fall. It's grown like throughout the whole summer and the fall.

I love winter squashes because you can buy them and not have an idea for how you're going to use them or eat them and leave them on your counter for, like, months and they're still good when you finally decide to bake it.

Yeah. You know Jamie. Jamie Oliver. You know Jamie Oliver, which I had a huge crush on, like, a long time ago, like when he was first on, like, I don't know, the Food Network. I have a.

You were such a Food Network.

I know, I know. Instead of watching, like, I don't know what people were watching, but I would just watch Food Network.

I remember you always had it on.

Yeah.

And you. Their own little cast of characters that you were like. You don't know her. Yeah, The Barefoot Contesta.

Oh, my God, the Barefoot Contessa. No. She's so problematic. Right? That's the one where she lives on, like, a plantation in the south, right?

No, that's Paula Dean Butter.

Who's the Barefoot Contessa then? I forget.

I don't know. I think she went to Paris recently.

All right, Anyways, so Jamie Oliva, he had a. I came across a recipe a long time ago, and it kind of inspired me. Basically, the butternut squash. I will roast it for an hour and a half at 350 degrees in the oven. And it just creates this really yummy kind of consistency of like, you know, a baked squash. And you can use it in so many different ways, so you just kind of scoop it out and it's a really great way to practically use it. You know, I'll put it in risotto. I'll put it in macaroni and cheese fritters. I've done it with fritters. Anyways.

People who can grow vining plants are so lucky because mine just get eaten and killed. But I would love to have a ton of winter squash.

To be fair, my kombucha squash is, like, crawling up my greenhouse away from the prying hands of fucking squirrels.

Oh, mine's those vine boar bugs, those black and red ones.

Oh, oh, oh, right.

I'm putting some beneficial nematodes down next spring, so maybe I'll have pumpkins. I'll have winter squash. Because I tried to do pumpkins this year and they flowered, but it just never. It never happened. It just wasn't meant to be.

Yeah, they're not. They're not always, like, so easy. So to start, pumpkin plants are monicius, which means that they have separate male and female flowers on the same plant. And what happens is I. I believe it's a weight so that they don't end up pollinating themselves. But Usually the male flowers come first, and then the female flowers start to come. And they really need to be timed up. Like you need a couple plants in order to. To have at the same time the male and the female flowers. And you can recognize the male flowers because basically it's just what stem with the big, you know, flower on it. And then the female. The female flowers have the ovary at the bottom, which kind of looks like a tiny little pumpkin.

Have you heard people say to pick the male flowers when they start? Because usually, like male flowers don't they just start off? You get a. Of males and like you're waiting for the females and to pick those off so the energy can go to other parts of the plants.

Yeah.

Just like kill the males.

Yeah.

For more energy.

Well, that's. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the solution. Maybe that's what I'll try next time. Because even my kabocha squash is like, it started so late in the season because I couldn't get it. I couldn't get it to pollinate.

Earlier on, when you talk about pollinating, I know I've seen people pollinate their different squashes by hand, help them out. Would that work with pumpkin?

I. I think so. I've tried. And I've tried that before the. I have also read that pumpkins require something like eight different trips from a bee in order to properly pollinate. So I think they do require, like, quite a bit of pollen. You know, they're very voracious eaters of pollen. I guess what I've done is, you know, you just kind of remove the male flower, peel back the petals or remove the petals and just kind of like rub them on the female parts until.

But you put on, like, some nice music first.

Of course, I did mention earlier about the colonists in New England, but I also thought it would be worth mentioning too, that pumpkins and squash and gourds, they have, like, a long history in North America. And they've even found seven from 7,000 years ago, a use in Mexico. They ate the flesh, but they also, like, roasted the seeds for protein and healthy fats. And they would dry the flesh and cut them into long strips to weave them together into mats. And then we also know, right, that gourds are also used as containers.

So they didn't just start off as those plastic pumpkins that you carry around trick or treating.

I didn't even think about that. That's so true. No.

Why. Why use the natural version of something if you can make it out of plastic?

Yeah. Because It'll last forever.

Forever. It sounds like pumpkin's a very useful, ancient plant, but how about we talk a little bit about my favorite use of pumpkin for pie? How did we get from, like, the big gourd to pumpkin pie filling?

Okay, so this is where it's going to maybe break your heart, or you're going to realize that the whole world is a lie, that pumpkin pie is not actually made with those orange pumpkins that we know for, like, fall and fall decorations.

Wait, wait, my. My whole life has been a lie?

Well, yeah. This is only one small lie. I guess the pumpkins that you would carve, the big round ones, is actually, like, terrible for baking. So I don't know if you've ever tried to do this, but it's. It gets, like, super watery. It's stringy. It really has, like, zero flavor. It's kind of disgusting because it's really been bred for pumpkin carving.

