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Silver Sprung – JP019

Silver Sprung, or Jon, is one of the first friends with whom I could get really heavy into plants. We get kinda silly. We ramble a bit, there is a lot of information covered in this episode. It’s kinda EsoTerric.

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Transcript (automated)

MO 0:01
I am Mason Olonade and this is Jigijigi Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul. And we share strategies for how to do both. To do both, we asked two questions. How do you grow while you grow kale, collards, tomatoes and melons? And what do you think the healthiest soils are black?

It’s been a long time coming with.

Slammin! With Jon.

I met Jon, during studies at university. We met because we were the only black folks that cared about bikes at that point in time. These real bikes ,

SS 0:45
as far as we knew,

MO 0:46
yeah, as far as we knew, and then so I introduced myself to Jon at outside of Taco Bell. And then next the next semester we had class together, and then we just kept hanging out. Then, maybe a couple years later, I was like, Jon, I love these peppers that I’m growing. I want to talk about plants. And you know, like, you know, I’m there. And so I remember distinctly because we went to Florida Avenue grill, and I was like, I want to talk to you about some plans I had going on. And then we never really talked about that. But I think we’re both very excited as we are. Yeah. Now to continue talking about plans. So sure, welcome.

SS 1:29
Glad to be here. I’m excited. We’re sitting here in the table. We got a candle going we got a radio here we got this little elephant humidifier so we keep our cool. Oh,we keep our vocal cords lubricated. Nice, moist, huh? I am very happy to be here Mason. Thanks for having me on.

MO 1:52
It’s a pleasure. reciprocal pleasure. When did you first realize you were supposed to have your hands in the soil

SS 2:02
My mother is an avid gardener. So I grew up with being a gardeners helper since I was in third grade, something like that. And so I grew up in South silver sprung. Get it right, get it tight. I grew up next to SSI and my mom has a nice backyard kind of like Crescent garden and she was determined to sink all of her free time into it. So that’s how I got to learn about not necessarily soil but more of the like architecture of a garden. And then you know, the science and the kind of like necessity for black soil became more apparent As, as I as I got older. And then I started, you know, learning from that when I was in university and then I started doing arborist work and tree work.

MO 3:02
Do you still have all Your certs?

SS 3:03
Yeah. So my certs I’m going to get recertified in TRAQ tree risk assessment in March.

MO 3:10
I was I was I was hoping that he kept that up. I wasn’t sure if he like,

SS 3:15
you got to keep that up.

MO 3:16
That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, I didn’t know. You know, like, as I was like his Jon still taking CEUs and oh, that’s, that’s so dope. Yeah. That’s so dope. I remember. Going anywhere, sending you snapchats of Trees. And you’re responding back with the exact thing. Yeah. So dope. Yeah. And I tell people about that day.

SS 3:38
Yeah. You sent me that picture that time around the Walker. What is that? 15th. And U ? Yeah, Deodar cedar Yes, it’s still there. Right. I’m actually surprised that it’s still there. It was 2013. He took that picture, but I’m really surprised. No, I

MO 3:51
took a picture recently. You did. Yeah, it doesn’t 2013 Nononono. The reason why I brought it up was because we walked there and you were like this Like my favorite, that’s my favorite tree in the city. And so when I passed by it, I was like, Wait, am I I near that tree that john was talking about?

SS 4:07
Yeah, I saw the, like, last weekend. And I was like, ah hands my chest looking at like, no, no. Yeah, very proud of something. I had nothing to do with this. Yeah.

MO 4:23
I mean, you know, it’s a lot of people talk about that with DC about how lace my friend talked about it. He went to Berkelee, in Boston, and there are no trees in the city. So he came back from Berkelee on the train. And then he was talking about how once he got into Maryland, like this, he was on acid, but he came back. That’s cool. Yeah. And then he was talking about once he got into Maryland, everything got so green, and then the sun came out. He was just like, oh my god. You know, I hadn’t Hadn’t you know, just hadn’t really seen that and being I mean in DC has a whole lot of trees you know, Casey trees mapped out every tree every public tree, which is crazy. Yeah. Because there’s a ton of trees out here

SS 5:14
tree city USA. You got that designation

MO 5:17
until you go to Savannah though man because they have like 300 year old trees in Savannah. That’s true that Candler oak I was just they’re amazing.

SS 5:27
Yeah, we don’t really preserve things like that here.

MO 5:29
There’s like, they that Candler oak had, what was it? The bark, you know, the grooves in the burger, so, like, deep Yeah, that like moss and lichen would grow on the bark, which would then they would, you know, build up that layer. Right. Then there was Fern growing in the moss and lichen on the tree. Then there’s Spanish moss hanging from the tree. On the underside of, of the trees then there’s like different fungi growing on the tree. This whole doesn’t that that particular tree is 300 year over 300 years old. That’s what they estimated

SS 6:18
Calder oak?

MO 6:19
Candler Candler. It’s amazing. And so and then, you know, in down there like, um, I mean, yeah, exactly. We’re driving by it at night. And I said, I said to Nina, I was like, Oh my God look at so we stopped

SS 6:36
I’m sure this thing has so many cables in it.

MO 6:38
It does. But that’s something that I didn’t know. And so I’m gonna Yeah, I’m glad that you brought that up. Because when I saw that I thought about you because I was like, the type of math that has to be done to like, have this work.

SS 6:53
Yes, yes. I’m sure some tree company or several tree companies get paid so much money to keep this thing alive.

MO 6:59
Yeah, they started Whole nonprofit just for that one tree. Yeah, it’s a I think it’s like Savannahtree.com is the the name of the foundation. Wow. It’s an amazing tree. But But the thing is, is that this is the oldest one because right across the street is born Science Park where they have tons of like, like Southern live looks like that. I thought that the one that I really want to see the angel oak in Johnson, john Johnstown Island in Charleston. Have you seen that? Yeah, you’ve seen it in person?

SS 7:30
Yeah. It’s gorgeous.

MO 7:35
I really want to take a squat pic in that tree

SS 7:40
the PG?

MO 7:41
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, does that trees I mean, even like they, they? It’s just amazing. Mm hmm. And they don’t grow like that here is

SS 7:54
I really don’t. I mean, I don’t

MO 7:56
I don’t even understand why they grow like that in the first place. But

SS 7:58
yeah, that’s that’s the real Question. I don’t know. But I know we don’t have much like that around this area. There are some pretty good places to see some pretty good trees in terms of the size but nothing nothing like that. I mean Arboretum has a few there’s a lot of up and down like the C&O of the Potomac. But like the further like Southwest you go, you’re gonna get not that big a tree.

MO 8:22
Yeah, Southwest?

SS 8:25
or you go to Virginia, or like parts of the Blue Ridge.

MO 8:31
This is, you know, like Rodale and acres USA and stuff like that. And one of the dudes that sort of, was the founder of that sort of school of thought is a professor from the University of Missouri, I think, Albert early. He talked about the United States and it’s Specific like geography and how like basically savannas and plains and stuff like that are like the highest form of fertile ground. And that places like the East Coast like where we are, which is like dense forest is not really all that good suited for growing because there’s too much too much rain. So it just leeches all the nutrients and basically only so trees can get them. I was like, I don’t know why I took that it was like offensive to me. The first time I read it, because I was like, but this is all this stuff. Everybody’s talking about trees and all that sort of stuff. It’s like, but I guess it does make sense

SS 9:44
that the soil itself wouldn’t be that nutritious. Yeah, yeah. Apparently like the Amazon rainforest soil. Isn’t that great? Because it’s the rain so much right? And there’s just so much other stuff living in it. It just everything leaches us right out. Yeah, into the Amazon,

MO 10:01
which I wouldn’t have ever thought you know, and then being in the learning these things about especially because, I mean, they’re no is hard to do urban notill or even small farm no till, I guess. So all these things are just corn, wheat, soybeans, podcasts and stuff like that. Yeah, about it and you actually learned about the carbon load that grass can take in, which is just orders of magnitude better than trees. It’s just so much more efficient way, you know, and that that was that same thing was like, we just need to be like, planting grass everywhere, not mean certain types of grasses of grasses and then having animals to eat that and pooping, you know, do that same sort of thing. Because because then I was just like, why is everybody talking about trees?

