ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ߖߜ߭ߌ߬ ߞߏ߬ ߛ߭ߋ߯ ߝߊ߬ ߕߎ
Jìgìjìgì kò s̩éé fà tu
“A firmly rooted plant cannot be uprooted.”
Yorùbá òwe (proverb)
Jìgìjìgì is an Afrikan-Centered podcast that seeks to encourage other Afrikans to learn more about growing plants, food, soil, and their soul.
We believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul so we share strategies for how to do both. To do both we ask two questions:
“How do you grow while you grow tomatoes, kale, collards, tomatoes, and melons?”
“Why do you think the healthiest soils are black?”
Expect episodes to contain wisdom, tips, and actionable advice from Black Farmers and other Afrikan Agriculturalists to “blacken” your green-thumb.
A prominent elder in the DMV, Baba Oduno says, “There is no culture without Agriculture.” We find that to be very true here at Jìgìjìgì.
Episodes and Articles

Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3
Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice Part 3 To conclude the illustrious interview with Dr. Isaac Zama we begin our talk about “Humanure” and we receive our challenge for 2022! Works…

Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 2
In this second part of our interview with Dr. Zama we move through the different possibilities for food, pidgin, and what function libations connect us to the soil. This particular segment is…

Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1
Dr. Isaac Zama – Amba Farmer’s Voice pt 1 Dr. Isaac Zama honors us with his wisdom and knowledge as he ushers in the second season of the podcast. Dr. Isaac Zama…

Urban Agriculture and Climate Change: “The New Normal”
Join Instructor Mason Trappio to gain an understanding of how climate change affects the urban farmer and the growth of new crops.

Smelling Funk to Power
You mean to tell me this whole time I’ve been making funky compost, it could crank a crankshaft?? Meaning, in this episode we discuss how we arrived at our next experiment, Anaerobic…

Charles Southward
Charles is the founder of IGH Gardens in Los Angeles, California. At IGH he produces 3900lbs annually on 1200sqft. Amazing.

“God made the Soil, but we made it Fertile”
It is my sincerest pleasure and honor to share with you some excerpts from three articles that have been what I started this podcast to find. We add two new terms to…

Mushrooms as ߛߊ߲ߞߐߝߊ (Sankɔfa)
We relay the entire history of the soil, and highlight the role of fungi and of the mushroom plays. Later we shift to the role you play as you create this healthy…

Bioremediation Wrap Up: Helping Nature Do The Damn Thing part 4
In our final episode in the series of Bioremediation, we finally express the reasons why we shared this information and reviewed the overall point of these practices.

Rhizofiltration and Rhizodegradation – Helping Nature Do His Thing part 3
From PNW, to South Korea, from Silver Spring to Charlotte we discuss these two different techniques for cleaning and building healthy black soils!

Bioextraction/Phytostabilization – Helping Nature Do Her Thing Part 2
Fascinating experiments in Nigeria change our plans for growing lead out of the soil. Enjoy!

Bioremediation – Helping Nature Do It’s Thing
The beginning of a series of episodes on Bioremediation. We give a short overview of how we can use life to clean life. We end with a story of a graduate thesis…

Sustainability From the Seed to the Sleeve
Wrangler sustainably grew jeans and t-shirts, adding value into value added production.

What Makes the Healthiest Soils Black?
We’ve stated before that its scientifically true that the healthiest soils are black. We give the how and the what behind the Why.

Michael Carter Jr.
Carter Farms is a century farm in the Piedmont region of Virginia that specializes in growing ethnic, African tropical vegetables organically.

Two Analogies to Help You Groove
Two conversations we had recently resulted in two analogies to help you acclimate your fingers to the soil.

10 Things I Don’t Know
I thought it would be a good idea, to mark it a place in time, to be able to say, here are 10 things I don’t know about plants, farming, and the…

Shrooms? In My Buckets??
We’ve been hunting mushrooms all spring. Our greatest bounty was in our own backyard!

Conflict
We take umbrage with the promoted hippie-nature of interacting with nature. We offer some molecular biology of course to make our point. Enjoy.

