Seeds And Their People - Ep. 3: Ira Wallace and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

In this third episode, Ira Wallace from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange talks about her faves: collards and roselle. She also describes her life growing up, her work with southern and African Diasporic seeds and stories, and takes questions from Truelove Seeds apprentices (and adoring fans) Amirah Mitchell and Chris Keeve and from a visitor named Mimi.   SEED STORIES TOLD IN THIS EPISODE: Collards Roselle   MORE INFO FROM THIS EPISODE: Ira Wallace: Writer, Seed Saver, Educator Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Grow Great Vegetables in Virginia, by Ira Wallace Collards: A Southern Tradition from Seed to Table, by Edward H. Davis and John T. Morgan Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, by Leah Penniman Black Urban Growers Conference   ABOUT: Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden. trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio   FIND OWEN HERE: Truelove Seeds Tumblr  |  Instagram  |  Twitter   FIND CHRIS HERE: Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden   THANKS TO: Ira Wallace and Gordon Sproule Sara Taylor Julia Aguilar, Althea Baird, Chris Keeve, Amirah Mitchell, and Zoe Jeka of Truelove Seeds Mimi Puga The voices of the youth and other staff of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram's Garden

I'm going to be able to be. Welcome back to Seeds and their people. I'm Chris Bolden-Nusome, Farmer and Co-Defiress Community Farm at Bartrams Garden in sunny southwest Philadelphia. And I'm Owen Taylor, seed keeper and farmer at True Love Seeds. This week's episode features an interview with Ira Wallace of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in the Rolling Hills of Virginia. Mama Ira and her partner Gordon made time to visit our farms in the Philadelphia area last summer, and we were so grateful to break bread and learn with them. So I wanted to ask you as an introduction to this episode,

what stood out when you got to listen to this interview? Well, I really appreciated a lot of things about the interview. I mean, it's always treasure to hear Mama Ira speak and teach about the work and draw so many examples, you know, from our own life and experience. You know, it's there's that deep knowledge, you know, with a really, really smooth and human, you know, way of communicating it. But amongst the things I really liked about this conversation with Mama Ira was her sharing, you know, those little snapshots of her life with her grandmother

in the Deep South during, you know, segregation Jim Crow days. you know and so for me it was it was very special to hear that i always enjoy hearing the wisdom of grandmothers and for her to be able and i felt that i was almost sitting you know in the room with her and a grandmother when she was telling those stories so you know to see how much she draws from and always you know goes back to her ancestors and rooting her in this work you know is again you know for me very very confirming and what i do and just beautiful to see. So I also really appreciate it as a southerner hearing about a different part of the South than where I come from. You know, the South is many kingdoms, you know, and we have lots of

different cultures. You know, they're very diverse people who are not from the South. You know, often don't recognize this. It was really a treat for me to hear and to recognize so many similarities. But hearing, you know, me being from the Mississippi Delta and knowing my mother and my grandmothers, you know, in great-grandmother's stories who would have been, you know, the age of her grandmothers and how different but so similar it was for them and their experience as black women. So that was really beautiful for me, the tropical South. And what a different sort of diversity of people and food, you know, that she grew up with and how she passes at home to further generations and keeps us, you know, you know, rooted in this work, those of us who are doing diaspora earthwork. So she has really paved the way and in many ways for the work that we do in her name and her work should be known more.

So I think, you know, just the power of her valuing, especially southern, you know, and especially our African-American southern food crops, you know, I mean, that's the life. You know, I mean, we talk about that and we teach that. And for me, I really need that these are my, you know, we don't go, we can't go to university for this, for education in this type of work, you know, and seed sovereignty. You know, now universities are our elders, you know, they are, you know, granaries of wisdom and of knowledge, you know, and information, you know, and experience it. So we don't have to recreate the wheel. And so, yeah, I think that's the real power is her preserving those species and preserving the customs and the stories that go along with and that she doesn't separate the seed from their story. And I really admire that and emulate it.

And it gives me footsteps to walk in. Beautiful. Thank you. Well, let's dive in and hear about collards and Roselle, as well as tales from Mama Ira's life and work and several questions from true love, Apprentices, Amira Mitchell, and Chris Keeve, and a woo-woo visitor named Mimi. But first, thanks for listening. Please subscribe, and please leave us comments. We are very lucky and grateful and honored to have Mama Ira Wallace from Southern

Exposure Seed Exchange at our True Love Seeds Farm at Mill Hollow today. There's a big crew here. A lot of people came out to see and meet Ira. And we just took a walk around the fields and looked at some of the interesting things were growing and kind of talked to shop a little bit about some best practices and so on. but we want to take the opportunity to hear some seed stories and words of wisdom while she and Gordon are in town. And so I wanted to start by first saying just thank you so much for being here.