SS 10:52
It’s good question. They do serve as like a nice carbon sink and it’s kind of, Human centric and that they kind of serve as a way of kind of like making a place itself. Like East Coast wouldn’t be itself without trees. Right, right. You’re not gonna scorched earth that. Yeah, I dunno.

MO 11:15
I mean, I don’t I mean, I’m not the agricultural historian that would know that kind of thing about why it’s like that. What are the economics behind something like that? Like, why why trees and stuff like that? I think it because it’s not even faster they don’t need thebecause like corn and regular C4 things will sequester so much carbon so much faster than any tree if it survives, you know?

SS 11:41
Yeah, I mean, the trees definitely on a different timescale altogether. That’s been any grass. It’s absolutely true. I don’t know, like a medium lived tree lives up to what, like 40 years, right, you know, and that time I don’t really know it’s kind of like carbon sequestration rate. Do know that it’s slightly better for the soil in terms of slowing water down? Yeah, I mean, depending on how thick the grass is rain could just hit it. Just slide right off. That’s true. That’s true. I don’t know, I really don’t know the answer to the Carbon the trees taken versus how much grasses do or like why they’re better or why the soil is so dark and nutritious in like Iowa or Kansas or like, again, Texas of some places, all those plains states that have that sort of kind of deep layer of like just humus. There’s definitely had to be definitely and maybe because of soil is like the long game of everything, right. I mean, in the mycelial network, they know that is the easiest thing to do for them to break down things that die and mix it up into the soil, but we’re talking about in terms of timescales, like glacial No. Yeah, so pretty sure there used to be like a rain forest. They’re like a temperate like wetland, or like a temperate rainforest where Iowa used to be. Ours, Iowa is but like there was a reinforce there and you know that broke down ended up giving that please. Actually, let me look up the history of Iowa. make me nervous.

MO 13:24
Do you think man, I it’s, um, from that, I guess his statement sort of challenged me because it’s like, does that mean that forests are then on their way to becoming grasslands? And it’s sort of Earth time? No. Okay.

SS 13:45
I mean, the lessons mean, look what’s going on in Brazil, they’re definitely burning down the forest and making it the grassland for pasture for cows. You know, unless you like burn it down.

MO 13:54
Well, like so like we were talking about later talking about Hugelkultur. Yeah, earlier, right. Yeah, but that’s this. We’re doing it burying a tree. Yeah. And so that’s what I’m saying. Like, could if there’s was a forest thing, you know, so many trees grow on the span of like what the time is like for Earth, like so many trees grow and fall down then this provides this matrix of carbon and long chain carbohydrates, right, like cellulose and all that other stuff, which then becomes the next carbon for every next thing, right? I mean, that’s what a human culture does. And so I’m saying is that are these are these coastal sort of things that are just after these temporary regions? Whatever? Are they the future cubicle culture for? Whatever the earth is going through? If I mean, that’s hard to do, because if humans were removed from the equation, I think, I don’t know.

SS 14:46
I don’t know. Like, is that like a linear timeline? Is that what’s gonna go on to like every kind of temperate forest that’s what I’m saying? Then everything that happens in like the prairies is is gonna turn to a desert but then what does the desert turn into if that’s like the late stage of Whatever

MO 15:00
I mean, I guess at that time, then there would have to be a polar shift or, you know, the, you know, you know, something like that because, I mean, it’s like the Sahara was the sort of oasis.

SS 15:12
And then all this has to do with the state of climate change. So what do you think is going to happen to like the Mid Atlantic and no places further south? I think I have no idea might get wetter. If it does, then a lot of this is gonna happen. A lot of the trees are gonna go down and create a massive swamp, anaerobic environment. I mean, I feel

MO 15:32
like I mean, especially this place, I mean, it already feels like that despite how much stuff is not there’s I mean, I would imagine that there’s not much swamp land left in this area. No, but it still feels like swamp land. Everywhere. Yes. area. And so you know, I

SS 15:51
You can smell it and feel it in the air of the stagnant in mosquitoes were there

MO 15:56
Yeah. Like even what when the my plot that wasn’t far away from here. Just because people have like overgrown weeds that’s where all the mosquitoes are, you know is this is the Virginia creeper. kudzu is enough on its own then you put honeysuckle on top of that. It’s like, you know, it’s never it’s never drying out under there. No,

SS 16:20
he’s ever gonna see light ever,

MO 16:21
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So and that’s where all the mosquitoes were, you know, in somebody’s yard. And so it’s like this place has to turn back in I mean it’s constantly turning back into that like I think Hmm So I don’t know what I don’t know what it looks like next for that or if it just becomes wider until the zones change and then just becomes the next thing but I guess I’m more I don’t know what the I don’t know what the proper or geological time is what I guess I’m referring

SS 16:51
Yeah, that’s definitely not on a human time scale. Right? I would say we can try what we can I mean, doing obviously different if we’re talking about agriculture And are you talking about like just figuring out what was going to happen if we were to fell trees? Like writ large?

MO 17:13
Oh, no, I’m not saying that because I don’t think it’s not Is this what I’m talking about is without our involvement. I mean, I mean,

SS 17:21
there’s no way for me to know

MO 17:23
Yeah, no, no, I mean, I’m just we’re just speculating at this point and goes way further off the topic of this podcast But I, you know, I guess I’m trying to bring it back to soil over and over again! But what I guess what I’m saying is, is that I mean, we see what it does for like in Rock Creek Park, me being able to start a fine oyster mushrooms because it rained a whole lot in the early spring, and a lot of trees came down and oyster mushrooms for colonizing. I could see oyster my

What trees are those usually?

was dead tree? I don’t know, you would know, you look at the bark and tell me, but I wouldn’t know. Yeah. I mean, ideally, you know I would want to get to that that point in time without putting the expedited work that you put into it to get your arborist license.

I’m just like

SS 18:24
I would assume that

MO 18:25
they can colonize anything though

SS 18:26
Yeah, no, we’re just talking about trees turning into being degraded by the mycelial network doing their job. And the different I don’t know by microorganisms and soil for that to break down into soil in terms of like a massive, hugelkultur. I don’t know if that would even really be usable soil for a while, you know? Because like, what’s the what’s the like, I mean,

MO 18:53
because food wouldn’t be growing like in the same way that we do it. So yeah, but I don’t know what you get. Like we’ve talked about I don’t know what was wrong on this yeah I don’t like I don’t know what was going on in in the plains I don’t know what’s going on in the Savannah prior to it becoming I mean even

SS 19:09
the eastern shore I’m sure a lot of that was all forest

MO 19:14
Yeah, absolutely it was all forest yeah the chickens weren’t there then it will be no agriculture over there because it’s not like that because all the all the all the chickens provide all the phosphorus for every all of that. Yeah. I think this is like the only place where the government is like, don’t put phosphorus in the ground. No, but everywhere else. everybody’s like, we need to figure out how to get phosphorus and I’m like, Oh, it’s never been a problem.

SS 19:39
Delmarva peninsula It could be like on something. Yeah. Lemme just sell this phosphorous to all these people,

MO 19:46
yeah. So what against have recently because you’re out here in the in the city. What’s the most fun plant? He’s gone in a while.

SS 20:02
Most fun plant I’ve grown.

MO 20:03
Yeah.

SS 20:06
Most fun plant I grew was a quinine plant a wild quinine plant.

MO 20:14
The ones that we saw this. I saw that this summer, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, that’s right. You still had this garden i’m trippin.

