PODCAST · society
Seeds And Their People
by Seeds And Their People
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.
Episodes
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EP. 41: the Siling Labuyo Pepper Portal from Philly to the Philippines
Nicky Uy, Omar Buenaventura, Maria Dumlao, and Bitter Kalli have been coming together over Filipino foods, seeds, and stories for many years now. In this episode, we hear about the ways they weave their connections back to the Philippines and within their networks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,...
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EP. 40: Lana Mustafa's Roots of Resilience in Palestine and the Diaspora
Lana is a Palestinian-American farmer and the Executive Director of Montclair Community Farms, where she leads urban agriculture, food access, and environmental education initiatives in northern New Jersey, and she is the founder of Roots Of Resilience, a Mutual Aid organization dedicated to...
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EP. 39: Mountain Farmers from Burma in Thailand and Philadelphia
Since 2017, Truelove Seeds has been working closely with a large Karen farming community from the jungles of the Karen state in the mountains of Burma (Myanmar), who are now based in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Through their previous work with Novick Urban Farm, and continuing now with many...
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EP. 38: Vivien Sansour on Palestinian Seeds, Longing, and Love
Vivien Sansour is an artist, storyteller, researcher and conservationist. She uses image, sketch, film, soil, seeds, and plants to enliven old cultural tales in contemporary presentations and to advocate for the protection of biodiversity as a cultural and political act. Vivien works with a…
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EP. 37: Cempaxochitl, Papalo, and more tastes of Mexico with Maria Hernandez of Cruz Family Little Farm
This episode features an interview with our friend Maria Hernandez of Cruz Family Little Farm about an hour northwest of Philadelphia in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania. Maria grows vegetables, herbs, and flowers for her community, including many Mexican specialties, some of which she shares through...
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EP. 36: Preserving Seeds, Culture, and Farming Traditions of Battir, Palestine
This episode features an interview with our friends Hassan Muamer, a seed keeper and environmental advocate and engineer, his wife Hannan, and mother-in-law Fatimah. They had been visiting Philadelphia from Battir, Palestine for an extended stay and we were able to build a friendship through a...
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EP. 35: Growing Sabzi from Iran in the San Francisco Bay Area with Reyhan Herb Farm
Sama Mansouri of Reyhan Herb Farm grows foods from Iran in the San Francisco Bay Area, California for her community members in the Iranian Diaspora. She also shares seeds through our Truelove Seeds catalog, and we met up in January of 2025 to talk about some of her favorite food plants. In June...
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EP. 34: Sankofa Community Farm and the African Diaspora - Go Back and Bring Forward What You Left Behind
In late November, 2024, we finally recorded an episode featuring Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram's Garden and many of the voices of the farmers there. This podcast in many ways is an extension of their work to "Go Back and Bring Forward What You Left Behind" - which is a take on the meaning of...
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EP. 33: Ms. Valerie Erwin, Philly's Geechee Chef on the African Influence on American's Foodways
In late October, 2024, we (Chris and Owen) walked down our Germantown, Philadelphia street to interview our friend and neighbor Ms. Valerie Erwin on her porch. We talked about traditional (and less traditional) Gullah Geechee foodways with a focus on rice, field peas, okra, cornbread, shrimp and...
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EP 32: East New York Farms and Caribbean Vegetables and Herbs in Brooklyn
This episode, recorded in late September 2024, features the voices and wisdom of East New York Farms youth leaders Jemel Thomas, Gaby, and Hope, as well as staff member Alexx Caceres as they talk about their community food work and seed keeping in particular. We were chatting moments before I...
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EP. 31: Mohegan Food with Sharon Maynard and Rachel Sayet
This episode features a conversation in early July 2024 with Mohegan tribal members Sharon Maynard and Rachel Sayet about traditional Mohegan food. Sharon Maynard is a Mohegan elder and a Tribal Nonner. Retired after serving 12 years on the Council of Elders, Sharon’s interests include food...
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EP. 30: Happy 70th Birthday Karen Washington! Food and Plant Stories about our Queen.
Join us and 15 of Karen Washington's dear friends, family, mentees, and collaborators in wishing her a very happy 70th birthday with this episode featuring food and plant stories about our Farmy Godmother. Karen has been instrumental in the creation and guidance of neighborhood organizations such...
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EP. 29: How Did Your Favorite Seed Become Your Favorite Seed? Truelove Seeds Growers Gathering 2023
This episode is a compilation of recordings by seed geographer Chris Keeve and Truelove Seeds' business manager (and Owen's sister) Sara Taylor at our annual growers gathering at our Truelove Seeds farm in November 2023. They recruited party goers to their table where they mapped seed stories…
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Ep. 28: Zee Lilani, Kula Nursery, and South Asian plants in the San Francisco Bay Area.
