Hey, sluts. I'm Jonathan.

I'm Jeanette.

We're two old high school friends, current.

Geriatric millennials who took different paths living in different gardening zones.

I'm 6 8.

And I'm 42D. Sorry, I mean 8B.

We eventually found ourselves in the same place.

On our knees in the dirt, obsessed.

With plants, ready to gush and bitch about gardens.

Think of us as your green besties.

We're here to talk about plants, but not in the usual pre t dot do this grow.

That way you may know as much.

As we do, or you may not know the difference between chokeberry and chokecherry.

Coming to you from Salem, Oregon, in.

The usa and a rooftop in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where plant slats wear plant slats.

I like it. I feel like it needs a little more light. First, let's share our garden status updates. John, how's your garden going?

I'm actually really loving my garden at this moment. So I would say my approach this year is really to not let things grow where they grow. If I could. If I could. Like, yeah, the last previous couple years, I've just kind of, like, let things self seed and I've kind of planted around them. This is my. In my community garden talking about, and. And they just, like, it got so jungly. And my tomatoes didn't do well, my peppers didn't do that well because I was just kind of letting, like, all the dill grow and all the anise hyssop grow. And then I would be like, I'm only going to, you know, weed and use it when I need the herb. And even to the point where one of the new members of the garden once stopped me while I was gardening, and she was like, oh, I just want to let you know that the. The president of the garden brought me to your garden plot and said that this was a really great example of permaculture. And like, not at all was I. I was like, not at all was I intending that to be the case. And like, it's not even really permaculture because, like, perma, like, you know, permaculture has, like, all the different layers and stuff. This is really, like chaos garden. So, okay, I'll just say that at the moment, I'm loving my garden because I've decided to just kind of, like, rip everything out and kind of start clean. I mean, there's still all these perennials and stuff like that. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I'm like, this ruthless asshole, just, like, pulling Everything out, but clean, clear, giving everything the space that it needs. So it's really just like coming into. Coming into its own.

It's so much like. Like, symbolic for our lives. Like, starting fresh, starting over. Starting from a different perspective or angle and that I can see matching up to where you're at also, like, I'm going to just start over.

Yeah, it's true. I didn't think about it that way, but out with the old, right?

Yeah.

Like, what's your garden status update? I think you have quite a bit of stuff going on.

I do have a lot, and some I'll put in our other segments. Mostly grapes, but I got some pineapple sage. So my new thing has been a plant that smells like something else. I've just been. Anytime I see them anywhere, I'm like, oh, it's sage, but it smells like pineapple or mint that smells like chocolate. So I got some pineapple sage. I also bought some lemon verbena to go with the lemon balm for making tea. And I bought some peppermint. Cause I realized I didn't have any mint that didn't taste and smell like another food, which I'll grow in a container and then probably still have grow all over my yard forever. I've just bought those. That's not a garden update. Okay.

But now I have a. I have, like, a good birthday gift in mind. You know, those, like, flowers from, like, Indonesia that smell like rotting meat? So that's what you're getting for your birthday is one of the rotten meat flowers.

Thank you. I love the rotting meat flower. Awesome. Thank you. Ants are farming aphids on my chamomile. And so this all happened last night because I was gone for one day. So I was tempted to just throw all the planters away to save the poppies. But what I did was I pulled out the lavender, washed it, washed the leaves with the hose. Yeah. Sprayed it with some soap. Because I don't have anything right now. Like, I don't have any neem oil on me. It's. I have to go get some. And. And then I went into the chamomile and, like, individually pulled off the little clusters of aphids. And there was this ant that I think bit me. And then I tried to squish it in a paper towel and it would not die. And I didn't think ants were that hard to squish.

No, they're super easy to squish.

Yeah. Like, earwigs, you can't kill. Like, they. You have to, like, chop them In a thousand pieces. But an ant you should just be able to squish. This thing would not die. He was mad that I was in there, like, ruining their, their farming plans because they're getting. Yeah, they're getting that like, sweet syrup or something from the, from the, the aphids on the plant, I think is why they.