We really, really appreciate it and launch the podcast with some seed stories to start with your relationship with some plants that you love. so I guess I'll let you start wherever you would like well we'll start out talking about collards they are so you know reminiscent of my growing up my grandmother always had it in her Florida garden and but I kind of thought collards were somewhat limited that there was only one or two kinds

you know there were great you know big more modern Georgia Greens that outgrow everything and smaller ones kind of like champion or something and then a few years ago I ran into these two cultural geographers from Virginia who had also worked with the USDA a plant breeder and gone around and collected heirloom collards from over they had over 90th sessions. They did it mostly in the 90s, and they wrote a book, College of Southern Tale from Seed to Table, and I had the luck to go and see at the Iraq in Charleston a growout of 60 of those varieties, and it changed my whole thought about it.

And we looked in and we found out, you know, how they had found these collard stewards. I mean, they did, they put things in those agricultural bulletins that they used to be and asked, sent letters to all of the extension agents in collard country. And in the areas where they got the biggest response, they just drove there and drove around. And if they saw a big, old nice collard patch, they'd go up and knock on the door and say, hey, you know, would you, are those your collards? Would you mind talking to us about them a little bit? Most gardeners are willing to talk to somebody who thinks their collards are good enough

to stop on the side of the road and knock on their door. And, well, after seeing all of these, I got very very much. very excited about this because this is something we had every year, about 10 months of the year in our garden. And it's kind of country food, you know? And kale gets all the press, but collards are queen. They are great. And so we got as many of these sessions as we could from the USDA, which turned out to be about 60 that they had, enough seed that they were share and did a grow out at the Sea Tivers Exchange in Iowa that I went out there to look at, and we grew 20 at our farm in Virginia that year.

And we evaluated them, measured, tried to keep data about how a uniform or not they were. And then what we took on at Southern Exposure is trying to grow out and offer some of the varieties that have been shepherded by African Americans. And that's been a fun trip. One of the fun side shoots about that is we got one of the black sororities in Winston, Salem, North Carolina, to take on. growing out and sharing in their communities one the William Alexander collard and it's a cabbage collard which outside of North Carolina are not so well known because they're just kind of like a regular collard but with big old leaves

we're talking about these leaves are like two feet across the bottom ones they're huge and then they make a little semi head at the top and traditionally what people do is cut that little semi head and they make trout. And then you still have the plant, so you take leaves and eat them on through the rest of the season until, you know, come April they start going to seed. So that's my collard story. And while I was doing it, I ran into a Brazilian friend who told me about Brazilian garlicky college who says black people in Brazil. They have a the market this little tool that cuts them up and to really fall buying chef a nod thing because

people eat them every day and especially good cut up like that and quick cooked with a lot of garlic so this uh cabbage collard how how um you know do they cut out the head first and then they get the the the rest of the season for the most part they'll you know take one or two big leaves along in the fall but people don't bother with collards until it gets cold

and so so you know if you just got to have some you take a few leaves here and there before them but they're not that good but you know just before Thanksgiving

people would generally make their cabbage crown when it's still warm enough, like in the Carolinas, that the crowd will ferment good, but just before they start, just regular collars start tasting really good. When we've talked before, you mentioned, you know, the importance of the collard green and how even, you know, after the so-called great migration to the north, it was still so important to black folks from the, the South that it would be shipped up for the holidays. Could you could you speak a little

more to the importance of it to black Southerners and black Southerners in the diaspora? Well you know college are one of these things that that people relate to their grandmother and to back home and to when we went to Mississippi in the summer and so forth because it's available so much of the year in the South and I I I learned when I was in Alabama that it was so important that there were some co-ops of black farmers who got together truckloads that they would sell in markets and also along the streets in Chicago and other cities, especially during the holiday season, because people wanted their collards. And some of that actually grew up into a few of the companies that you sometimes see bag collards in stores now. And what an interesting example of African diasporic food, given that it's originally a Mediterranean or European crop. I'm wondering if you could speak.

I know I've heard from folks like Michael Twitty and my partner, Chris Bolden Newsom, talk about how kind of, folks adapted to this new land and this new world here on this continent how did this food become so important well you know I don't know the true story because you know history is written by the victors the dominant culture and you know African people were brought here and there was a lot of effort made to not have them be able to write their own story. So, you know, a lot of this tradition that people do. But there are some people like Thomas Jefferson who left more of a record of the black people at Monticello than most just because he wrote down everything. And one of the things is, you know, the enslaved people at Manichello were, had their little garden

