Introductions – JP001

Host Mason Olonade explains the intentions and rationale for the show. We transition into transmissions and conversations had between the host and select house plants. The history brought forth from the host’s past deciphers that previous sentence.

Plants mentioned:
- Purple Heart (Tradescantia pallida)
- Fiddle-Leaf Fig (Ficus lyrata)
- Monstera deliciosa
- Papyrus (C. papyrus)
- Purple Passion (Gynura aurantiaca) the plant I gave to my mom. Find the most lush one according to you and that was what I gave to my Mom.

Concepts Mentioned
- Water Propagation
- Counter-weighting
- Skipping Rocks
- Speaking with plants
- Bringing out the right plant for the right person.

Medase
Medase
Medase Paa

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Transcript (automated)

Peace. My name is Olonade.
And this is Jigijigi and Africulture Podcast. Here at Jigijigi we want to get our hands and minds dirty detailing the African relationship with the soil.
We continually ask and answer the question:
How did you grow while you grew tomatoes, peppers, kale, collards and melons. We believe that building healthy soil builds a healthy soul. And we share stories on how to do both.
I created this podcast because I had seen a lack of agriculture podcasts, not only featuring African voices, but where African voices were speaking to other African voices. make this distinction because we feel that there's something lost In the transmission of our culture, between cultures. So we sought out to make this not just as a podcast about necessarily just agriculture, because there are a lot of podcasts that talk about food, food justice, and that sort of politics. But I know that I really like plants. And I really enjoy talking about plants. And so I wanted to have a space create a space, where other African voices who also like plants can talk about plants, because in order to grow food, you have to grow plants. That was my realization.
And about in 2013, I started growing my own food plants.
I had grown up in a house where both my father and mother had tended had a well tended to garden. At certain points of the year we'd grow peppers and tomatoes.
But what I really knew most about was my dad growing that lawn. And it was a beautiful lawn that I learned how to ride a bike on and I played many, many games of soccer, you know made many pretend, you know, let's, let's pretend we're making a movie about x. Let's pretend I'm making a movie out Why? And we act that out and learn how to throw a super tight spiral. ran around got stung by bees on hosted plenty of parties cookouts.
Just a fantastic soil
and a fantastic yard. My dad was really an expert at growing sedums and Tiger lilies especially. There's a pine tree in the backyard that we got from Well, it was it was the second version of the pine tree they used to sell. They used to give away pine trees in for eaerth day celebrations. And I had one. And I was really proud of it and I tried to grow it and then it died. So I took a old pencil case filled it with soil and then I buried it in the backyard in this yellow, yellow bin. Then the next year a couple of years later, we got one. And we planted it and it survived really well so much so that I forgot about it. And it just took off. My dad put it in one part of the yard and we well I forgot about it and he did he clearly didn't forget about it because it had grown so much that it had grown through the pot so much that you couldn't remove the pot. And so my dad left it and then it burst the pot. And now it's growing and then I think during the snowpocalypse and 20
when was it 2011?
There was so much snow on top of it that it,
the canopy had crashed. And so it is now like a pine bush that keeps on getting taller and taller. I say all that to say because I have a genetic predisposition to this side of things as a green thumb,
but not only as a green thumb but
as a black thumb.
And
once I started living on my own, I had all grown Yeah, in 2013 I had received some peppers from a Thai woman, and I had started growing them on my own. And they were really spicy. I remember I started eating one, the first one that I harvested, I started eating it and I immediately started coughing like crazy. I had to drink a bunch of milk in and eat a bunch of bread in order for my mouth to calm down and and from then on out. I was just like, wow, I had no idea that, that things could be like this because I guess, you know, even tomatoes when you don't care about vegetables is like, whatever. And if, you know, I guess I hadn't necessarily attributed any sort of specialty to, to what my my parents had done. None of that I think it was unique just because that's what they did. So
now, you know
Fast Forward I'm 23 years old or 22 and I have just grown my first set of peppers and I'm super hyped to show them to everybody and, and, and people are really supportive. I spoke with a couple people and wanted persons at my job Give me one of my favorite plants, which is a cutting of pirates. He also gave me a