Yeah. So just to like, maybe to people who don't know, basically, like ants use aphids to excrete this like, syrup, which is basically, I think, like their poop. And they like, they even. They're really aggressive. They like, remove their wings so that they can't fly away.

Oh my God.

And. And yeah, and they just kind of like farm it for that. That like, sweet liquid. Yeah. So I get, I get aphids and ants on my cherry tree out front every year. And I've. I've bought, you know, some beneficial insects to release. And I have also, like, there's this tape that you can use. It's kind of like a double sided, double sided tree tape that I put around the trunk. And ants stick to it. And so that kind of like, it doesn't like completely remove them, but it just makes them less of a. You know, a lot of them just end up dying or they go somewhere else. I'm not really sure. This year I had aphids on my black currants.

Mm.

And. And this is like, part of me was like, oh, my God, I have to like, wash them all off. Blah, blah, blah. It was like, it was early in this, in the, in the spring. And then I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna. Oh, you know what? I ended up. I ended up seeing that there was a ladybug larva on the black current. And I was like, maybe I should just let things kind of like, do their course, you know, go through the whole, like, process and. And now it's what, maybe like a month later there's no more aphids. Because I. Because I think that the ladybugs ended up reproducing all of the aphids.

Oh, interesting.

I think that that's like a good. I mean, it's not really like a solution, but sometimes, like, maybe. Maybe it's like you're too. You're reacting too soon. You know, just. You can just kind of like, let things or like, try and encourage some of the other predators of the aphids to come. I think the ants, like, kind of complicated though, so. Yeah.

Yeah, I. We do have a lot of ladybugs in the yard, so I have Seen them and that's helpful and I can move them around if I, if I see them.

Also I did have one year white flies in my greenhouse and same thing with aphids. The problem is that in a greenhouse, you know, it's a more closed in environment. This was in the, in the fall. And so what I ended up doing is buying like beneficial insects and releasing them inside the greenhouse. And for, let me see, for the white flies, I ended up buying these like maybe you've seen them actually at nurseries, plant nurseries. But it's like this little like envelope with a hook on it and it's a tiny little spider that eats the white fly eggs.

What? Yeah, with the hook on it and it's a spider.

It's like an, yeah, so it's an envelope with a hook on it and you hang it like nearby where there's white flies and, and then inside the sachet they will, the eggs of the spider will hatch.

Okay.

And they'll crawl out and like find places for them to like eat the white flies. So I mean that's, that's like, I think that's more effective for closed environments. Like for outside it's like, I don't know, if it rains it might just like ruin it. Um, it's called Amp. Amblyceus swerski is the spider kind of predator that I used for the white flies and for the aphids. The year. This is like separate times. So for like the year that I had the aphids, I actually got green lacewing eggs which are little pieces of paper that you hang also nearby. And on the paper are like dead green lace wing larvae eggs rather, and alive eggs. And they will hatch and you know, eat their, the dead eggs. But then they'll also go and find the aphids and eat the aphids and it's like, it's so magical, honestly. Like, like and green lace ones are actually pretty big. Seeing like going up into the greenhouse one day and like seeing this like green lace wing kind of like flutter in front of my eyes. It was like oh my God, my babies.

I'm just, yeah, I'm just stuck on the, on the spider thing and I'm just wondering then what, what do I have to release then to kill the spiders when they're done with their job? Cuz now, now I have spiders everywhere. Okay.

No, they're little, they're like, they're little spiders. Like I, I never saw one. I never saw one. But they, it did deal with the white flies.

Oregon is very spidery.

So the idea like, I'm sure there's like a local place, like I just bought them online. They got delivered by like.

Oh yeah, there's, there's farm stores. That's where Nathan bought his mason bees. So there was something there.

Like there might be something that's more local or something that you know is in your zone that would deal with the, the white flies. Yeah, I don't know about that, to be honest. Like, probably never gonna go away.

We're just gonna fight bugs with more bugs. I like it.