pots and they were able to sell extra produce to Mr. Jefferson who appreciated vegetables and he said anything dark green is the black people on Monticello would want to grow and college which the borkhole they called it was not that popular among the English but they really liked them and he said they know how to make a very safe savory dish. And so I think that same thing happened, you know, throughout the South, that here was something that could be cultivated and selected. And it was definitely selected by the black people because the English only ate it when they were out of something to eat in the winter and they were, you know, if they were the kind of people who would pay their

slaves extra for work that they did on their, so, a free time. Switching gears a little bit, but still within collard story. I know you're about to publish some more vegetable gardening books, and I'm curious what you would tell folks in a nutshell on how to plant and care for, and then also save seeds for collards. Okay. Well, collards are cool season. crop. But fortunately, they're more tolerant of heat than their cousins, broccoli, or cauliflower. So traditionally, in the south, people would grow two crops. You'd start some as early as you

could in the spring. And you'd let them go through until the bugs took them out in the middle of the summer. And if you were lucky, they wouldn't take them out when you, when you take off and either cook or give to your chickens the holy leaves as the weather started to cool again in September and grow a whole new another set of leaves in your plants. Alternatively you could also start a new crop of collards in the fall and but I always say summer planting for your fall harvest because those, that month, say in August, of rapid growth when the temperatures are warm and the days are still reasonably long is really important.

So we would be starting collards in July and August. You can get away with it if you have floating row cover or other modern things to start them in September, but out in the open, you really need to start them in August to get a good sign. And a lot of seed savers, oh, backing up on the seed saving business, they're biennials. So they need to have a certain exposure to cold temperatures. And what we kind of say is the rule of thumb is 40 days below 40 degrees, is a minimum amount that you have to have good seed production. So, which means, for example, you can do something like start them with your extra early crops

in December or January, you know, like when you're starting onions, but you have to put them out so that they get out of the greenhouse out into the ground, maybe cover, the road cover, so they get that cold temperature if you didn't start them. But more ideal is to start them in, you know, August and then carry them over. And the reason that a lot of people I know like to do that is if you have an extra cold winter, you can make a little low tunnel and cover them and keep them warm enough that you're not going to, you might lose leaves, but you're not going to kill the marrow stem so that they can start growing again in the spring. and so you can harvest some greens traditionally people what they do is harvest happily you know up to

a third of the leaves up until about Christmas and then you got to pick your mother plants and you stop harvesting those leaves and preferably if they're going to be growing in place that you separate them because you know they need to be like a foot or 18 inches apart when you're just getting greens but when they go to seed they need to be like three or four feet apart because they get big and sometimes they're six feet tall with the seed heads on them so if you're somewhere cold like up here in philadelphia you might want to take your mother plants and dig them up and put them in your high tunnel over winter and so you you know take them However you get them spread out, come the spring, make sure they're at least two feet apart. And then you get happy when they make flowers and send the stem up and you save the seeds. They have little siliques, which are these little skinny pods that are coming out. And they have a central stem that usually comes up first.

And those are mature a little bit more than the side stems. And some people wait until the majority of them have turned hand and harvest the whole stem. We tend to like to harvest the central stem and then go back and let the side stems mature a little bit and have a second harvest. And then bring them inside to dry. And when I was growing up, we didn't always get collards. College didn't get enough cool where I grew up to save seeds, but maybe once every four years. Fortunately, brassica seeds last a long time, so it was okay. But people would save them in a paper bag and let them finish drying because the pods sometimes shatter when they're

fully ripe. And if you don't have them in a bag or on something that's going to catch your seeds, you lose a lot of your seeds. Favorite collard variety? I like green glaze. I like the way they look. I like that they're somewhat resistant to some of the early bugs. But they just look so good when you cook them. That's what I like about them. Great, thanks. Well, let's move to another seed story. I think you have another one in mind. Yeah, I got very excited about Roselle. And it's something that they used to grow a lot in Florida. And actually, nowadays, more Jamaican immigrants and people grow a lot now. But not in my time but my grandmother's time people would grow big amounts of them and then they would use it

to make a jelly that people would have instead of cranberry sauce and uh it went out of favor in the 20s and 30s when the railroads came all the way down and started bringing a lot of people to florida and they brought cranberries so that florida people could have cranberry sauce as well But what I came to know it for more was for my hippie days, is, have you ever had Red Zinger tea? I definitely have. I was raised by semi-hippies. And that tart redness comes from the Roselle, or Carcatey, as they call it, in Egypt, you know, sorrel. Jamaica that is what's there and this plant this hibiscus sabderifa it's like you grow it up and it looks like the biggest okra plant ever and so beautiful you

know with red edges on the leaves and you can make tea out of the little leaves and tips of the plant so you don't have to wait until they make the flower but They're funny because it looks like a flower or something, but it's really a swollen calyx. And when they're swollen and just, they're kind of closed at first. And just before they open or right after they're open, when the, when the calyxes are still plump, you know, harvest them and you take the seed pot out of the middle. of it and then you can either use them fresh and they have their own pectin so if you're making jam or the kind of jelly thing for a cranberry sauce substitute you don't even have to buy

pectin and you can mix them with other berries too and and it works even if you you dehydrate them and make the tea, the tea you can cook down into a jelly later too. But you have to put sugar because pectin doesn't work without a little sugar. You can make a sauce with honey if you don't like sugar. Well, last time we spoke, I really loved the images of when you've seen fields of this plant. I'm wondering if you could describe those times in your life. Well, the first time I actually saw a bunch of them and knew what they were and thought about it was when I was in Egypt. A funny thing got me there.