This episode features an interview with Zee Lilani at Kula Nursery in West Oakland, California in January 2024. Zee grows Doodhi (Lauki/Bottle Gourd) and Kalonji (Black Seed/Nigella) seeds for our Truelove Seeds catalog as well as many varieties for Second Generation Seeds at her farm in…
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EP. 27: Improving Vegetable Crops through Seed Production with Bryan O'Hara of Tobacco Road Farm
Bryan O'Hara speaks about wholistic reasons for seed production on his vegetable farm, including working with natural processes such as growing winter annual crops for seed from summer to summer for better pest control and better flavor. He also discusses hybrid vigor and how to achieve this with...
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EP. 26: Saving Spiny Nightshades, Breeding Cannabis, Adapting Tropical Crops, and much more with Northeastern Connecticut Botanist Bryan Connolly
Dr. Bryan Connolly is a botanist, horticulturalist, and professor of Biology at Eastern Connecticut University in Willimantic, CT, my (Owen's) hometown. His research interests include rare plants of New England, the nightshade family, the rose family, and cannabis. Before Eastern, Professor...
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EP. 25: Black Farming Vibes in the Delta: Three Wise Men
While visiting Greenville, Mississippi, we asked farmer and food justice elder Mama D (our mother, Ms. Demalda Newsome) to co-produce an episode about the farmers of the Delta. This is the first of multiple episodes about Black Farming Vibes in the Delta, we hope! FEATURING: 7:26 - Ms. Demalda...
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EP. 24: Mary Menniti and the Italian Garden Project
Mary Menniti grew up with her Italian immigrant grandfather growing vegetables, figs, and tending sheep in her family's backyard. She created The Italian Garden Project to celebrate the joy and wisdom inherent in the traditional Italian American vegetable garden, preserving this heritage and...
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EP. 23: Dr. William Woys Weaver and the Roughwood Seed Collection
Dr. William Woys Weaver is an internationally known food historian and author of 22 books including: Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master Gardener’s Guide to Planting Seed Saving, and Cultural History; 100 Vegetables and Where They Came From, and As American As Shoofly Pie: The Foodlore and...
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EP. 22: Gujarati Seeds and Flavors with Nital Vadalia-Kakadia
This episode features Nital Vadalia-Kakadia. Originally from the state of Gujarat in Western India, Nital has been fascinated by farming and food since she was a child on her family’s farm in India. These days, she tends to beautiful gardens filled with her ancestral Indian vegetables and herbs…
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EP. 21: Haiqal’s Garden - Indonesian vegetables in South Philly
In the first week of June 2023, I finally visited Haiqal's Garden in South Philadelphia to speak with Hani White and Syarif Syaifulloh about their beloved Indonesian food plants, food culture, and life stories. We met five years ago at Sky Cafe, an Indonesian restaurant where Hani curated a…
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EP. 20: The Iraqi Seed Collective and Awafi Kitchen
In late February 2023, Annabel Rabiyah and Amanda Chin of the Iraqi Seed Collective visited the Truelove Seeds office to help fill the first packets of Iraqi Seed Collective seeds (Iraqi Reehan Basil, grown by Experimental Farm Network), and prepare some of their other collectively-grown seeds…
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EP. 19: From a Midwestern Slovak Family Farm to Black Catholic Mississippi
In November 2022, we visited Father Tom Mullaly at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Greenville, Mississippi. Chris's mother Mrs. Demalda Bolden Newsome grew up in this church, as did her family going back three generations. Chris was born and baptized there as well. Father Tom grew up on his…
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EP. 18: Dragged Through the Garden: Thai Food and Chicago Hotdogs with Heidi Ratanavanich and Family
Heidi Ratanavanich invited their mom, Mae Sue, and aunties Na Na, Na Urm, and Na Toy from Thailand and Chicago to cook traditional Thai foods together for their Philadelphia friends and family and to visit their traditional foods growing at our farm. We were also able to talk about the family...
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EP. 17: Mycelial Networks of Seed Growers & the Truelove Seeds Listening Project
Chris Keeve is a former Truelove Seeds apprentice and current seed grower in Kentucky who drove out for our annual Truelove growers gathering at our farm on October 22nd, 2022 to deliver seeds and conduct interviews for their dissertation: the Truelove Seeds Listening Project. With Truelove...
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EP 16: Keeping Indigenous Seeds in Kenya with Akoth Ambugo
Akoth Ambugo spends part of her year back home in her family's rural villages in Kenya and part of her year in the United States as a nurse and gardener. While in the US, she is learning to keep seeds, grow nutritious food, and feed the soil. She hopes to revive traditional indigenous crop...
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EP. 15: Seeds of the African Diaspora with Amirah Mitchell & Sistah Seeds
In this fifteenth episode, Amirah Mitchell of Sistah Seeds gives us a tour of the African Diasporic seed crops on her farm in Emmaus, PA. She also describes her work to preserve seeds and stories of African-American, West African, and Afro-Caribbean foodways, how she got to this point, and where...