Grab a mug, pick some herbs and spill the tea. Jeanette, tell me, just tell me.

So, yeah, my community garden tea. It's not, it's not a sexy story, but I do have a tree I hate. And it's hard hating a but I hate this tree. There's a big black walnut tree in my neighbor's yard and I think it's like at least 100ft tall. And I don't know how many meters that is and I don't even know how many. How to know if that's an actually a true size. I think it's like two or three stories tall because it goes over their two story house quite a bit. So three story tall tree. And this thing, this tree, this lovely plant fills our yard in the fall with leaves to make our beautiful mulch. Fills our yard and our garden with flowers in the spring. And then those little like pod helicopter things right after or before. And then more leaves randomly in the spring again. So I'm constantly like picking it out of everything all the time. Always like little. And then it's also I'm always weeding like little starters of the tree just everywhere. So that's like. Okay. That's what you get for living in a neighborhood with trees, which is great. We have a lot of trees around here. It's fine. But my problem is, is the tree is leaning over onto our roof and leaning like, like the branches aren't taken care of. So there's a branch that's coming like dangerously close to our solar panels.

So like you, you'd be responsible for all the branches that are passing the property line onto your property?

I believe so I think we would have to hire a tree company to come get those branches. But I also think there's rules around. Like they can't just chop it in a way that could cause the tree to have diseases. But like I want the tree to just have diseases. There's so many trees around. This tree doesn't have. This isn't the only tree supporting our ecosystem. Right. You know, it's.

Are you worried about the, like, allopathic properties of the black walnut?

That's exactly what I'm worried about, John. I have no idea what that is.

Okay. I was like, oh, tonight. Well, because black walnut has, like, a. It produces a chemical called juglone.

Is this another reason for me to hate this fucking tree?

Yes. Oh, God, it is. So. And juglone is allelopathic, which means that it prevents most things from growing in it. So it. It's the roots that produce it, but it's also in the. The shells of the. Of the. Oh, my God. Black walnut and in the leaves. So. So. But wait, hold. Like, I don't want to be. They're everywhere causing, you know, drama.

Yes, you do.

But if you technically, like, if you. You compost those leaves and. Or let them disintegrate, like your. It releases juglone into the soil, and a lot of plants cannot grow in juglone. And I mean, it's. It's an adaptation for it to create an environment that doesn't compete with its babies. Right. It's like, with its seeds on the other end. I have read that juglone is actually not such a big deal as people say. Like, the amounts are quite low. But in the black walnut, of all of the trees in that family that produce juglone, black walnut does produce the most amount of.

Oh, wow. The leaves are everywhere. The leaves are down all winter, apparently releasing something to make stuff not grow, because we don't pick all them up, you know, and then there you. We do find the shells, and I've kept them in the ground if they're open already, because squirrels bury them in the yard and little sprouts of them everywhere. And so places I can't really reach where I don't weed, they're still there growing. And in the garden box.

And does it seem like they're stopping stuff from growing? Like, you know, roots reach basically to the level that the canopy reaches. Right. So if that's the case, then there would be juglone in the soil surrounding, like, directly underneath the tree line.

Oh, interesting.

Is there anything growing there? Like, is it. Or do things have a hard time growing there?

There are things growing there. There is one bush that is having a hard time growing and has died. And we. We, like, water it and take care of it and don't know why it died. And there. I mean, there's still plants growing, but now hearing, like, as it stretches, I'll have to go outside and look at what's growing right in that area. And what's like, kind of thriving or maybe stunted. I've also been putting the leaves in my compost, so. I fucking hate this tree. I didn't even get to the part where. Where my dog barks at. All the squirrels in it all day. It makes, you know, me crazy when we're out there together. Tree sounds like a menace. So if I go up to the. The. The land. The land owner. What are they called? The owner of the house. Next, do the landowner and I like, offer.

Neighbor. You can just say neighbor.