I went to Egypt and we were going to be there like a week. But then the borders were closed and we had to have a more extended stay. And so we decided we were going to go hiking across the country. And we go up there and it's like, as I say, they look a little like okra, but there was just feels of them. And there were women snapping them off because they like to harvest them the little plants with the swollen calyxes when they're still easy to snap off and you don't need to use a tool to break them off. And so they were just there and the colors with the greens and the reds. And then I remembered seeing them in Florida, and I'm asking people what this is, and they say it's Karkety. I never heard of Karkety.

But when I got home, I looked up and it was the same plant, and that was really sweet. It's beautiful that it's a plant that's beloved all over the world. I mean, it's not, people aren't as familiar up here unless they've had Red Singer. But for so many cultures throughout the world, it's really important. Do you have a sense of who else holds it dear? Well, we have gotten people from the Hmong people use it. And, oh my God, who is it that makes? I've had curry with the leaves in them that are from.

I'm having a senior moment here. I've seen mong farmers growing them. I've seen Burmese. Burmese, that's where I had this killer curry that this Burmese lady had made when we were at Cornelia Farm, the home of Habitat for Humanity. And they were visiting from Juvali Partners, which is another group that, hospitality to refugees and I was like what is so good about this and there it was another use for Roselle I think I've told you my friend Adam Forbes who ran a farm up here working with refugees from Myanmar Burma has been looking for a variety that'll go

to seed here and he found one from a breeder in DC and shared it with the community and they said this tastes completely wrong to us So it loses something as it adapts to the north. So it's one of those plants that at this point we need to continue to get from more southern-southern climates, unfortunately. Well, it's worth it. You know, even in our Virginia farm, we had to grow, we grew, the first time I grew six varieties and only one of them went to seed. I mean, well, only one of them matured seed. And, but, you know, I hear rumors of more.

There's some researchers down in Alabama who did a trial where they had like 50 sessions, but I have not been able to get them to respond to my correspondence. Well, here's Hopin. Well, those are the seed stories, and that's the kind of meat, so to speak. of our or the seed of our podcast but I'd love to give a little context by hearing more about your your life and your work for a little bit so would you mind kind of recounting how you ended up here as one of our revered seed elders how'd you get here it was a funny trip on the way to school my I grew up being raised by my grandmother and she

died the year I graduated from high school and I was already set up to go off to college but home as I knew it wasn't going to be there to go back to and so when I got to college a couple of things happened that kind of influenced my future one is I you know some of the friends I met who were there, we shared an interest in gardening, and we started a student garden. And it was, for me, primarily a way to have some connection to what I lost. And so that was really good. And when I think back to it, it's like we grew a few tomatoes and some beans and spent a lot of time on not much food.

But, you know, we met through doing that friends, made friends with people who had an organic farm at the edge of town, and we'd ride our bicycles out there and help them out, and that was good. And I met later housemates who had worked for Mennonite Service Committee and got interested and involved about farm workers. stuff. It was a funny time. I think about it, you know, but I also took a few taxonomy classes because it was an excuse to get credit for walking around outside and observing things. And that's when I first ever saved any seeds. And I guess it's good to start out with things that are hard to get to germinate once you save them. Because it When, you know, later years, when I came to, you know, got away from just that interest

and the herbs and the wild plants, when I came to vegetables, they seem so easy. Because they would germinate instead of you having to, you know, put them in some hot and cold and wet and dry and, oh my goodness, every mess in the world. And I guess I could go back a little bit about my grandmother. We lived in Tampa, Florida, and where we lived at that time was right on the, I guess, it wasn't exactly on the edge. We considered the edge because you could ride your bike over to Abor City. And in those times, if you were dark-skinned and you were Cuban, you were black, and if you were light-skinned in, you were Cuban, you were white.

And there was no such thing as Latino. In our neighborhood, there were a lot of people from Cuba, you know, and we were in Florida. And so guavas and sarasops and crazy trees that people had in their yards, just growing up with them being the backdrop was good because it made me think you should have everything or try to. And that was, you know, something that was a part of it. And my grandmother liked, you know, exchanging things with people. So we had a mango and we had a key lime and we had some sour ridiculous oranges that made really good lemonade type stuff and were nasty to eat. And the seedyest tangerines you ever had.