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EP. 14: Iris Brown: Afro-Puerto Rican food and culture in Philadelphia
In this episode, we hear from Señora Iris Brown of Loíza, Puerto Rico, who grew up learning to cook and use herbs from her grandmother and the strong women of her hometown. She came to New York in 1967 for economic reasons, and moved to Philadelphia in 1970 when she fell in love with the back…
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EP. 13: Halima Salazar & Dria Price: Building a Bridge from Mississippi to Nigeria
This episode features Halima Salizar and Dria Price of Justevia Teas in Watervalley, Mississippi with a focus on their beloved food and medicine plants, their work, and the ways the food cultures of West Africa and the Southern US mirror each other. They grow, harvest, dry, and package their tea...
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Ep. 12: Mrs. Pearlie Mae Jackson Trotter: a Jewel of the Mississippi Delta
This interview overflows with deep wisdom, rough experience and a heapin’ side of humor all in Ms. Pearl’s pecan smooth Mississippi cadence and style. It is uncharacteristically long for our conversations and we know you will be BLESSED by every minute! Ms. Pearl is a daughter of the delta and...
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Ep. 11: Kai Delgado Pfeifer and Filipinx ancestral food and plant medicine
In this episode, we hear from former Truelove Seeds apprentice Kai Delgado Pfeifer in an interview from last fall 2021 when they visited our office and seed room in Philadelphia. There is also a short update from this week so we can hear the awesome things Kai is up to now and in the near future....
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Ep. 10: Chris Keeve: Seed Keeper, Chaotic Gardener, and Cooperative Geographer
In this episode, we hear from former Truelove Seeds apprentice and current Truelove Seeds seed producer and collaborator Chris Keeve in an interview from last fall 2021 when they visited during our annual growers gathering at our farm outside of Philadelphia, PA. There is also a short clip from…
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Ep. 9: Anan Jardali Zahr’s Palestinian Kitchen
In this episode, Palestinian chef Anan Jardali Zahr describes her beloved foodways and ingredients, including Molokhia, Kusa, and Zaatar. Anan was born in Akka, Palestine and came to California at age 11, after the Six-Day War of 1967. She graduated from University of California at Berkeley’s...
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Ep. 8: Lettuce Amongst the Stars: Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed
Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed in Philomath, Oregon visited our Truelove Seeds farm during a cross-country road trip in July, 2019. Frank began in the early 1980s as a salad grower providing greens for grocery stores throughout the country. As you will hear in this episode, an accidental hybrid...
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Ep. 7: Karen Farmers from Burma
This episode features four interviews with Karen farmers from the mountains of the Karen state of Burma (Myanmar) who spent roughly a decade in Thai refugee camps before resettling in South Philadelphia. They now grow their traditional crops at Novick Urban Farm. The Karen way with food plants…
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Ep. 6: Fish Pepper
This episode is all about the Fish Pepper, an extremely flavorful, productive, and decorative variety that makes an excellent hot sauce. The white unripe fruit were used to flavor seafood dishes in the Black catering community of Baltimore in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Horace Pippin, the...
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Ep 5: Rau Đay, Lalo, Saluyot, Ewedu, Molokhia
This episode is all about one plant with countless names: Molokhia (Corchorus olitorius). You may know it as Jute, Jew's Mallow, Egyptian Spinach, any of the names in the title of this episode, or as something else altogether! This plant is beloved throughout the world and so we talked to people...
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Ep. 4: Rufus and Demalda Newsome and Newsome Community Farms, Greenville, MS
In this fourth episode, we talk with Chris’s parents Rufus and Demalda Newsome of Newsome Community Farms in Greenville, Mississippi at Christmas. While Rufus pulls seeds from cotton he talks about growing up at ten years old working in the cotton fields as a weed chopper, a hoe filer, and a…
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Ep. 3: Ira Wallace and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
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)…
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Ep. 2: Kristyn Leach and Namu Farm
Welcome back to Seeds And Their People! In this second episode, Owen interviews his seed friend Kristyn about her Korean seed stories, her food, farming, and activist community, and our mutual love for Jewel in the Palace. SEED STORIES TOLD IN THIS EPISODE: Mugwort and Ungnyeo (Bear Woman) Better...
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Ep. 1: Seeds And Their People - Meet Chris and Owen
Welcome to Seeds And Their People! In our first episode, we share some seed stories that are important to us, our ancestors, and our story as partners in life and love. You'll hear about the Irish Lumper potato, the field pea, the Borlotto bean, and okra. We also share how cotton and apples…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Seeds And Their People have?
Seeds And Their People currently has 41 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Seeds And Their People about?
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.
How often does Seeds And Their People release new episodes?
Seeds And Their People has 41 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Seeds And Their People?
You can listen to Seeds And Their People on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Seeds And Their People?
Seeds And Their People is created and hosted by Seeds And Their People.
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