Okay. Sorry. At this point, this is a land owner with his little, you know, rental units, house. If I talk to him, I. I would think I would go over and say, like, we would help pay for tree maintenance to, like, get it first of all, the branches off of, you know, coming onto our solar panels and like. And like, oh, while you're at it, like, do you just want to get rid of the whole tree? I don't know if we have to go to the city to find out if they can remove the tree or not or is that something people don't do? Is that just evil? If I want to remove the. Just have the tree removed, if it's not sick.

Without getting a permit from the city? No.

If I ask him if he's like, ah, it's cheaper to just. He's a landowner, so he probably just wants to do its cheapest. Sorry, a landlord, not. He has a lot of properties. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. He's my evil.

Yeah. Would it be evil to just have the tree cut down if it's cheaper? If we're allowed to.

In my. I mean, your opinion. In my opinion, I don't think it's evil.

Okay.

I don't think it's evil because you would plant things in its place, right. Like, and. And it would create, you know, a sun that would allow you to grow more.

We have a lot of sun already, but, yeah, actually it's probably cooling. You know that those things you fight in your garden or in your yard, like, all the time, and you're just like, all your anger kind of goes towards that one thing. That's what this tree is to me. It's just like the thing I'm always fighting.

You know, last year I had my neighbor chop down my kiwi vine.

What?

That was crawling up her balcony. And she chopped it at a point. Not the point where it met her balcony, but she chopped it all the way down, like, to the fence. Even the space that, you know, arguably is like, it's totally fine that it's in that space, you know, above the fence and before the balcony. I was very pissed off.

Do you think she didn't know what it was or that you or. We can't talk about this.

I don't know. Do I want to rehash this again?

I mean, were you in your chaos gardening era? She thought it was just a, she's like, oh, that's a plant.

I mean, listen, like the, her son that was living there in that unit, like, they knew it was a kiwi. And, and they, I asked for permission, I asked them if it was okay that the kiwi was crawling up the pole to the, to the balcony. And they, they said it was fine. But of course the mother is the owner of the building. She is the landowner. And so, yeah, you know, I did get pissed off and I was like, listen, madam, next time if you, if something's bothering you, just let me know and I will deal with it. Yeah, like, I would have cut, you know, like I would have unfurled some of the stuff or untrolled or whatever, however you describe it. And I would cut it at a good point. You know, like, I know where to, I know where I would like. Yeah, you know, prune it anyways. So I, I, I'm sure you can.

Find a solution and I'll keep.

Even if it means cutting it down.

Well, what if it means having to call someone? I don't know. That's the worst part.

There are people that deal with this.

Yeah.

Jeanette, you just call and you say, I have a tree that I need fixed. And they'll come and they'll look at it and they'll know exactly what you might need from the city.

Really.

They'll probably like provide you with their analysis. Because the city, if you need to cut it down, for instance, at least this is what it's like here in Montreal is like. You would have to provide a sort of justification and an analysis from an arborist whether it's posing a threat, what the gen. And that would then justify whether or not you cut it down.

I'll just contact an arborist and I'll keep everyone updated on this really saga.

Of, you know, I think a spin off. Right. I think we're gonna, we're gonna do a spin off spin off series podcast, Black Walnut.

Oh my God. So if you any community garden tea, anything about your neighborhood neighbors or your community garden plot, please send us an [email protected] and we can read it on the show. This episode's plant slut is Bloodroot.

I don't actually know how I first came across Bloodroot, but for some reason I was like, I love this plant. There's just something about it that I loved and I. I spent a long time trying to get it. Basically it's this rhizome. Rhizome plant, yes. Like.

Oh, yes.