SS 20:22
So the first time I’ve ever seen one went to Behnke’s RIP and got some native plants for our garden in the back that we kind of excavated a lot of cinder blocks and like, like construction debris, Yeah, a little likelittle area in our back. Put some bagged soil on there. Mix it all up, put some quinine in there, and I’ve never seen a quinine plant before. It’s just kind of like thick stalkk, very thick stalk and it has a really bulbous top for the heavy head and it seems like it’s carrion pollinated because there was never any bees never any butterflies never anything like that on it. It was only flies like little fruit flies around. It didn’t really smell at all. But the fact that this bulbous carrion headed thing got so tall. I would say it was about four and a half five feet. What? Yeah, they got tall. Like this got taller. And like, just the fact that they could be that strong. I could see it swaying in the wind.

Yeah, stood up.Yeah, just to this point ever see? yeah, I don’t even I mean, I don’t know. You can put quinine in soda water. tonic water. I’m actually never really thought to do it with that, because some of the care is really pretty regardless. I mean, you don’t need it. You don’t need it, because you don’t really know. Exactly. But I think you could also if you intersperse those with like, with some flowers that are about the same height, I feel like that look extremely Beautiful because they were like, big, like their big white like was a big kind of like cauliflower looking cone that had a whole bunch of little white flowers on it. Yeah. And it lasts for a while, like the bloom is there for like two weeks. So that’s what’s up. Yeah, just a whole

MO 22:16
It must shot out a bunch of seeds or whatever, right?

SS 22:18
That really kinda is rice after a while like a sunflower. It doesn’t really make seeds though. But it just kind of just boo. It’s gray and brown like keels over. But it was good until some kind of like raccoon or something started shitting in there shitting in our plot, and then it got ugly. But regardless, we’re going to do that again this year for sure. I haven’t planted a tree in a long time. I feel pretty bad about that.

MO 22:44
Really?

SS 22:45
Yeah. I don’t think I plant a tree since 2016.

MO 22:51
I mean, that’s what you’re going for though. So you probably be playing a whole bunch of trees

SS 22:57
I should be doing this just for fun though. It’s expensive. If I want to go out and do some kind of like the vigilante tree planting, but

MO 23:05
I’m growing to mulberry completely by accident,

SS 23:08
which was like a white one.

MO 23:12
Just so remember I did that dyeing of the shirts and stuff like that. Yeah. So you know, I boiled all the all the mulberries, and then it just, you know, gave me all those seeds. And I threw those. I threw all that boiled stuff on my compost, all the pressed stuff on my compost, and then one of them came up. So, yeah, it’s really important. It’s growing in I have a much like a compost bin. Compost Bin. And so it’s growing in there. Yeah. And it hasn’t I thought it was gonna break through the the bottom but it’s just completely self contained. So it’s got its own pot.

SS 23:47
Are you going to just leave it at where that is? You’re gonna put it somewhere else.

MO 23:53
Well, eventually, I’ve imagined that the soil needs to be changed out at some point

SS 23:59
Trying to harvest mulberry?

MO 24:02
Yeah, I mean me and my dad grew up when I was when I was growing up my dad, my dad, you know, he, like we would go out and you know, he’d go pick them and eat them and stuff like that. That was before I developed my allergy towards all those sorts of things. But it was still really cool to have them and then obviously to figure out that you could dye stuff with it was really dope.

SS 24:27
Have you ever dyed anything with onion skins? Yeah, makes it really yellow. It’s like the lampshade yellow. Wow, it’s pretty tight. Yeah, the wreath is outside that has a little ribbon on it. You can see what it looks like. Okay, yeah, yeah, I’m

MO 24:40
like the thing that was most disappointing about the natural dyeing is that like reds don’t work.

SS 24:46
No, you need chemical for that for it to be like, pop!

MO 24:49
I know cuz that like when I had died and stuff, put that in the high mulberry juice, mulberry and alum juice.

SS 24:58
Did you get that like the fixer. That you dip the shirts in and it’s like the stuff that you put in when you’re about to tie dye shirt. Yeah, use that.

MO 25:05
Yeah. Okay. Yeah as an alum. Oh that was no that was mordant I chose right. I couldve chosen different ones but you know, whatever. The color that it was when it was hot, it was so beautiful. It was just like the most fuchsia thing I’d ever seen.

SS 25:24
Did I show you you my tiedye? The one that you’re wearing no, the purple one needed.

MO 25:33
I mean, if you have a picture maybe we can use that for the picture you had to find a picture of you in this time so that people can can know it when it’s like out here in the woods. In the street in podcast land.

SS 25:46
This was probably the first came out and looks amazing already insides wool but the outsides cotton why kind of dyed it differently. The insides wall inside wall and look how poppin it still is Sheesh. I’m doing this again.

MO 26:00
What did you do this? And then what’s Like what? What did you do last year? What colors? I want you this is.

SS 26:05
This is rit dye though. Wow, where’d you get the shirt from this ? it’s a one of the better t shirts. Yeah. Also you start browning out white stuff because you sweat too much tie new life. New Life.

MO 26:25
Well, that’s the thing is that I had one shirt that was tie dye and it was purple. And you know, I’d brown it all the way out. And so it’s like, definitely time for we die.

SS 26:37
That’s what happened to this white shirt. got brown tie dyed it and now the tie dye is browning out.

MO 26:42
Yes, yeah. So you know, it’s, I guess, because at first I was when I had that one. I was just like, Oh, this is the best thing. That’s it because it had this really dope gradient from red to purple. Because of when it like how it dried and then everything sunk to the ground. Everything. Yo, it was so cool. And then I took it out the door like a month later it was all one shade of purple. like, yo, it should have been, but like where my armpits were and that that changed the color and that sort of like brightened it up I guess because of the acidity Yeah. I guess or the salty probably just the chemical. It’s salt itself.

SS 27:24
You gotta meet Ann she’s like Natalie’s friend. She’s like natural dye guru.

MO 27:29
Yeah, yeah. Cuz I mean it’s a if you find something that I guess that’s really good then I just keep redyeing it like, you know, a particular combination that I’ve seen when I was really into that people were dyeing some of them lichen and stuff to

SS 27:47
what Yeah, sure. You could die things with a whole bunch I don’t even know about Yeah,

MO 27:50
yeah. I mean, you just have to redo it. So I mean, this is like, you know, people dying like yarn and stuff like that. Like sweaters and stuff from Yeah, but the like in summer is really cool because there’s a Basically the same that they the same color, they look at like a pale gray green. Mm hmm. It would, you know, turn your yarn that same color.

SS 28:09
I’m looking at the soil history of Iowa right now. And let’s see here and the changes in its composition over the last 50 years.

MO 28:24
last 50 years?

SS 28:26
yes, what this is saying 50 years of agricultural soil, but that doesn’t really pertain to our glacial history of our glaciers, glacial context of Iowa soils.

MO 28:40
So, john, how have you grown while you while growing all that you’ve got growing on? How is your well being improved being in the soil?

SS 28:53
being in a cell, it’s improved exponentially. I feel pretty at home. I’m in the soil, or on a bike. And I’ve made my livings out of both of those things. And I kind of love it at this point.

I figure having my hands in the soil and kind of dealing with I guess, plant material makes me feel the best. When I’m actually doing it. It seems like for me personally, it’s very, very rewarding to actually see a fruit of your labor. Yeah, we get to do it every day. It’s great. So I’m trying to kind of make my life into something that I actually wanted to do.

And I figure trees what trees do do that grasses don’t is produce oxygen at a higher rate. That’s real. That is real and it provides shade and that shit isn’t like high demand and places like the washington dc metropolitan area, right? And I figure whenever you look at a nice tree, it’s nicely composed, you can see that it’s pruned. You might not think that it’s been pruned, but it’s still aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Yeah, yeah. We are tree city USA.

MO 30:21
In the Master Gardener class they are the dude from the I read have talked about that a whole I had not even understood how important that trees habit is understanding what a tree really is, and what it looks like. The difference between a form kotappa and an open field versus the one that’s behind that yellow house near like, 930 Club. Yeah, it’s like, Whoa, this tree is immense. Yeah.