I think, like, everyone pretends like they're going to use the insides for cooking, and then you just throw it all away after you're done carving it out. So what is that 100% pure pumpkin can I buy at the store for my pies? Or even I just had to buy it for my sick dogs to eat?

Okay, well, actually, it's the more delicious and less famous relative, which is called the Dickinson squash. So it's actually a proprietary variety of squash that has been used by a company, I believe it's called Libby's. Yeah, Libby's. It's from a different species, Cucurbita moscata. So it doesn't look like a jack o lantern at all. It's actually, to me, it looks like a deadly catta squash. So it's like a longer, oblong, giant butternut squash with, like, just less curves. And it's like, it's sweet, creamy, and it's, like, not watery. So it's really good for cooking down for pies.

And everyone uses it.

Yeah, it's like when you buy a can, it's. I don't. I don't want to say a hundred percent, but it's very much not that orange pumpkin that you're carving. It is a different variety.

So it's basically a culinary catfish.

Exactly.

We think we're getting a big orange Halloween pumpkin, but we're getting a maybe better tan skinned squash.

Exactly. So the jack o lantern is not free eating, but the Dickinson. Yes. It's what you've been eating this whole time, and you had no idea. There you have it. The pumpkin is actually A promiscuous berry who needs, you know, a little bit of help to get lucky, either with our hands or with several. Several bees. And it's been providing for thousands of years even its cousin, the Dickinson.

So which pumpkin is my vanilla and pumpkin candle burning right now?

Petroleum. Petroleum is probably the answer. I know when we talked about this, you wanted to talk about the Jack o lantern aspect of it. So I know I kind of mentioned it a little bit. I was hoping you could tell me a little bit more information about what the origin of the Jack o Lantern is like. Where did that come from?

I wanted to talk about kind of the folklore in the background. And it kind of has like a magic connection when we talk about Jack O Lanterns. But I really want to know. John, do like, carving Jack O Lanterns?

No. I guess I'd have to say no. Usually, like, usually someone has to force me to do it. Like, I never want to actually do it.

Same. I don't either. And I get in this weird situation where people force me to. And since I can draw, I'm supposed to make one of those, like, super lifelike perfect ones. And I hate it. It's so gross sticking your hands in. It's a mess. The tools are never sharp enough. And if they are sharp enough, you cut yourself. I'm not a fan of making Jack O lanterns or even baking the seeds. I don't care. I'll just buy seeds if I want some Omega 3s.

So tedious.

I like seeing jack O lanterns. Other people have carved the really elaborate ones or just cute ones on people's porches. The tradition of Jack o lanterns actually started before pumpkins. And let me explain, it goes back to Ireland, England, Scotland, and the Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain was celebrated on November 1, kind of marking the end of the harvest season and the start of the dark half of the year, winter. And it was kind of in their tradition, known as the time where the division between our world and, like, the other world was at its thinnest.

Yeah, right. Is that All Saint state is All Saints Day? November 1st. Yeah.

And that's. That was when in the 1800s, the Catholic Church kind of tried to, you know, mix traditions involving Celtic spirits and they mixed it with the Catholic saints. So they created All Saints Day to.

Like, get rid of the pagan traditions, right?

Yeah. There's some, like, research that some of the popes were trying to kind of mix as much as they could. Like they would use pagan temples as churches, things like that, to try to mix everything in but back in the Celtic tradition and during Samhain, people believed the spirits of the dead were roaming around. And to ward them off, they wore costumes to scare them, and they carved really scary faces into root vegetables, like turnips, potatoes, beets.

Wow.

So if it was not pumpkin carving and it was turnip carving, would you give that a try, John?

No, that. That sounds like it would give me arthritis. Like, just trying to carve into such a small root vegetable.

Yeah. They use them as lanterns because buying a metal lantern was expensive. So using a root vegetable after the harvest was an easy way to have lanterns, to have some light during this time where you were trying to ward off spirits with light, carving the holes, let the embers shine through without it going out. How did all this kind of become a Jack o' lantern? There's this thing called ignis faddis.

What did you just call me?

It's a phenomenon that. A phenomenomenon, a phenomenon that occurs in marshlands and bogs in, like, Ireland and Scottish countrysides and kind of produce flickering lights from the gases and decomposing organic matter. And it was known as fool's fire or fairy lights. And eventually Jack o' lantern, if you're trying to follow the light, you could get, like, lost in a sinkhole or a bog or even drown. So people thought it was Jack of the lantern, a lost soul, maybe this guy named Stingy Jack. Have you ever heard of Stingy Jack?

No. Stingy Jack?