Let's say the root is like a ginger. Like a ginger root. Right. So it's like a rise, they forms a rhizome. It's a spring ephemeral, which means that it comes out in spring and then it kind of disappears after a certain amount of time. And it is like, I don't know, there's just something about it that is just so beautiful. It's really one of the first things that comes out. And it's this beautiful white flower that, that comes out as like an inconspicuous shoot wrapped in a leaf. And it's one flower to one leaf that's, that's the entire plant. And it unfurls and it just reveals this beautiful white flower. I think there's something like eight petals. They're very matte. They almost look like paper and a very like deep kind of yellow center. And then the leaf itself looks kind of like a bit like a lily pad. But it's, you know, obviously it's like suspended in the air. And the flowers last only about, I would say a couple days and then that's it. And what's left is this lily pad leaf that just seems to get bigger and bigger until it finally reaches like its apex size, which is probably like in a full grown one, a little bit bigger than the palm of my medium sized hand. And the rhizomes are bloody. Basically. That's where. That's where it comes from.

When you're saying rhizomes, you're. You're referencing the root.

Okay, yeah, the root. So the ginger. Imagine like a ginger. Imagine you like dig it up. It looks kind of like a, like, I don't know, a mix between turmeric and ginger. And then when you break it open, it. It actually has this like red liquid that comes out of it which looks like blood, hence the name.

Wow.

But don't do this. Don't touch it because it's actually not safe to touch. It is. It can burn your skin.

I was about to grow one. Break it open. Use it for, as you would say, a spell of like about for me. Or use it as like a ink or paint or a Dye. But that is a bad idea.

Yeah, I would only handle it with. With gloves.

Okay.

My. My blood root this year actually. So I planted it maybe like three years ago, and basically it's had a couple flowers come up. It was kind of like underwhelming. But this year I don't know what happened. There are about a clump of like seven or eight of them all came up this year at once. And I can see there's other smaller leaves that didn't have flowers this year, but started to come up. In between my pavers, I have these like kind of flat flagstone. Flagstone rocks that form a path. And I can see pretty much that the rhizome kind of follows the crack in between the two stones and it sent up little baby lily pad leaves. And so I'm really excited.

So that reminds me of like how mint travels to grow all over your yard. Is that the same thing? Is that how it. It's not self seeding or it's not a bulb. It just travels by its root.

Something really interesting about the plant world is that convergent evolution in this way where like a lot of things end up evolving in a way where they are very similar, but actually the mechanism or how it. What it actually is is completely different. Like for instance, for inst. Pricks and thorns, they are not the same. So, okay, I'm going to mess this up. I probably should have done a bit more research. I didn't know this was going in this direction. But one of them is actually a modified leaf or stem. I think it's a modified stem. And the other one is actually like part of the wood of the plants.

Okay, interesting.

You wouldn't know that they were different, but they're. They're completely different. And like the evolution of how they got there then is different. So you would have had like leaves, you know, that would like have, you know, then ended up along the evolutionary kind of journey, a leaf would transform into, you know, like a. Something that would.

But it's solving the same problem. Like they both grew for the same reason.

I know that this is a little bit of a tangent, but there are all different kinds of mechanisms that they can spread. So there's like rhizomes, there are even like stems, stolons, like strawberries for instance. Like the way that they spread is through stolons. And even the interesting thing is like potatoes.

What's a stolen?

So stolen. Stolen is like basically it just like set sends a shoot.

Okay.

You know, like a strawberry has this shoot that goes out, and then it kind of like lays a little baby on the ground, and then it. It starts rooting. It's basically like an umbilical cord that it kind of like shoots in all directions.

I didn't know that. I just have strawberries that appear everywhere as if by magic, but thank you. Now.

Yeah, yeah. Stolmans, now, they, you know that they travel by Stolon. Potatoes, for instance, are modified stems. So the actual potato itself is. It's not a root. It's actually like a part of the stem. What, like, botanically and, like, anatomically?

But do they then have roots?

They do then have roots, yeah.

Okay. You called it convergent.

Convergent evolution.

Convergent evolution. And so Bloodroot is not mint, but it travels similarly to how mint travels to spread.

Yeah, but it's super slow.

So it's not like an invasive thing that's gonna take over your yard.