SS 30:50
Looks like some sort of like, like grim fairy tales kind of shit. Like some kind of like medieval, like, a kebab crane. Kind of like scraggly thing that’s massive and has big elephant leaves. And right now is January right now, it’s the best time to look at a tree for its form. You’re like, okay, that needs to be cut. This needs to be good. We want to train it this way. And it’s a constant kind of like slow art. Yeah. to it. Yeah. It’s constantly improving, constantly changing in ways that you might think. Maybe ways you might not think. I don’t know. It’s another nice add, since we’ve seen that movie, the fantastic Phone Guy. Right. And they’re alluding to some scientists were alluding to the fact that the mycelial network has actually proven that trees feel things. Yeah. That they’re obviously living beings but living beings with emotion and sensory stimuli. Yeah, two different things. So it’s a that makes me like them even more. They’re almost like a pet that can’t speak English. Or language. Yeah, but yeah,There is like a jellyfish

MO 32:05
Yeah, I’m sure the jellyfish in the tree speak the same language

SS 32:10
Who are we to know?

MO 32:12
I’m not an expert. The I put this on a previous episode but the during one of the tours during the Master Gardener class the gardeners was talking about Holly trees. All right told you this downstairs right? Yeah, so tell everybody on the podcast when the trees are heavily buried in the be rr ie D in the fall, then that means it’s going to be an especially tough winter. There was a link in in the podcast or in the notes but I don’t remember the exact name of the podcast now but I sent it to a friend not too long ago. That was talking that went into in depth about how trees talk to one another and then they’re different sort of things based on all this research is coming out of Europe where they’re like, I didn’t realize how different science is in different countries.

SS 33:17
Like, oh, government Funding is thrown around for different projects?

MO 33:22
Yeah. And like the like the ideologies of science are different. Like just being at Maryland and a plant science it seems it’s just very, like let’s focus on this one protein and do this this thing, but they have different like, behavioral things apply to plants. That’s weird out there. I don’t care. You know, maybe I’m coming under the elephant’shumidity for my voice.

But one of the things he talked about is related to the holidays was that about how trees are always playing around with when to defoliate in the fall, that is Like, if I do this too early, I might freeze too early. And then if I but then there’s an app, but if I do it too late, then I don’t reabsorb a lot of this like food that I’ve been growing for myself. Yeah. Because I was just like,

SS 34:13
it’s probably quite a gamble they make with depending on like, how much water they have is when

MO 34:19
Yeah. It’s so you know, but then but then it’s even crazy to know that though, you know that the, the, I guess the mycelial network that will just like tap a rock to get silicate

SS 34:33
and then give it to the tree next to it because their survival depends on the tree survival.

MO 34:39
That’s what I wanted to tell you about. So the other day, so like I was talking about piezoelectricity. So I found a bunch of all this different stuff and it led me to this thing all about electro culture and using like elecTriCity, to assist in plant growth.

SS 34:58
Well, there’s cations everywhere. Cation exchange capacity!

MO 35:01
So that’s why I was saying because I was just looking at this ultrasound stuff. And it’s like, what if you, you know, sprayed ultrasound on plants, what would happen? And so it’s not just that there’s a whole bunch of stuff with alongside that. That’s not what I’m going to talk about today. But I saw this thing that prior to World War One, people were using trees as antennas

SS 35:26
like a potato antenna, but in the tree, but

MO 35:29
yeah, so they were setting up like mesh networks for receiving like am frequencies by tapping like for like three quarters of the way up the tree, they would attach this they would attach to the receiving antenna. And then these trees like in full foliage would then just pick up that stuff. And it’s like, and then you can use the electricity in the tree to power, the radio and all this stuff. It’s like, what I saw a picture of it. I’ll put in the show notes, too. was like,

SS 36:00
I love it. I love it. I love it so much.

MO 36:07
So it’s like, Man, you can just really just hammer these things into the minute. They were one of the things was talking about how, you know, they’re seeing seems to be a significant difference between for needles, or for like nails in it, you know, for copper nails in a tree by six button. Like, there’s no difference between 40 and 66 nails in a tree with you know, with your receiving thing, and then you’ve grounded in the ground. Yeah, just you know, then it’s like, and then you hook this thing up, I assume that you’d have to have an amplifier or something like yeah, of course, but it works still. And then you know, and those sorts of things. It’s like you can’t even you can’t you couldn’t necessarily sense that or provide against that if in a military capacity if you had this sort of thing set up because There’s another thing about how nobody can hear ultrasound anyway. So you can put these sensors up everywhere to set up this like Internet of Things fence.Yeah. Without

SS 37:13
The forest is your security.

MO 37:14
Exactly. That’s crazy. And then because it’s like ultrasound, it doesn’t need that much of lectures, you can just use the trees, electricity,

SS 37:23
and then circle back the signal at them.

MO 37:26
Right. You know, and then you know, because you know, a dog is helpful in the immediate vicinity. But what if you had people like you had these things progressively out there? Mm hmm. Yep. All right. Why do you think the healthy Oh, sorry, sorry. Sorry. Wait,

SS 37:44
they’re incredible!

MO 37:45
Yeah, I mean, so I’m gonna send you that kind of stuff. We had to have you back on here later. Yeah. Then get your your full like arborist sort of opinion about some of this stuff? Because the it’s a whole different type of science.

SS 37:58
Yeah. It’s a slower science

MO 38:02
even I read this one thing that is talking about. Yeah, is this is way past the scope of the podcast, but like how water moves up trees because gravity can’t push water up trees. And then there’s not enough x internal force on water where the capillaries are so small, actually is Yeah, that doesn’t that’s not enough because water is heavier than so this guy had this sort of whole thing about the charge field about ether or whatever. And that that once those things get small enough, basically it’s the same, same thing as how like a spider can float, that it spreads itself out like this. And what it does is it catches these ions floating up from Earth and moving it like that. So they The capillaries basically get small enough to be able to have water way less than the charge fields buoyancy and it pushes it up the tree.

SS 39:15
alien technology

MO 39:17
right here at home,

SS 39:18
right here.

MO 39:19
So I mean, it’s, it’s interesting. I’m not the physicist, but it’s like

SS 39:27
These trees had to survive and kind of self selected.

MO 39:31
It makes. That makes more sense to me then capillary action does especially for those huge trees that are 300 feet tall.

SS 39:38
Yeah. Like how could this possibly work? Yeah. Well, uh, it all has to do with like, you know, cation capacity and like the chemistry of soil. That was also inside of trees that’s also inside of mycelia. No getting charged all through the tree and I I don’t know really how to explain it because I’m also not the physicist, but I know that they’re incredible. I know you want to have me on here to have my Suzanne’s about these subjects because I’m an arborist, but I’m also like, I don’t know what to say about that. This is us blew my mind with that. I didn’t know that. I thought it was just, you know, under the capitalist, it gets so small that the weight of the water itself was like, Well, I

MO 40:28
mean, that’s like, yeah, I mean, that’s what they say. I’m just saying this is this is something that I’ve read. I don’t know this to be true. It just makes a little bit more sense. It’s probably, to me that makes sense to me too. So it’s just like, Whoa, dude. And so then it’s like because we all know that there’s it’s not just air that I’m moving around my hands when I do this. It’s not you know, there’s obviously something more here because how can the air hat like, have light like when you before thunderstorm and it turns kind of your after a thunderstorm it turns kind of green. Yes. It’s like everything is just like okay, so it’s just this is just like it’s it’s hard to think about that there’s always stuff here

SS 41:11
or there’s hazy sunlight.

MO 41:13
hazy sunlight?