Odù to Sow Seeds To
We go into the woods and read from the Odù Ifá. Just some short Ifá Ẹsẹ that you can sow seeds to.

ߛߊ߲ߞߐߝߊ (Sankɔfa)
Traditional Afrikan Spiritual Systems are at the foundation of an “African Natural Farming” technique. Wait a second, are we sure there isn’t a name for that already?

Rooting DC 2020 – Value Added Products Workshop
Mandela and I were honored to facilitate a workshop at Rooting DC 2020. Our workshop was titled Urban Agribusiness: Growing Money on Trees. Enjoy!

Microbes by Marco
Marco is an avid practitioner of Korean Natural Farming. He grows his own inputs and teaches us how to on today’s episode. Enjoy!

Towards ANF
In today’s episode I take a critical position towards Biodynamic Farming, one that I had had long suspicions of, despite it’s results. By sharing this critique, we have developed our own…

Mchezaji “Che” Axum
We are honored to have today Mchezaji “Che” Axum, Director of CAUSES at UDC. This is the most practical and poignant episode we have recorded thus far. Take notes!

Silver Sprung
Silver Sprung, or Jon, is one of the first friends with whom I could get really heavy into plants. We are kinda silly. We ramble a bit, there is a lot of…

Beekeeping in Ancient Kemet (Egypt)
We travel to the beginning of time to learn about Keeping the Tears of Ra (Beekeeping), while reflecting on our own experiences with keeping bees in college.

Farmer Gigi
Farmer Gigi is an urban no-till farmer in Old Town Gaithersburg, MD. We discuss her lifelong journey of having her hands in and out of the soil, harlequin beetles and bugs, no-till…

EsoTerracisms: Nu Healing Arts
Very quickly we get into the hidden side of garden, feeling and getting felt by plants, the soil, and all sorts of hardly quantifiable connections that we experience(d) with our hands in…

Mosadi
We originally met at the Black Urban Growers Panel in DC in 2018. He was the first person I mentioned this podcast to, and now we are extremely proud to be able…

Mandela
Mandela and I spent the last season growing food and brotherhood. We discuss his background and why he thinks the healthiest soils are black.

Harvest
We’ve pulled up everything from Nu Ray Research Garden and now we reflect on our Harvest. We share our chief lesson from this past Summer.

Shrooms? In My Yard??
Today’s episode is a short primer on Mushrooms and Fungi as it relates to gardening and agriculture. This episode is designed the get you familiar with some initial terminology, a conceptual primer,…

Esoterracisms: Weeds?
Our EsoTerracisms series is about showing some hidden aspects of the soil and less talked about agriculture practices. Today we discuss weeds, when they are, and why they aren’t, a nuisance.

Agribusiness: Growing Money On Trees II – JP009
Our second installment of our Agribusiness Series focuses on the concept of the Value-Add. Which raw fruits and vegetables can you add value to? Can you turn basil into pesto? Peppers into…

Agribusiness: Growing Money on Trees I
Throughout this series we will share ideas, experiences of mine and that of our guests about using our BlackThumbs to grow green$!

Fermentations
Fermentations. What do you ferment? Why would you do this? How do you do this? All these questions, and more answered in JP007 Fermentations.

Composts
A small step into the history of composts, why you should, why you shouldn’t, how it could work, and how it couldn’t. This episode is the real beginning of our philosophical journey…

Philosophical Background
We lay out our background and foundational positions we occupy as we cultivate the soil. Some of this episode is prepared and some of it is divined.

Getting Rid of Fungus Gnats (with no chemicals!)
We sat down to eat a chickpea burger. We left having controlled the fungus gnat population!
Visit https://olona.de/jp004 for more info :]

How We Build up our Soils
Discussing plans for building up soils on a urban lot space for nutrient dense crops!

Resources
This episode provides resources that we have found useful to our understanding of plants, soils, and agriculture.
Visit https://olona.de/jp002/ for the full list 🙂

Introductions
Explaining the intentions and rationale for the show. Conversations with plants and other green things.