And our lot was like four lots. and, well, it's hard to, you know, we lived in a house that came on the railroad from Searge and Robux as a kit and my granddaddy put together. I didn't think it was remarkable until I realized nobody else lived in a house that came from Sears and Robux in a kit that I met until I was about 50, and then I met one other person who lived in one of those houses. But, and the reason we got one of these kit houses, in particular, is my granddaddy worked for the railroad, and he got a big discount on any railroad thing, and the shipping cost about half of the money, and he only had to pay like about 10% of the shipping. And so that's why we got it that way.

And a house over had burned down, and so that house, and then the lot that was kind of vacant X that they had bought. And so we had a pretty big lot for in the city. And we had chickens. Sometimes the chickens were able to raise their own little chicks. And we used to do laundry outside and boil it in this big kettle. It was funny about our garden. We had a pecan tree on this corner, the avocado. of and the garden was kind of in between and the thing that was there is that in the

summer the garden got about 50% shade and I I didn't think about that much until I started writing about gardening and in the southeast like peppers and what 40% shade you get the highest productivity according to the University of Georgia and And so, I don't know. It was the way it was. It wasn't like, I didn't grow up with her theorizing about these kinds of things to me.

And since it was so every, you know, at home things, I also never occurred to me that you'd really seriously have a career that had to do with gardening because people garden. Farmers drove around on big tractors and paid other people too little money to do all the handwork. And that was not, my grandmother didn't want me to do stuff like that. She wanted me to go to college and have a good job of some sort. Fortunately, the long way around to the grocery store, I have a great job and I still get to garden. get to garden. And not so much that I hate it. It's all right. It's all right.

Yesterday at Sankofa, Chris had everybody, the youth and the staff before they got into the field, sing, lift every voice and sing, and the Black National Anthem. podcast has taught us, sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us, facing the and you took me aside and told me a little story about your grandma. Do you think you could mention that? Well, my grandmother, like, well, I guess she was involved in her church and a bunch of other stories. But one of the things that she thought was important for black people was voting. And at that time, it was kind of a brave thing to be an active person about voting rights,

because they just made it hard for black people to vote. And one of the things that we did is, my granddaddy had this dodge, and he would like him, him and sometimes anybody else who was available, and then she would have them parked on either side of the street. And we kids, I mean, it's not like that we resisted it, but I didn't think of it as a choice. Would go down and knock on the door and say,

do you need a ride to the polls and we're there and somebody will be back at 4.30 too, if you need to go later. And so we would knock on the doors. But getting ready for this, me, I'm slightly musically retarded, but she had a really nice voice, and she would have us sing that song to get ourselves pumped up so we could get everybody all excited about going to vote.

And I hadn't thought about that in a long time. So it was really nice to hear those young people singing. Chris, I asked Chris if he had any questions for you, and one of them was, you know, what messages do you have for young black farmers, such as the youth that he works with, and also, you know, younger adults or young adults who are getting into agriculture and seed keeping? Well, I'm excited that young people are because, you know, I've been. interested in these topics a long time and I kind of thought of it as a thing that only young white people were interested in a lot of black people that I would meet with who were politically active were interested in having good food in the cities but they kind of thought of the everyday work of farming is

not so desirable and What, you know, I've been a co-op person, and I kind of think it's something that, you know, I kind of think of as mostly, you know, a white thing. But, you know, they had, in my grandmother's time, they had penny banks and other co-op things that they did to help each other in the neighborhood, be able to, you know, buy houses and do stuff. and I guess working together and and sharing and the risk and and things well many hands make light work and I I really get excited when I hear young black farmers talking about working together And I, you know, as an older person, I'm looking to see, I can talk people of my generation into helping those young farmers be successful. Recently, we were kind of on an exploratory call with facilitated by Leah Panaman of Sulfire Farm. And there were many, many other people from various organizations and

farms on the call, kind of looking to support you in a legacy project of sorts around curating or exploring what a African diasporic seed collection might look like. Would you share with us a little more about your thinking around that and what you'd like to see happen? Okay, well, when I first heard Leah's voice, which actually was when I was reading her book, before it was published and I was like, oh my gosh. I write stories all the time about varieties and there's about two black people in those stories and I don't know those stories but I think I could know those stories and so I got interested in just entering

correspondence from random black people who write to me and asking questions and you know Leah facilitated this call with people who are interested in making seeds and farm and black farms known and rising them up and so what I imagine is to you use my strengths which are you know talking and writing about something and growing things and taking pictures of it because I'm past the time where this girl is going to be out in a feel of peanuts but have a nice you know 40 by 50 plot where I grow things to take pictures of and to share with people and you know we all always at Southern Exposure, talk about the farms that we work with.