SS 41:15
you know you there’s some of those days where it’s kind of humid, which is probably in this water vapor right here, right? Um, yeah, if there’s water vapor in the air, there’s other things in there,

MO 41:23
right? And it’s not just that it’s the elements that we know either and, and so it’s thinking about I guess even spacing that degree as a like a vacuum doesn’t make sense. I think it’s definitely less the less the least things are the least close. Right? That’s what like a vacuum is right? Yeah. So that makes sense that your everything will be taken away from you so quickly, like what a vacuum is, but for there to be these sort of gravitational relations between things. has to be something in between that facilitates the poll. It just can’t. To me just it’s sort of weird to just say it’s just mass. No, I mean, I haven’t I’ve only taken physics to and slept through most of it. So that’s what I understand it to be, you know, they mean Yeah, it’s just like mass. But isn’t. Isn’t there something in between these things because the photons are traveling through somewhere doesn’t make sense for it to be a vacuum, how the house would like get to us? Yeah, it wasn’t traveling through something,

SS 42:29
a substrate of some sort that’s constantly full of other ions of some sort.

MO 42:33
Right? And these have to be the most base thing just like they say is inside of the you know, if even if it’s a Higgs boson or whatever, then when that works, right, and you know, and then the thing is that the spins and all that other stuff that’s

in a territory *gibberish8

SS 42:50
I can’t contribute

MO 42:53
Well ask you the next question for you to contribute.

SS 42:56
Let’s do this.

MO 42:57
What do you think the healthiest soils are black?

SS 43:14
Because isn’t the presence of all colors, the presence of everything is black. Everything is in the soil. That’s why everything can grow from it. Without it, we wouldn’t have anything. Right? It’s like, feel like it represents both the void and the kind of like all encompassing everything. Because like the deepest space is black. The Black is soil like has the key to everything is black. It’s almost like a living history of whatever place that you’re in, maybe even the earth itself contains everything that is dead and everything that could be all in one thing. It’s like I don’t know I don’t know that color that represents black. To me. Um, yeah. I want to go with that. Okay. I feel like that’s the right.

MO 44:18
I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s completely your answer so that I get, I come up with the question and then I understood my own context for asking the question. So, as a scientist, I see a lot of conflation between how and why. So, because I don’t think that well, meaning Why Why is my throat tight every time I go talk to shorty? Right? Somebody may tell you how in the musculature of what’s going on, but you may know why. Right? There’s live and it’s a patient, all this sort of stuff, right? And that but that’s also like it for other ailments. That is like, you know, my, you know, I, I hold this up my whole my shoulders up like this because I feel smaller than I am, which produces this little crick in my shoulder that I always have to work on. But if I asked my if I asked a massage therapist about why she’s going to tell me how this is, you know what I mean? Yeah. And so what I’m saying is, is with the why question. I try and hit that use so much because it doesn’t matter what’s right. I’m asking you about the why of why the healthiest soils are black, as opposed to being red. Suppose being yellow as opposed to being white.

So, I mean, you answered the way

SS 45:42
Yeah. As opposed to being red or white. I mean, depends. You can grow things of red soil.

MO 45:48
Of course, the Alabama plan is very clean. Freddie Hubbard

SS 45:51
Yeah, you can grow things white soil, Tuscany.

MO 45:54
Man, Aruba. Yeah, I should. I should I’ve ever shut up should know the sea grapes. Maybe With a tree,

SS 46:01
I I’ve had a sea grape

MO 46:03
yet nothing is growing in the sand.

SS 46:06
Yeah, it’s tapping down, man. I don’t know how I don’t know what

planet Earth.

MO 46:13
That’s what I’m saying. And it’s got Eagle leaves like a fig

SS 46:18
kitchen all of a sudden, it needs energy to move through the sand because that shit is not easy. That’s what I’m saying.

MO 46:23
Well,

SS 46:24
yeah, it kind of is, but it is like, there’s like other nutrients inside Sam.

MO 46:29
And now without the mycelium network, that’s what they tell us. Yeah, you know, because otherwise it’s just silicon dioxide, right?

Yeah. And it’s just like big ass pours.

Yeah, exactly. I don’t know. But it was I mean, going going there was crazy for the sort of botanical things ever because I didn’t expect it

SS 46:48
to last I was Did you see like fields of things and do

MO 46:52
a reveal. It’s like Arizona. Really?

SS 46:55
Yes. Like red desert. Like I was like, no, not

MO 46:59
read this. But in terms of like his blushes and cacti,

SS 47:03
oh, so it’s like an area in Ireland.

MO 47:05
Yeah. It’s weird. It’s weird, not what I thought the Caribbean would be.

SS 47:10
Oh, well, Caribbean I guess is

MO 47:12
very different. I mean, but that’s because it’s like

SS 47:14
a lot of the caribbean

MO 47:15
Yeah.

SS 47:17
Florida is the Caribbean, Florida’s North North Caribbean. Yes. Make sense?

MO 47:23
I guess what I mean, we expected it to be like, look like something like Bahamas, Jamaica, Puerto Rico. And then we got off the train off the off the plane. And yeah, there were these trees called the Divi Divi tree that were like gnarled and shaped like, I don’t know how to even describe this like, it’s like a sea growing out of the ground. The letter Z or sometimes like an S, like because of how fast the wind can get out there. When they have they have little leaves that are like This big, all right, the last digit of your pinky, and there are 1000 of them on this tree. And they just form this like, you know, like, like, like what? Like an acacia tree looks like yeah, right how it’s got that very dense canopy all the way up top. Imagine that like if somebody like punched in the stomach and it bent over like that, that’s what it because of the wind. Yeah. And so it just grows like every year. You know, it’s just like, we just bends over like that.

Do you believe that we have a special relationship with the soil? If so, how do we potentiate it if it is to be potentiated?

SS 48:43
we

MO 48:44
Black folks

SS 48:47
have a special relationship with oil.

Do you feel that there’s a relationship between black the skin and black the soil

MO 48:57
I mean that’s what i mean i to be as goofy as I can be I often saying there’s no such thing as coincidence. There’s only co-incidents Hey

SS 49:19
So,

MO 49:20
um, I mean but it’s it’s it’s not just it’s not just mean like the cosmology of ancient Egypt ancient Kemet says the same thing that the Bible says which is man was made from clay. Right. Yeah, another, so another, somebody else will reference that. And so

it’s I mean, it’s weird because in some what am I trying to say? We’ve also described ourselves as thus. right people from the mountains described himself as a mountain people right? And so like in

like in Ghana in the Asante name for Africa is Abibiman is black land. Right. People have thought there was a conjecture earlier about ancient Egypt. Kemet being named a black land volume we’re talking about about terminators earlier. But the proper determinate doesn’t necessarily mean the black land. It means more of the fertile land. And we’re than happy hoppy or the novel is running through. Yeah. It’s interesting. So I alleged so I’m but obviously every human being has their own thing. Mm hmm.

But this is not about me. This is about you.

SS 50:55
Do I think we have a special relationship with the soul. I feel that If you let yourself go towards, I guess that kind of opening up yourself to that kind of experience where you’re like, hey, one day, I’m going to start a garden, even if that’s starting plants in your house, and a house plant capacity and kind of just growing from there and go into the backyard, and then from that you’re kind of learning bit by bit by bit and it keeps coming back to you. And I feel like it’s a deep, I guess, memory that we all have that this is kind of where we need to be, I think, if ever anyone kind of picks up a trial or puts their hand and so they’re going to end up liking it. So I actually can say anyone, but I don’t I can’t really attest to us having a special relationship, but I have seen more often than not us being the people with the relationship. You know, that are like Guess I would say inherently good at it without many missteps. Yeah, yeah. I guess you can call it a talent.

MO 52:09
I mean, that’s a I mean, that’s that’s sort of what we’re talking about. I mean, I guess I My position is one from a sort of more innateness.

SS 52:18
If that’s the question that yes, I think we are more in a more in depth.

MO 52:23
Okay. That is a question. Yeah. Yeah. And so, do you believe that that is something to be potentially aided? Yes. How do you how do you think that we achieve that?

Meaning the innateness the inherency

SS 52:44
if I must start at a young age, I mean, if it becomes a culturally thing that people value more in the future. I feel like we’re kind of going towards that now. Maybe that’s living in a bubble. I don’t know.