No, in fact, it's a native plant to, I think, most of eastern North America, and in some places it is endangered. It's. It's not really tolerant of a lot of, like, foot traffic and that kind of thing. It's really something that you find in the forest, and I've seen some in the forest here. It's not a common, like, ornamental plant. I'm not sure why, because I absolutely love it. The Latin name is Sanginaria canadensis. And I think there's, like, other words like red root, Canada piccoon, and black paste. The black paste is actually an interesting name because it actually has been used in something called black solve, which dun, dun, dun. Kind of goes into, like, this anti vax kind of thing. So Black solve was, and it still is, I believe, promoted as an alternative medicine for cancer treatment. Specifically, I believe it is for skin cancer.

I heard about this on that documentary about that Australian girl. I think they mentioned it. That Australian girl who faked having cancer. Oh, you know what I'm talking about.

I know. I watched the first episode and I didn't watch the second.

She did not have cancer.

Okay. She was using it or. Yeah.

Oh, no, no, no, no. It wasn't her. It was the girl who didn't fake it who did have skin cancer, had been using it. And in the movie, like, it was the Netflix adaptation, she kept using it on her skin cancer, but it kept getting worse and worse. And it was like. It was black solve. It was the Belle Gibson. What did they call it in the search for Instagram? Source Con artist. No, Apple cider vinegar was, I think, the movie that's the series. Oh, that's the series. So it was a series. You know, when you watch it all at once, it's a movie.

Yeah.

The Netflix series about.

Don't even start, Gibson. I just feel like there's so many series that should just be movies and they've just stretched it out.

Yeah. It's just a really long movie.

Yeah. So Black Salve is actually what it ends up doing, is it. It burns your skin and it's, it's, it's made from bloodroot.

Oh.

And the reason why it's black is, I believe, because there's a lot of maybe iron in it and. And the iron ends up turning black once it oxidizes something like this. So that's why, like, I believe that that's what gives it the black color.

I just keep picturing Vegemite.

Yeah. I have. I don't know what.

It's just.

I don't know what blacks are.

The Australian girl in the movie and like something black that's kind of gross in a tin. Okay.

There is like this story of this guy, this American guy who had first started to sell blacksolve through a multi level marketing MLM Ponzi scheme kind of company. And it was, I believe, for cancer in the mouth. There were so many lawsuits about it. He had been charged as a felon for defrauding customers. He ended up escaping to Ecuador and they continue to make Black Salv and sell it all around the world.

Wow.

Yeah. And that's from Bloodroot. It's an interesting history.

Well, would you like to find out if Bloodroot matches your zodiac sign, John?

Yes, yes. Can I talk about first why I think.

Yes.

Well, it's like, it's red, it's bloody, it must be a heat. It must be like a fire plant because it basically burns through your skin. That's as far as I really could know in terms of the most obvious associations with, like, quality versus those elements.

So we're kind of referencing lemon balm, the first plant I chose for plant sluts. Lemon balm was a feminine moon, water, element. I am a female cancer sign. So blood root, the gender masculine. Oh, planet Mars.

Mars. Oh, my God. Really?

Yes. And the element is fire.

That's my planet.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

That and you.

That's so funny.

You're an Aries, so you chose your, you know, patron zodiac plant.

That's so interesting.

It is interesting. We're.

That must be why I feel so connected to it.

Yeah. We're so stereotypical in our signs. According to this book, the Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs. The powers are love, protection and purification. The root can be carried or worn to draw love or avert evil spells and negativity. And you can place it near doorways and windowsills so the home will be protected.

Jeanette. I have it right outside my bedroom window and I planted it there on purpose because I wanted to see it in the spring. But now I know that's what's protecting me.

Yeah. Oh. I mean, some people do think you can kind of garden subconsciously. Like, or consciously you can use your garden for protection, like putting roses outside your bedroom window because the thorns or blackberries or that your garden kind of reflects, maybe reflects the things going on in your life. How I found, like, realized as I was buying my 25th plant that everything in my garden was medicinal, calming, relaxing, anti anxiety.

Yet somehow you are still a very anxious person.

Well, it's early in the year. Everything hasn't harvested yet. I'm getting there.