dragon fruit. And,
and I started growing them 2014 kept it going 2015 I knew that I had to find a spot where It was very sunny so I could start really taking care of these houseplants by that time I'd also acquired cutting them monstera delicioso and and once I got into my house man, everything started really taken off summer 2016 things outside of my life started changing. And I got really frustrated with the world in general. In order to not take this out on myself or others, I locked myself in my room and it was hot that summer was so hot that summer, but my room was basically a greenhouse. I'll put I'll put some of these pictures up in the show notes.
And towards the end of the year, towards the end of the summer, one of the plants that i was growing fiddly fig.
I noticed something peculiar it was it was taken off that summer. like crazy man, it was, you know, 95 degrees at 9am. You know, pretty much like 40 60% humidity is like ideal, ideal growing conditions. You know, clearly because I had to wear these guys like every day it was nuts, you know, but anyway, be the stems from the new growth by September had started growing Woody, they turned from green to brown.
And I thought that was strange initially, but then what I realized was that
as this week was becoming woodier, this growth had solidified. and that growth was only possible because I was there helping it grow, which means that I was growing too.
a lot of things in my life that summer had been, it seemed like I was in those horse winds, where nothing seems to be happening at all. How contrary.
that prepared me for this these are one of the many sort of transmissions that I get from the plants turning in my chair to look at them now. I have often had many dreams about my plants especially, especially the fiddle leaf.
And especially when I guess I'm
definitely very nervous or anxious about something. I will see the plant wilting or turning yellow or something like that.
But that's generally just my anxiety. It's not it's not
necessarily the plant communicating
to me.
But there is one dream that I had where plant communicated to me.
I received
because they call it they call it a Purple Heart.
Another picture that in the show notes and
I had been propagating this, this, this purple heart out by water, water propagation. And it was time for me to plant it. And I wanted to plant it over this banister. So it
hang hung over the banister of
you know, my front porch
where I live, but I didn't know how to do that.
So and I've been thinking about this and thinking about this and thinking about this because now
it just the roots are just growing like crazy and and I really want to do this I really want to preserve this crawling aspect. You know, in the in the in the Purple Heart, you may see it in some of these planners, when you go to the more gentrified parts of town, summer. People use it in the same way that I wanted to use it. But I wanted to plan it was so it had that drapery, you know,
but I didn't know what to do.
Now one night, I have this dream and I'm looking at This plant
and, you know, just follow me here.
extend your arm, your right arm out, palm up, okay?
Now imagine that
your palm, maybe bend it maybe like 15 degrees or so if whatever that 15 degrees means to you.
Now
you have your palm out your fingers is separated.
That is the
foliage of this tree of this plant that I have. And your forearm
down to your elbow is the trunk.
And so now I have this plan. I'm like, Oh my god, I have to plant this thing. How am I going to plant it and I want to plant it so that it remains that angle out, you know, just like, like a bonsai like it's reaching out like that I wanted I wanted to plant it so I could plant it like that.
And all the roots. They are just like, imagine that you know your elbows. Start of the root zone, right? And then the roots just just dangle from, you know, the bottom of your elbow. Okay?
So I'm looking at this thing, I'm like, how am I gonna plant this plant and then I get this idea. I'm like, Oh, I can counterweight it. I can put some roots over, I can put a rock over the roots. And that will lay it down so that when I plant it in a pot, it can still lean over the pot, but it won't fall over. Just like how when you bend over, you may stick your you know, you put all your weight on your right foot, and you lean forward and then your left leg kicks out. Or when you're walking. You know, you put your left foot forward and your right leg moves forward, your right leg moves slower, right? You You cannot wait all the time is this highly advanced physics we're performing without even us
knowing about it. So
after I The rug down in the roots in the dream
you know, replot the plant
and that's the end of the dream, you know, I go about my business.