MO 53:03
I think the same thing, but I

SS 53:05
feel like there’s a sea change. I mean, it might not be true to everybody but to me, it feels like there’s a slovis Sure. kind of move towards just not even really full scale everybody let’s like, you know, grow a farm, right? But the consciousness of this, I guess, like people starting with like maybe eating vegan and to be vegan or vegetarian, even think about your diet, you have to think about farming. So like, even if you don’t really put your hands in the soil, you’re thinking about it. I feel like that’s already kind of one tiny step forward to getting your hands in soil. So think about it. Yeah, you know, so I feel like people are getting a little bit more conscious about just everything that could be for better for worse, but in our context, I feel like for better, yeah. Many it’s pretty cool to start a diet. I feel like it starts with diet. be intentional with thinking about what we’re putting in our bodies first, and then you can kind of look around you honestly. And I feel like a lot of people feel like a whole man saying the ship. Well, a lot of people are kind of just like with the necks down instead of the necks up.

MO 54:15
Oh yeah, no,

SS 54:19
yeah, get your head up that damn phone.

MO 54:24
One of the best days of my life is when I said to my dad

SS 54:30
Excuse me, excuse me, are you paying attention?

MO 54:35
So after I got my iPad, right, I used to have my my, you know, I was always in a damn iPad, right? Always. And so when he got his he was all up in Scrabble all the time when somebody would talk to him, Who is this one jokey thing that my mom was saying to my dad, and he, you know, whatever he could play and playing this suburban day and just not listening. But it wasn’t like And even I sense that she’s talking to you then. And then, you know, she was like, I was, you know, calling him. And he was like, Huh, he’s like, I didn’t hear you. And I was like, its’s cuz youre in that damn iPad

SS 55:16
He looked at me, so, pissed but he couldnt do anything because he was in that damn iPad

100% defeated. Yeah, exactly. So dope Yeah, but um that’s why I like you’re not really seeing your whole world you’re kind of in your own world. But I mean, I feel like that you know, can happen also at the same time as a kind of like, smaller, getting to larger awakening about plants and then ultimately soil. I feel like people think about plants first, but not necessarily the substrate that it grows and that is not just substrate. Yeah, this is good. This contains the Whole of not even human existence in time but the planetary existence in time

MO 56:07
earlier, instead of geological time, let’s talk about planetary time. Yeah.

I mean, the journey that you described was I mean, I started with the peppers but then once I got other things, virus monstera all these different things. Then I was like, wait, I should just grow my own food now. You know, it was so weird. Um, how I mean looking back on this with that because i mean you know, we have you had all these you got all these Jade’s. We just got one Jade and then these other Rosetta things. But this one is poppin though. Yeah, I ain’t got no three. I can’t do any of these guys. Me and succulents aren’t working right. Take some time. No, I don’t like that. I like my see four plans. And now that Yeah, I found those clones, Cleome, whatever. And I yeah, I was in Rock Creek Park. It’s like I can’t wait to plant those things. So dope,

SS 57:20
you gotta take me on one of your walks, man. We have to go on a walk together. We got to

MO 57:24
go on a walk.

No, but like, like in terms of the expanding consciousness, I want to run with one of those field guides to like, wow, edible or just weeds. And I was just, you know, I walked a short walk from brb to Cole Field House it’s mean nothing to anybody, but it’s like three blocks to get to my car right? at me 45 minutes and make that walk with that book. Yeah, I mean it cuz for the ones that I know and then you can read more about the habit and then like, My parents would make me look up words in the dictionary, but then I would just like when I mom was this, she was like, I don’t know, look it up or something, I’d look up the word but then get also lost in the dictionary. Yeah. And so it’s like the same thing with the field guy cuz then you see like, like buying weed, then you see field buying weed, and then you see all these different things like that and be like, Oh, that’s the thing that I remember seeing in my front yard. Back when I was in Jon’s backyard, you know, and I was just like, wow, and then you like, oh, some of these are edible. Whoa, you know? Yeah.

SS 58:36
I was gonna make extra sure that it’s like, okay, it’s not like a false version of this.

MO 58:41
That’s the that’s the higher

SS 58:44
tier of edible foraging.

MO 58:48
Yeah, that’s, I mean, that’s why I like took a picture of some perfectly looking succulent oyster mushrooms in Rock Creek Park, but I was like, I don’t know what the hell is it? it very well could be some sort of weird polypore Yeah, and that would be the end of me.

SS 59:04
Yeah. Yeah, you turn into some goofy boy.

MO 59:08
There’s that, um, that Jack-o-lantern. Um, that’s what it’s called, I guess there’s like the orange. It’s some really bright orange, mushroom or fungus. that grows, it was run on the basis entry where I used to live on Hawaii. I sent it to my friend and she identified it. So that thing has this compound called illudins, I ll, u di n, those things directly bind to your DNA. Yeah, so don’t eat that. Do not eat that. Do not eat that at all. And there’s like a whole bunch of different ones that just go and just, I think, I don’t know, I don’t think intercalate or anything like that. But they just go in there immediately and they just vomit To try and get rid of this stuff as soon as possible. And so one researcher found out a particular illusion. And he’s using that basically on cancer cells, because it just makes it so just like gone. Because it just gets into DNA and just completely interrupts Yeah, the

SS 1:00:17
hyper target just the cancer DNA, right.

MO 1:00:21
Yeah. Sick.

SS 1:00:22
that would be the be the test for that would be terrifying.

MO 1:00:26
Well, this way we got you guys, you got cell culture, you know,

SS 1:00:29
we’ll be I think for something like that. You need human trials, right? I’ve eventually I mean,

MO 1:00:33
that’s the way it Yeah, I mean, at least by 15 years, that that stuff is not speeding up.

SS 1:00:39
That’s how long it takes to do that

MO 1:00:41
takes a long time. I so you know that that GMO salmon that just came out? Yeah, like a couple years ago, whatever. The P i that I used to work for was talking about the he was in his postdoc. This guy is a chair, the department he was talking about. He was postdoc when that idea first came out. out

SS 1:01:02
what air

MO 1:01:04
he was at that time he was chair of the department, you know how long that is between postdoc and chair as long it took for that GMO salmon to come out, you know. So I mean, in that I mean, imagine that’s been extradited because of the different DEA regulations that have been going on but with the FDA and stuff like that, if you don’t have money, like Vioxx, or something like that, to get to push something really through, you know, you

SS 1:01:30
got to say seems like cancer medication would be pushed to the FDA like that.

MO 1:01:33
Yeah, because I mean, that’s where all of these fundings there so you can you can get money for that kind of stuff and have it done very quickly. And depending on how you doing, how rigorous it is that really all that stuff matters. And of course, if you can pay to do it, yeah. Our podcast is based on this yoruba proverb Jigijigi ko see fa tu, a firmly rooted plant cannot be uprooted. What is your favorite agriculture? plant related proverb?

SS 1:02:07
I had a soil science class in college, and the professor said that

there’s no such thing as dirt. Dirt is just soil out of place. So soil has its place. Wherever it naturally is, and you kind of know where that is. Yeah, dirt is just like something on your shoe that you accidentally.I don’t know why that’s profound, but it is.

MO 1:02:37
I remember I heard I’ve heard something quite similar to that. And it was paradigm shifting to the sort of, like the no, We have to refer to it as soil because the soil is alive.

SS 1:02:49
Yeah. It’s like, yeah, and dirt is like void of life.

MO 1:02:53
Right. But the best thing about dirt is that you can render it alive super quick.

SS 1:03:00
inoculate dirt.

MO 1:03:02
Yo, it’s crazy to see how quickly that stuck in turnover. One of these no-till things was talking about was that in Oklahoma they use kudzu to turn over fallow ground.

SS 1:03:17
Yeah, because it like, takes over like that.

MO 1:03:21
Yeah. And you know, it fixes nitrogen. Yeah.