No, I've never heard of the Stingy Jack story until I started researching Jack o' Lanterns. Stingy Jack was an Irish blacksmith and a notorious drunk. And he met the devil in a pub, as one does, as we did many times in our youth. He invited the devil to have a drink with him. But true to his name, Stingy Jack did not want to pay for his drink. So he convinced the devil to turn himself into a sixpence that Jack could use to buy their drinks in exchange for Jack's soul. Good. It's a good trade. But once the devil did change into the sixpence, Jack decided to keep the money, put it in his pocket next to a silver cross which prevented the devil from changing back to his original form. The story turns, yeah, Jack, like, in his drunken state, really knew, you know, what he was doing. But he did eventually free the devil. It's probably a lot of pressure having the devil in your pocket. You go to do the laundry. When he freed him, it was the condition that he wouldn't bother Jack and he wouldn't try to claim his soul for 10 years. So the 10 years went by and Jack ran into the devil as he was walking down a little country road. And the devil was super excited to take him. And Jack tried stalling and so he thought quickly and he said, I'll go with you, but first will you get me an apple from, like, that tree right there? And the devil was like, yeah, like, whatever, sure. You can have an apple before we go.

The devil sounds really nice. I would. I would not do that.

The devil, like, drinks with you. He, like grabs you an apple. Is the devil as bad as we've been led to believe? And it's interesting because if this is an old, like, Celtic tale, I wonder what they mean by the devil. I'm not really sure how it's changed over the years. Is it like a bad spirit or the devil? Maybe this isn't a Celtic tale. Anyway, so as the devil climbed into the tree to get this one specific apple that stingy Jack wanted, Jack carved the sign of the cross into the tree so the devil couldn't come down. Yeah. So Jack was very proud of himself and he made the devil promise to never again ask for his soul. So the devil agreed so that he could, like, get back down after Jack died. The legend is that God wouldn't allow such a into heaven. God apparently has the devil's back. He's like, no, but maybe it's because he was like a drunkard and not because the mean things he did to the devil. And the devil was also upset by that trick that Jack was playing on him to keep his soul. So the devil's like, well, you're not coming into hell either. And so Jack couldn't go to heaven or hell. And the devil told him, come back to where you came from. But the way back to, I guess our plane, it was very dark. So Jack begged the devil to at least give him a light to find the way out. And the devil tossed Jack a burning coal from the fire of hell to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved out turnip. And the story is, has been roaming the earth ever since. And so the Irish begin to refer to this, like, ghostly figure as Jack of the Lantern. And then simply Jack o' Lantern, as.

The Irish do, they just put an O and apostrophe in front of everything.

Yeah. The tale began to kind of dwindle as electricity was installed around the country in the 1930s. So that tale started to fade to get to our contemporary Jack o' lanterns. In the 1800s, Irish and Scottish Immigrants brought the story to. To America with them. And I'm not entirely sure, but I feel like the cartoonish Jack O Lantern is a very, like, Western North American thing and not a European thing. But if someone's from Europe and wants to correct that and say, no, we have Jack O Lanterns everywhere. You can correct me, but it feels very America. Like Halloween costumes.

No, I can confirm. Like, I've. I've talked to people, like, living overseas about Halloween, and it's not a thing. I think it's not a thing even like in Australia and other Anglo. Anglo regions. But I think it's becoming more and more popular. Like, I remember. I remember in Vietnam, for instance, like, people started to. To want to go. Like, kids would start to go, like, trick or treating or something like that.

So how do we go from turnips to pumpkins? When the Irish brought over this tale and story to the. To the Americas, they found that pumpkins were easier to carve than turnips and much bigger, like we kind of discussed. So they started carving those. And there's, there's even references as early as the 1830s in Nathaniel Hawthorne's writings of pumpkin Jack O Lanterns. And so by the late 1800s, they were showing up in illustrations magazines and became that Halloween decoration we know today.

Okay, is Nathaniel Hawthorne related to the Salem witch trials? Is that. I feel like, why do I know that name?

He lived near there. Like you. I think you can tour his home there. You probably did when we lived in Massachusetts. But he wrote, I think, the Scarlet Letter.

Okay, okay.

He didn't, like, burn anyone as a witch.

I mean, that we know of.

Yeah, it would all be in, like, that same kind of tourist. Old New England Disneyland.

Historical Disneyland. Like, yeah. Plymouth Rock mythology of colonialism in New England.

I don't know if you ever toured the House of Seven Gables, but he also wrote that to summarize, the Jack O' lantern started as a cheap lantern, turned into this, like, ghost story, and then ended up as a Halloween icon.

Well, thanks for getting spooky with us. If you liked this episode, share it with your plant friends. Make sure to hit the follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode rate. Review and share so our slutty garden can keep growing.

Bye, sluts.

Bye, sluts.

Sam.