So then I'm like, okay, I looked at you know, this I'm, you know, whatever. I don't even remember what the timeframe was like, when I was doing this, but
all of a sudden, I get I arrived back at this.
But I was this, the purple, purple heart. I have to plant this thing now. Like, man, how am I gonna go I can't believe I'm still Ah, I had a dream about this. So what I did was that I followed the dream. I took the Purple Heart. I took some soil. I took the roots, and I found a rock that I had had in my backpack because I love skipping rocks. If anybody needs help skipping rocks, I will teach you how to skip rocks. This rock, oh my gosh, if I would just get this rock, yo,
it would get probably
like 30 or 40 skips for real for real it was flat edges around. Probably some type of slate is just perfect if I would have put that
and you know in m y knuckles in (rock skipping sounds)
but exactly because I know that I could skip that rock is exactly why I have to fulfill the dream of this plant.
And guess what?
It worked!
I'll include a picture of it in the show notes.
I believe that all these times
Well, I'll say it like this.
Once you start that conversation up with your plants, you'll never be able to stop it.
We believe that all of us have a special, unique and peculiar, peculiar relationship with the soil.
And it only takes the right plant to bring out that relationship.
There are no, we're all black thumbs. But there are no maligned black folks here. I've been testing this belief and theory out on my mom. She was like, No, no, no, that's all your father that was doing all that sort of stuff. My mom had it. My father had it. Your father has it. His father had it. His mother had it, but I didn't get it and I Obviously we had it because my brother's got it. But she didn't get it. And I'm saying with all that genetic richness that I got, you made me so you must got it. It's not that just genetics just skips like that we got epigenetics now, and so you can turn it on if you really want it. So I've been working with my mom, I've given her a couple plants so that she can get everything going.
I gave her one of these plants that I that I was driving down in northeast 22nd and Newton or something like that, and somebody had some potted plants out. And I got this one. I don't know it was it was velvety and purple. I'll put the description in the show notes of the actual botanical name. And it was fantastic. And it was it was it was right around the time of Mother's Day.
And so I gave it to my mom and and she kept it Going and I was really proud it was I was very proud of her. I will go and visit her and it was still going. And it was still going. And she would say that she had some issues with it, but she finessing it, it was still going. One day, I get a call from my mom, she's like, Mason, I need to tell you something. Say, okay. He's like, you're not gonna like this information. I'm like, Huh? What, what happened? She said, you remember that plant that you gave me? And I say, yeah. She says I killed it. I said, Oh, that's no problem. She said, Oh, I thought you were going to be I thought you're going to be mad at me. And, and I wasn't. I said to her, you know, for me to have the beliefs that I believe in.
About how growing plants has made me a much more compassionate individual. For me to get mad at you for killing a plant that I gave you would be contradictory to me becoming the person who I want to become. And I still believe that to this day.
And so, I tell that story because
there are many things that we think that we can't do.
And I've just think that it takes the right time in the right mind, to help us figure out truly
all of what we can do.
I'm not saying that everybody needs to be
growing their own food, because somebody's got to be buying food from people who are growing their own food. But just as much as I'm capable of growing some plants and talking about them getting, you know, as molecular as I can with it. Somebody is actually out there. They're growing them as molecular as they can with it. There's somebody out there actually making the food taste as molecular as they can with it. You know.
And so here at Jigjigi,
we just want to highlight those who knows what it takes to make these things grow. We want to get tips, advice, actionable advice, practical advice, and some stories about how to make them grow, how to make you grow, so that we can all grow close in saying, The namesake from this show, comes from a Yoruba Proverb.
now, pardon?
Pardon me. I'm learning and, you know, I'll work
with all the guests and we'll all learn together.
Jigijigi o see fa tu.
translates to a firmly rooted plant cannot be uprooted.
You can find us
on Twitter and Instagram.
usernames at the same j i g pod
jig pod and
there's a link description there's a link in the description below
for our URL.
Medase
Medase
Medase Pa means thank you in twi or Adupe O, in Yoruba
peace
Transcribed by https://otter.ai