And I guess, you know, I got a different possibility about multicultural work that it isn't have to be, I mean, I'm sort of like in the, let's share everything, but co-op to co-op kind of thing that our co-op can share with our audience about other co-ops that have a slightly different focus and you know just like our farmers one of our farmers he grows sweet potatoes slips for us but he sells a lot of sweet potatoes and when we talk about that a you know on social media and stuff it brings customers to his farm so that they're successful you know or he sells to other farms directly because they don't need us in between when they're buying thousands of slips you know they can go directly and that's

puts more of the dollars back on the black farm and so things like this actually this visit is a part of this it's like if I don't know that many young black farmers they're not gonna come to me I need to go to them and try to meet and you know try to learn because I feel like I talk like an old lady and sometimes like it's a trip I forget people's pronouns and the things that really matter. And, you know, I remember being young and having people talk to me about my hair, you know, and when are you going to do something with your hair girl and how I resented that?

And so, you know, that makes me want to get it together about my pronoun business. So, yeah. one of um your your seed company is one of my favorite seed companies you have amazing varieties you tell the stories so well um in your in your catalog um and so often when i'm looking at a variety i'm interested in i see that you introduced it through your catalog from a southern farmer and i know that your your focus is on what are the southern varieties that are really important to preserve which is which is so awesome to be doing that preservation work and storytelling.

I'm curious if you could tell the listeners just a little bit about the company and how it operates to get more people to your, to support your work. Okay. Well, we, Southern Exposure Sheet Exchange was started by Jeff McCormick, who is a wonderful, has been a wonderful mentor to us. and then we but in in 1993 we started our commune acorn community farm we're an income sharing group we own our land together we share our income equally whether somebody is giving you a bunch of hundreds of dollars to run your mouth or your cooking dinner for everyone and we it's not for everyone because sometimes I think that people who are attracted you know to this

you kind of need to feel like you've been in groups that held you when you needed holding you know and I I think to myself my grandma died I went to this college I was like three black kids there and, you know, my friends, I have to say, I had more white friends at that point who were Jewish. It was kind of the three black kids, the two Koreans, one Japanese, and the Jewish kids were friends. And there were other, there were other random white people who were friends, too. But, you know, those friends held me up. And so this kind of co-op, and I learned about Kibbutz, like, you know, one of my friends from that. And so this whole community idea, and when I heard that there were communes in the U.S.

It just really hit me like, I like this. Our commune's focus is on economic justice. And so when we came into the seed business, which was from a funny story, Jeff, who started the company, had an ad in the paper that said, interesting work, you know, learning about heirloom seeds, unfortunately not great pay. And we thought anyone who would be that straight up about the situation, we want to find out what they're doing. And so a couple of us worked with Jeff and we grew some seeds and then he was having health problems and he offered us the opportunity to take over the stewardship of the company, which was much less, much smaller.

And when we took it over, one of the things that we realized is there are lots of farmers who are much better farmers than we were. But we thought, you know, our privilege was that between us we had a good amount of facility with this emerging Internet. And so we create, you know, we, well, Jeff had a store where we created that. And we were co-op people. So we reached out to a bunch of farms. Some people had been growing seeds. But I think something that made a difference is, You know, the things of looking at what can the company offer the farm in addition to money

that makes their farm work better. And also saying things like, shoot, this is how much we have been paying or other people pay. But we don't know the right price. You're going to have to give us feedback and we're going to figure out what that is. And so that meant sometimes they say, oh man, it was terrible. we didn't make any money and then we have to change the amount that we perhaps charge for that variety so that we could give the people a reasonable amount of money and I you know I think that came out of our because a lot of the farms told us right out they were not wanting to be income

sharing or fully co-op with all these crazy hippies because we were going to probably go broke and maybe we would have because we supported the company for three years after we took it over by selling recycled tin can crafts and I would do these craftsures and I'd stop by somebody's farm I'd be staying at some campground

sleeping in the front of our truck it was crazy but it was okay because I was younger then and for myself it's sort of how I ended up getting to be a lot of the face and voice of our company because I just met all these people and I have to say it's because I was a sort of plump black lady that they remembered me I maybe they wouldn't

remember me as such otherwise and I try to be generous with information and time and other people are kind to us in return so so we still do this we work with 70 farms and I would say the farmers produce anything that we sell a whole lot of some other farm produces we sell we produce on our farm things that are paying to deal with and aren't necessarily they're a great variety but they're not necessarily the most profitable for the farmer and because we think it's important to have those varieties And one reason we try to have all the seed saving information is we hope that those things that are pains like that, that people who want them will save them themselves. Because you don't need to get 85% germ for your own seeds.