Sorry, I'm just like, what time did I say I would have ice cream with this person? Okay, 7pm let's make sure to put that in the podcast.

Check your grinder. Quick. We need a pause. Check your grinder.

No, no, it's an old colleague. It's an old colleague. No.

Yeah, ice cream is a super weird grinder date. Unless you had a lot of, like, lactate with you.

No, I would totally. I would totally do that. Oh, I've done that.

It's. It's too much.

People love ice cream.

Dairy.

Yeah. So I. I'm guessing you don't have any experience growing bloodroot.

No, I've never. I don't think I've seen one in person yet.

And. And the only reason I would say, like, not to plant it is that it really only lasts a few days. That it's like, super slow to grow and it doesn't spread very quickly. It's kind of vulnerable in that, you know, like, if you step on it and because it kind of disappears, you know, halfway through the summer, you kind of don't know where it is. And so you could very easily dig it up accidentally or kind of stomple stamp, stample, stamp, stumple.

I like stumple.

Trample, trample, stomp, stomple, tramp. You can trample, trample over the. Trample over over it. You can trample over it very easily without knowing. And it also kind of. Well, this is an issue that I have is it's kind of casting shade right now. So it's this gigantic lily pad Kind of leaf that is shading out a decorative ornamental grass that I have growing. So it's kind of stunted, that. Ooh. And some. Another interesting fact about it is the seeds are transported by ants.

God damn.

And how that works is the seed has this little sack of sweet liquid, I suppose. I'm not really sure what it is, but it's. It's like a sweet sack that's at the end of the seed, and that's what attracts the ants. And the ants then bring the seed to their nest. They eat the. That sweet sack, and then they dispose of. They dispose of, yes. This is plant sluts. Come on. They love that sweet sack. And they then, you know, toss the seed out in their refuse pile, and then another bloodroot will grow.

Oh, interesting. So if I plan to grow bloodroot, don't kill every ant in my yard one by one.

I guess. I mean, a lot of the plants, though, that do reproduce through rhizomes don't really have very viable seeds because a lot of them ended up evolutionarily relying on spreading by rhizome and by underground by multiplication rather than through seed dispersal, because they're sucky.

Sweet sack.

Yeah.

Right, now it's time for jam. Jam. What are we going to do with all these surpluses, these pounds and pounds of vegetables nobody wants? Let's get some ideas. John, what are you thinking of for this episode?

Well, what I wanted to talk about was greens. So right now I have a lot of greens growing everywhere, and they're all starting to flower. So I have, like, mizuna. I have a lot of rapini. Basically, what I love doing is I just kind of go around and chop them all. I'll remove, as much as possible the kind of, like, woody stems, because at this point, if they've kind of overgrown, the stems are pretty woody. And I will then just blanch them and in salty water and then just put them aside and they cook down, like, really, like, a lot. Almost like spinach. Right. And in fact, like, spinach could be one of the things that you put in there. And I even keep a lot of the florets there. So the florets are, like, really good, and they're not weird to eat. They're, like, delicious. It's kind of like rapini, Right. I mean, broccoli itself is a flower where you're eating out the flower, like, buds. And what I do is I just have in my fridge a container filled with these boiled vegetables, and I'll use them in a sandwich for Instance that I had today, I had the greens, some tomatoes, some mayonnaise, maybe, like, mustard, hot peppers. I don't know, like, marinated eggplants. Whatever you like bocconcini, you know, and it's just so delicious. Another thing that I'll do is I'll kind of, like, chop it up really finely and toss it with pasta.

I have to pause, though. I have to pause because I just wanted to note that you make really good sandwiches. You used to make my lunches in high school, and you would make me this very. What to me were elaborate sandwiches, but I'm sure to you were just sandwiches. Yeah. And it.

I don't remember that at all.

When you were just describing it, it just. It reminded me, brought me back to those sandwiches. You would make me a little, like, vegan bag lunch. And when, you know, I'd pick you up and you'd have two little bagged lunches that we would eat back in high school.