SS 1:03:24
And you just leave that there for a couple years. Cut it back.

MO 1:03:26
Yeah. And then the black soil

SS 1:03:28
boom, like blacker. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it makes it easy to like when something is just like jam packing your soil full of nitrogen. Well that’s pretty much the that’s all you need. You can kind of provide other nutrients with I mean, chicken manure. Yeah. So potassium from somewhere.

MO 1:03:50
It was I think it’s I got a copy of Oh, was his book. It wasn’t Oh, it’s Weeds and why they grow Another one from acres USA. And it’s, you know, balanced balance the soil, you won’t have a weed, right?

SS 1:04:10
I mean, we’re also weeds. There’s no such thing as a weed. There’s of course, what you don’t like,

MO 1:04:14
right round right? was, I think Carver said it every weed is a flower. Mm hmm.

SS 1:04:21
It’s true. Yeah, this is depending on how you’re seeing it. It’s all about your attitude at the moment. What is a weed?

MO 1:04:27
You know, that’s why I grounded up, I’m gonna work. Maybe not this weekend, but early next week. I ground up all that holy basil because they say you know, it’s an adaptogen

SS 1:04:39
I don’t know that it was

MO 1:04:40
so as opposed to like an estrogen or androgen for testosterone. So it’s one of the it’s it basically, whatever you need more of it will become. And in a hormonal sense. adaptogen. Yes. And I just know that have you smelled Holy basi- it like fresh holy basil.

SS 1:05:01
No, I’ve only seen it like tea form. It does not smell that fragrant.

MO 1:05:06
Yeah, like, so I’m trying to make incense out of it for that same sort of adaptogenic thing. I wonder if that sort of,

SS 1:05:13
like, you can adjust it to have its effects,

MO 1:05:16
because people like will eat it and they’ll make tea out of it. And it’s and it’s cool. I mean, making fresh because holy basil. It’s probably it’s, it’s very fragrant. Like, like, like a panty would be. But the leaves themselves are that fragrant. It’s crazy.

SS 1:05:37
Like, what do you use? You’re using read you’re cutting it before flowers, right?

MO 1:05:42
I cut it after it flower. Yeah, cuz it’s that it’s not like like when men are Bazell that changes after it flowers like all plant stays. I don’t know what it tastes like. All right. Well, I do know what it tastes like but it’s not calling anything yeah, drink it for him additional tea capacity, but the fresh I’ll bring you some wall watch had one because I grind it all up so I don’t really even have much more. But the reason why I’m bringing it up is because going through the garden especially when I’d be super frustrated and brushing even just brushing up against that or trying to water it or when it you know is July and August days when it’s super dry and all the leaves will be like trash in the water and then they bring it all up again in this sort of aspect of them rising because they’re now all there. What is it hard to trigger right to you? Is that it?

SS 1:06:37
tur-tur

MO 1:06:39
turgidity,

SS 1:06:40
turgidity. Yeah, so it is not turgor Yes.

MO 1:06:42
So with all their rigidity, then they just starts being fragrant again. And that sort of just smelling that amount of just that bouquet of holy basil. Just remove me from whatever Wednesday I was having into being fully plugged in. What’s going on in this soil?

SS 1:07:03
I guess by way of that soil is a kind of marker of a place. Because I mean, this soils change wherever you go. Yeah, I mean, but geologic and human time, not so much more human time. I feel like the thing that changes with human time is construction debris, and just like deleterious things, not necessarily a very useful thing.

MO 1:07:24
Yeah, I mean, the and the way that people who are doing the more useful things get lauded like crazy for it like, yeah, they’re talking about with it with regenerative AG, you know, completely organic no till Gabe brown out of wherever he’s from, does it sort of huge cover cropping like seven or eight and it’s a cover crop that that would manage, like, kind of wild pasture, like, like, sort of moving these guys around as if they’re bison across these pastures right. He was talking about he and Mike Thompson. I was like 27 inches deep. Something like that.

SS 1:08:05
How long have you been doing it? for 30 years?

MO 1:08:08
No, even it does not like that. It’s like way quicker than that. Because it’s like, oh, stuff gets turned on, pooped out. And then you just build on that and on and on. And on that

SS 1:08:21
it only takes like years, though. It’s

MO 1:08:23
Yeah, no, it takes years. But it doesn’t take for him to because he still has not a generation, right. He has fences up between, like his neighbors who haven’t done it. And you know, when you can see like,

SS 1:08:36
do you know what that rotation is? Like? How many? So it’s like, like, alfalfa, like bluegrass. We know what Whoa, well, like just like grass mix. And then

MO 1:08:50
he has mixes of these cover crops. And so there could be there would be brassicas and sunn hemp and, you know, I mean, there’ll be a All sorts of different things growing

SS 1:09:01
like bio accumulator. And like it’s a whole bunch of things just mixed together. Yeah, yeah, cut it. Yeah, replant it

MO 1:09:09
or cut it. So you would have the winter cover crop growing or whatever the winter mix fall mix. Cut that then you would have whatever the cash crop is the wheat or whatever. You mean, you cut that down, then the you know, the wheat provides its own scaffolding for the next thing. Everything goes in there. Hmm. And so what he was only I’m only bringing him up to say that he’s one of these guys and there are other there’s another rancher in Texas who the guy who created um, churches chicken. He took all the money that he got from that thing and bought like 600 acres or something like that in Texas, and then he cut down a whole bunch of cedar or something like that and let that land return to normal as people go on agroTourism, tourism, his thing is this, you know, the water started falling again, bugs came back all this crazy stuff. So what I’m saying is, is that only the human time with things when somebody does return earth to where it was prior to your arrival, then those dudes are like, You’re the best dude.

SS 1:10:20
You just have to, you know, think about it and have a lot of money, you know, to to be able to build a good blend like that. Yeah, but the resources, I mean all kind of stems back from that to

MO 1:10:34
being like the Well, let me let’s let’s wrap this up or move towards the end a little bit.

What is the resource that you’d recommend for those looking to increase their agricultural understanding?

SS 1:10:53
Oh man, cultural resource, agriculture, cultural understanding.That’s a good, really good question. Um

I would say, your nearest Arboretum for you sure there’s one in every city, right? Most cities,

MO 1:11:16
definitely botanical gardens and everything. I’m not sure about Arboretum’s, but I mean I would imagine and especially my uses, yeah.

SS 1:11:25
Being in it is nice, but also it’s kind of curated, so if you don’t want to do that, um whenever it’s a resource you want to go to dunno, I was gonna say that is a handbook

MO 1:11:44
that Yeah, well, you could say that. I mean,

SS 1:11:46
National Society for Arboriiculture, like, tree handbook. It’s nice, or there’s a thing called Dirrs trees handbook and it’s like any spell dares d-i-r-r-s it’s like the inside. encyclopedia of trees. It’s pretty thick. But it’s it’s a cool thing to have, you know, might be a little overwhelmed. it’s um it’s kind of interesting to see how many trees there are and how to take care of them.

I dunno, a walk up a riverbed bank. It’s nice to see the kinds of trees that grow in like alluvial soils that are really wet. They’re usually pretty kind of interesting. large trees, like in our area. Sycamores, big white bark, have this kind of regal Cathedral, kind of like stance. Going on a walk is the greatest kind of education you can get resource in any place here, the east of the West essential. But yeah, books are like picture books, anything like that. I say I kind of get dry in terms of my reading when it comes to trees because it’s just interesting. You Yeah,

MO 1:13:00
I mean, I don’t think I mean, it’s like it’s it’s all subjective, right? So it’s like, I’m, unless somebody has demonstrated it. I’m not going to recommend Albert Ehrlich’s stuff. Mm hmm. Because it is a narrative form of like academic journals is like, even when I was reading, I was like, yikes. I have to be like caffeinated, sitting up, you know, like, yeah, this is really, but it’s also not as dry as reading a actual research article. Hmm. Because he’s putting it in first person, whatever. And it spreads with his thoughts where these experiments are, but I recommend anybody reading like, Carver’s bulletins, even though they’re they are also super dry. Mm hmm. But the practicality of that is in them is very interesting, especially reading it from the perspective of this is the simplest way to redo soils or whatever stuff is really interesting. Yeah.