If you get 40% germ, you just grow some more. It's not a problem. But if I'm selling it to you, I have to meet these federal standards. So sometimes people are like, why are you trying to tell me to save seeds? Don't you sell them? I say, yeah, and I like it when you buy stuff. But if you want to have true freedom, you need to have the skills so that if you need to,

you can save your own seeds. And I, you know, I don't think it's there now, but you can't stop and learn it if bad things happen, either by laws or economic collapse. You know, some days I feel like, you know, or climate change or any of those bad things. that are there and if those bad things don't happen you can select for flavor and beauty and it'll be just as well beautiful thank you I wanted to see if folks had

questions who are here really everybody but especially Amira and Chris I know you both have followed Mama Ira's work and her work with Southern and African Diasporxie in particular so I'm curious if either of you have any questions you'd like to hear the answers for could you talk more about how you can you talk more about how you find like new varieties well there are two ways sometimes they just come to us somebody will have some seeds and envelope and they'll say something like these are you know ramenelli's mushroom beans we call them mushroom beans because when they're big but still you know immature they kind of seem like

mushrooms in dishes but nobody in our family keeps the seeds anymore and I'm getting old, I hope that you'll take them and keep them. That's the one kind. The other kind is we go to seed swaps and events and go around and talk to all the people who are saving the seeds and get, you know, seeds and we bring stuff and share seeds and then we try to find out who they got it from and chase them down and get their story. And the internet brings you people. that way, but there are less African-American people and immigrant people on these networks. And so going out there and being in community events and stuff like that is really important. I actually have met more black farmers and had them tell me about their seeds.

when I was doing something where I was demonstrating cooking with a certain thing, then actually seed saving. Because they think saving a few seeds for yourself, it doesn't, you know, they don't think they're doing anything. It's just, you know, it's just what people do. It's not like a big act. And I tell people, seed saving is an act of everyday resistance. It's something that anyone can do toward food sovereignty.

and when you share it with a child, when you take someone who's a friend and say, here, you can save just from these couple of little plants, you're giving them a tool for freedom. Chris, do you have a question? Sure. So we're both Floridians. And I was just wondering, kind of any experience of what,

As you mentioned, making manuals for seed saving the southeast. It's like what is particular about like those landscapes and those regions that makes, I don't know, that kind of, that makes, that gives seeds a different kind of like meaning or importance in certain ways, especially for black folks? Well, Florida is a hard place to save seeds. Well, because so much of the seed that we have and the food that we eat in the United States actually, you know, has European origins. It's too hot and too humid, too much of the time. And so it's problematic. And a lot of the seed that people do, you know, have their varieties that they've brought like from the Caribbean. Because even the African varieties, a lot of them, like when I'm looking in these histories,

they went to the Caribbean and visited there for a while and then later came to the southeastern U.S. This is even during colonial times. Like when you look at low country cuisine, it actually, the African things came through the islands. and it's just I just don't think they write that much there's not even in the even though Florida is a big place where commercial vegetables

and now that people have gotten interested in more exotic things can be grown in California they've taken it on and do a lot of research on more exotic varieties and stuff but they don't research or write about these things in Florida. And so, you know, you kind of have to learn it from the neighbors and the friends.

There is a group, Echo, that's kind of strongly religious, that works with people around seed issues throughout the global South. And they have some good information. But it's kind of like missionaries in the old days, if you're not kind of strongly associated, it with some religious group, you can pay to go to their once a year conference, which is kind of expensive, but they aren't so forthcoming with their information except for people who either are going to go volunteer a year in another country or who have some serious religious backing to their seed interests. So it's hard to know, you know, but heat and humidity to

are hard on many seeds. Fortunately, a lot of things can be kept alive in Florida as living plants and propagated vegetatively to the more, you know, interesting and exotic plants. So when I recently went to the seed conference at Nofer, New York, and I was asking all these seed companies about seedkeeping in the southeast, their immediate reaction was, oh, you cannot save seeds in the southeast. But it seems to me as you were saying, that there's like a lot of seeds, particularly those of African origin, that have come through the Southeast and have been grown in the Southeast for a long time.