I don't remember that at all.

You. You'd have.

But that sounds like something I would do. I. I keep forgetting about sandwiches, to be honest.

Yeah.

There's, like, stretches where I eat a sandwich. I guess it kind of makes sense because you buy a loaf and then you eat a bunch of sandwiches, and then you're like, I'm tired of sandwiches. And then you don't eat sandwiches for a while. But, yeah, like, these greens are really good. They're super versatile. I threw them. I threw them in with, like, tortellini. So did you put them in, like, hot oil?

Did you put them in the fridge after blanching?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they. They're good for, like, probably over a week. You can even just like, eat them as a side. You toss them with, like, olive oil and salt and pepper or whatever. If you like spices, you could put some sort of mix of spice that you get. Whatever you. I feel like it's very American.

I'm thinking of, like.

Like, it's very American to have those, like, spice. I don't know. Yeah, like Trader Joe's. Like Trader Joe's. Like, lemon pepper. I feel like those things are really popular. So, yeah, you can throw, like, some of that stuff in, but. But it's good just, you know, simple. There's a little bit of, like, bitterness. A little bit of bitterness, which I think is really nice. But. But really, it's just, like a soft green. It's, like, super easy to. So that's a. Anyway, what I'm saying is that that's a great way to use up all of those greens that are starting to flower that you definitely cannot eat any other way because there's just so much of it, such a volume.

Nice. That sounds good. I'll go pick mine right now. Seasonal reminder. As we finish up today, cover your berries. Everything wants to eat them before you do. I use little sachets, and then I cover it with something else, and then something else.

Little sachets over each. Like strawberry?

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's so cute.

Well, the first time something untied it and still got the strawberry, I don't think it was human, but it could have tried. Yeah. It sounds like a human child came in my yard.

Snails are what gets my strawberries.

To be honest, I was looking up 11pm last night, how to kill slugs.

I have a good trick.

What's your trick?

I bought a thing. I know it's like people say, put a can of beer in the soil and they'll fall into it. I mean, I got this thing that basically, it's kind of like a ramp to death. So it's this green box that has on each side a kind of ramp that goes into the middle. And what you do is you. I did pour beer into that middle, and they did climb in, and it did kill all of them. Like, there were tons.

You didn't have to bury it.

No, I just said it on. I just set it on the ground.

That's annoying about the, like, the bottles and stuff. Like, bury it halfway down, and then you're digging holes.

I have cans, like, cat food cans that had put. I had put beer in it, and they. They're still in my garden. And they're, like, from three years ago.

Oh, wow.

Like, because they're kind of hidden in a way, but also it's like, why would you ever want to touch that?

Yeah, it's nasty. They don't like copper, because I've been putting copper electrical tape around all my garden boxes. So they don't go up because they don't like the sensation on their body. Because it's kind of like if you were to bite down on aluminum foil with your filling, it's that feeling on their whole body.

Wow. Also, like, don't underestimate the usefulness of going outside after a rain. What I. What I do is I have a little bowl of soapy water and a chopstick. And basically I just go in any. Any slugs or snails that I find. I just kind of like, with the chopsticks, slide them into the soapy water. It's a numbers game.

Yeah.

The more you can eliminate, the less babies they'll have, the less they'll be next year or the next. I don't know how many generations there are in a season, but really, like, that has also helped a lot. And I. I know I look a little bit not well when I do it.

Kimono with your chopsticks? No.

I don't know. I wasn't even thinking.

I was just thinking that's what you wear at night in general. Like a silver.

No, no. But I think, like, that was, like, maybe one of the things that led to. To my latest breakup is that I would always try and get him to come out with me and get the. And get the slugs, and he just would never do it.

Okay.

But we'll get into that another day.

Yeah, that's for another episode. Thanks for getting slutty with us. If you like this episode, send it to your plant friends and email us with plants you think are slutty enough to be covered on the show plantslutspod gmail.com and please rate star and share with a friend so our slutty gardens can grow.

Bye, sluts.