SS 1:14:03
In terms of soils, it’s a good question. A lot of my experience with all this is not book learned. It’s kind of just all experiential or just just doing it just doing it or being in it. Just soils,

MO 1:14:24
you don’t have to write anything. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you’ve given us

SS 1:14:28
I really like thinking about every kind of like, agricultural experience I’ve ever had. Yeah, walk in the woods with like, a field guide is really nice. If you want to take a day out and do that.

MO 1:14:44
Yeah. I’ve been taking a lot of pictures of plants using Google lens with until identify them. Just being like, that’s how I found the Cleome. Like I identified it. There, huh? As we both work life The Google lens works super well.

SS 1:15:02
Wow.

MO 1:15:04
It’s like it’s very, it’s really interesting how well it works.

SS 1:15:08
I’ve always wondered how accurate those were.

MO 1:15:10
I’ve never tried to use those. You have to take the right picture the right way in order for it to work. Because it’s I mean, but it’s got the best index behind it to figure it out.

SS 1:15:22
Yeah, the entire internet. Great.

MO 1:15:24
Great. Right. So I mean, everywhere I’m going. I mean, like, if I show you my gallery you’d see in there pictures of all sorts of different plants that I don’t know. So that’s been helpful. It’s hard to do that with trees, though. Yeah, it’s super hard to do that with trees.

SS 1:15:40
Yeah, I’m sure because you have to take the right picture the right people. Yeah, cuz it’s hard to do that with trees because you’re not. They could be like hundreds of feet tall.

MO 1:15:50
Yeah. And then, and if you take a picture of bark in my, it’ll show you

SS 1:15:56
something silly. It could be this could be a dream

MO 1:15:59
or a being You know, St. Gregory’s Cathedral? Yeah, just basically

it’s like those bricks. Yeah, exactly.

It doesn’t it doesn’t know. And especially trying to identify like bugs like small bugs and parasitoid wasp and stuff like that. It’s so difficult, you know, since it’s so small, yeah. It’s really tough. And you can’t get it because they’re so small. You can’t get a good image of them because they’re Yeah, they don’t like,

SS 1:16:20
I don’t want you to take a picture of me. Also, I don’t think the zoom will be able to like, I don’t know how powerful

MO 1:16:26
zoom is pretty good. But then the better. The larger the zoom, the more tricky your hand becomes. Yeah, so what I try and do is take a zoomed in image and then just keep cropping it for the lens. Yeah, taking a picture is better, and then sending it into that program rather than doing it live. It’s doing it live is really tricky. But I say that to say. I mean, as an only child, I like to go out into the woods by myself. And so then I do a lot of stuff there.

SS 1:16:58
Also a cool place to see cool places. to see cool trees, most cemeteries.

MO 1:17:03
You know that’s what we were in in Savannah. We went to one of the was called Bonaventure gardens or something. Bonaventure cemetery. I mean, we started sweet Olive. Yeah. Have you smelled this Sweet Olive? Osmanthus?

SS 1:17:19
Oh, is it? Is it like fragrant?

MO 1:17:21
I mean, like, the fragrant. The the, like, you know, we want in the wrong part of JC Penney’s, and then that’s where you are out of business just on how this one thing smoke like you just be like, you know, like, smells like fruit. Smells like like, peaches. It smells like a bag of gummies. Basically, like, what you think gummies tastes like the color that they taste like is what it smells like. Bam. It’s awesome.

SS 1:17:53
It smells like green gummy.

MO 1:17:54
No, it doesn’t smell like it smells like yellow or orange. Gummy. It’s beautiful, man. I mean, look. Smells like like peaches and apricots and stuff like that stone fruits. It’s amazing how well that smells. But yeah, we were when we were in the, in the biology gardens, they have a lot of different things. They had a lot of cameliass in bloom was beautiful. So beautiful.

SS 1:18:21
Those are about to be bloom.

MO 1:18:23
Yeah, in blue down, down, down. So pink ones red ones.

What is one question you wish? I asked you?

SS 1:18:42
The question. hit me hard Mason. It’s hard hitting Friday night questions.

MO 1:18:53
You said you looked at the questions.

SS 1:18:56
I did look at the questions. But I’m like, you know, it’s like looking at And then like experiencing this these are the things I should have wrote down oh my god yeah.The question I wish that you had asked me during this interview Wish you asked me more about mycelial network and how it plays a role in in the human connections that human beings have to mostly trees.

MO 1:19:49
If I want to ask you that what you would what would you have said?

SS 1:19:54
I would have said that that uh Human beings have co evolved with the planet since our inception here, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched to say that we are also in tune to a mycelial network of intertwined plants, fungus, nematodes, that all kind of sense the same kind of changes in acidity in oxygen in kind of a humidity and all that we all experience it all the same, huh? Maybe in different capacities, maybe our perception of realities. slightly different. Yeah, but we are all intelligent beings on this planet. But we experience it in slightly different ways.

MO 1:20:54
Like a mosaic.

SS 1:20:56
Yeah, exactly pointillism or whatever. Exactly. So We are the trees in the soil and the mycelium and the Neva toads and the protozoa that are crawling, swimming, jumping and running through everything under us because soils under us.

MO 1:21:14
That was one of the I mean, so that’s enough

SS 1:21:16
like that is another planet on our planet.

MO 1:21:19
The best thing about that movie fantastic fungi where the CGI was a CGI,

SS 1:21:25
like under

MO 1:21:28
seeing what lay roots look like, like tree roots because you can get images of like alfalfa or hay or whatnot. But you like seeing the root chakra Sudan grass or something like that. You can see that, but you can’t see that for tree. Yeah. And so that movie showing that was so crazy,

SS 1:21:48
not just big roots, but the fine roots, the fine little finger roots that have all the surface area that lock in with like as it wasn’t there, that’s what that CGI was showing. And it was just so beautiful. So interesting. It was just like The neurons in your brains, which is to say that all these designs there’s, there’s a connection,

MO 1:22:07
was it they say?

conversions, right? I mean, like in terms of when like bioluminescent bacteria versus

NASA and I’m thinking I’m thinking it’s not my scientific concepts, but

SS 1:22:26
well yeah. Evolution things are like a kind of like the reason this exists on the planet is because yes the ladder Yeah,

MO 1:22:35
yeah. Because I mean it basically makes sense to think about the root structures looking like what the canopy looks like.

Yeah, just upside down or mirrored mirrored.

But I guess the way that they depict it in and that was it, put a three dimensional look on those things and it was all about perspective and energy.

It is Yeah,

SS 1:23:02
it’s like there’s a planet on our planet on our planet on our planet, you know, that we know nothing about. Yeah. But we’re still all connected, right?

I mean, politics be damned.

MO 1:23:19
We’re gonna we have to do a separate episode on that, because I will do a separate episode on that fantastic fun guy movie.

SS 1:23:26
Cuz I just can’t stop thinking about it. I can tell.

MO 1:23:31
I didn’t expect you to keep saying it. I mean, it was like, almost over a month ago. All right. No, no, it’s not not over a month ago,

SS 1:23:38
almost a month ago. It was mid It was like, December 17, or something like that. So yes, almost a month ago.

MO 1:23:44
If you would like people to how can people contact you?

SS 1:23:49
I’m not ready to be contacted. Okay. Not yet. I don’t have much to say. People. I mean, maybe No, no, not yet.

MO 1:24:02
That’s fine while they send me many thanks to slamming, Jon, Silver Sprung for sharing his wisdom and experience please visit Africulturepodcast.com for the full show notes. Share Jigijigi with your friends, family and closely related siblings of the soil and we will say then as we say now. Asante Sana Medase Pa. Modupe O. Thank you for listening to Jigijigi Peace.