So it just didn't make sense to me that you couldn't grow them there and keep them for seeds, as people have been doing. So I noticed on the Southern Exposure website you note that certain seeds are like adapted for the Southeast. Can you talk about like what it, what that means and what that process is? Well, it means it's been grown there a long time. If you, you know, if you have it in our catalog, both, you know, in our, you know, I mean, being around for, you know, 25 years, it's not long in the history of plants, but it's long enough to know that it'll probably grow for you every year. so but we often get seeds from someone who's been their family's been growing them in the southeast for

you know several generations so we know that sometimes you don't get in the way that seed companies say it's a problem you don't get high germination like you would I mean honestly some things like brassica things, we'll grow, and sometimes, well, any broccoli and cauliflower, and we'll send those seeds to somebody on the West Coast, because if we tried to sell you the seeds that we saved here of those, it would be some mighty expensive seed. On the other hand, they're techniques, you know, that also are not as friendly to bigger companies. Like, for example, all the kinds of beans and peas and stuff, you know, when they first start drying down and the pods are flaccid and no longer crisp, those seeds are fully mature for growing. If it's going to rain three or four days

in a row, if you don't bring them in, they will probably get moldy on you outside. But you can pick them and have, you know, if you have a place inside to finish drawing them. And in that case, It's extra work, but it's not so much extra. It's really ridiculously expensive seed. So learning those techniques, we were talking about making little houses over your lettuce seed so they don't get wet and things that take, you know, extra care. And it really varies by variety, too, and learning which varieties can cope. with the situation on the ground in the southeast as much. Timing also matters with sometimes starting a certain thing a little bit earlier than you would

and transplanting, you know, like big limas. It's not like you've got to transplant them to have big limas, but you have a whole lot less trouble if you get them in there and out of there quick. Anybody else? Great. Let me come to you. What is one of your most memorable or cosmic moments you've had either holding a seed, planting a seed, or saving a seed? That's an awesome question. Can I ask your name and where you're visiting from? Yeah, absolutely. My name is Mimi, and I'm visiting from Denver, Colorado.

I'm not very good on woo-woo. So, which is true. I'm trying to get myself in here because I think these, things, but I think, you know, one of the influences that led me along my, you know, truth, justice, equality was liberation theology. So there was a time when, you know, the church and religion was really important, and I thought a lot about, you know, kind of spiritual things. But sometimes I don't. So I don't have so many of those times. I was trying to think. But I had a moment with some beans. It was actually discovering one. I was in another friend's garden in Floyd, Virginia. and you're like coming there and they were like they had all these pole beans and it was a scene of devastation and bean beetles had destroyed everything and there was this area of green and purple just with flowers coming out the purple flowers and pods and I walked over there and I felt like this must be

how God tells you to keep faith. Nice. Faith the size of a bean seed. Any other questions? I wanted to say I don't know if you remember me from two years ago, but we were both at the Bugs Conference in Atlanta. And I went up to you and I was so starstruck and so nervous. to speak to you because I had only ever heard of you. I had at that time, I had just gotten started thinking about like being a seedkeeper and wanting to be a seed keeper. And I was searching trying to find like who are the black seedkeepers, who are my elders. I didn't know who any of them were. And then I kept hearing whispers, Ira, Ira, Ira. And so when I finally met you, I was so excited and I didn't know what to say but I really really really wanted to come and visit you guys

I sent you a bunch of emails after meeting you but I just wanted to say that you were a real inspiration and hearing just knowing that you were there that you existed and that you were you know my elder who was keeping seeds was really inspirational for me in feeling like this was something that I could do and something I could be a part of. And it's part of what brought me here to True Love and developing as a seedkeeper myself was hearing just bits and pieces of your story. So thank you. Whoa, that's something.

You know, it's a funny thing, you know, we're just talking about bringing, you know, young black farmers to our area. I'm reluctant sometimes to invite people to our community because it's mostly white. That's what you said. And I'm like, I hate to tell you. You know, it's how it is. And I, that's why I don't know. And I used to, you know, I have so many friends who I brought there and they would say it's nice, but it's so white.

So I don't want to have somebody who is. young and aspiring be totally turned off by this is such a white place but it's true uh however i have these fantasies of maybe we will have a black and brown community group in our constellation and they'll be their own thing and the things that we share of being close together where we can share equipment and help each other build crazy stuff and all that that we that seems like for me at least in my mind the new way forward when you have your barn raising we'll get a big van and we'll come on down thank you so much for for visiting us for bringing your your wisdom here and we look forward to visiting you as well. And thanks for taking the time to share your wisdom and

inspiration with our future listeners. Well, when you get this going, we will send, you can send us a little clips and we can put it on our website and send people to visit. We'll do. All right. Thank you. listening to another episode of Seeds and Their People. Please subscribe and comment and stay tuned for our next episode in two weeks. As always, this show is sponsored by True Love Seeds, a seed company offering culturally important seeds grown by farmers committed to food sovereignty, cultural preservation, and sustainable agriculture.

When you order our seeds, 50% of each sale goes back to the amazing farmers that grew it. Also, be sure to check out Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for a wonderful heirloon varieties from the Mid-Atlantic and southeastern U.S. and beyond, including the collards and rosells that were mentioned in this episode, as well as Ira Wallace's garden books. Remember, keeping seeds is an act of true love for our ancestors and our collective future.