Fruitfulness Episode 3 - SEED

This week, Editor of The Simple Things magazine, Lisa Sykes and regular contributor, Jo Tinsley seek out treasures of the season such as berries, hips, haws, pine cones and conkers; making magical land art; guerrilla gardening and seed bombs; growing unusual berries straight out of The Gruffalo; and the subtle art of letting go.

Small Ways to Live Well is a podcast from The Simple Things, a monthly magazine about slowing down, remembering what’s important and making the most of where you live.

To subscribe or order a copy of the magazine visit thesimplethings.com

Editing & music by Arthur Cosslett

To read:

The Seed Detective: Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables by Adam Alexander (Chelsea Green Publishing)

Finding Quiet Strength by Judith Kleinman (Quickthorn)

Tiny Traumas by Dr Meg Arroll (Thorsons)

The National Trust Book of Crumbles by Laura Mason (Harper Collins)

To make:

Damson cheese, hawthorn berry ketchup and salted sloes

https://www.thesimplethings.com/blog/2014/09/10/fruits-hedgerow?rq=sloe

Seed bombs

https://www.thesimplethings.com/blog/make-seed-bombs?rq=Seed%20bombs

Pine cone bird feeder

https://www.thesimplethings.com/blog/2016/12/14/how-to-make-a-pine-cone-bird-feeder?rq=Goldfinches 

From The Simple Things Magazine:

October WEAVE issue 

https://picsandink.com/products/the-simple-things-issue-148-october?_pos=1&_psq=The+Simple+Things&_ss=e&_v=1.0

November JEWEL issue 

https://picsandink.com/products/the-simple-things-issue-149-november?_pos=2&_psq=The+Simple+Things&_ss=e&_v=1.0

 
Flourish – volume 3 of our wellbeing bookazine

https://picsandink.com/products/flourish-volume-3?_pos=1&_sid=45c0aa519&_ss=r

 
On the blog:

Wellbeing | How to let go of being busy

https://www.thesimplethings.com/blog/wellbeing-let-go-busyness?rq=Letting%20go

Recipe | Sticky sloe and nut clusters

https://www.thesimplethings.com/blog/sloe-nut-clusters?rq=sloe%20treacle%20tart

Our remedy of the week | Rosehip syrup

https://www.thesimplethings.com/blog/2015/10/7/recipe-rosehip-syrup-and-sloe-gin?rq=sloe

Feature references

Seeds of memories, Berried treasure and Let it sloe (with a recipe for Sloe treacle tart) published in November 2022 (issue 125)

Letting go feature published in October 2023 (issue 136)

Fall into place (land art by artist James Brunt) published in November 2023 (issue 137)

Back issues are available to buy at https://picsandink.com/collections/the-simple-things If you can’t find the issue you’re looking for send us an email

Transcript

Lisa Sykes (00:12):

Hi, I'm Lisa Sykes, editor of The Simple Things, and I'm here with our regular contributor, Jo Tinsley, editor of Ernest Journal and author of the Slow Traveller. Hello, Jo. This is episode three of our Fruitfulness season, and today we're getting outdoors because our theme is seed. We're going to be seeking out some berries, hips, pine cones, conkers, and then bringing them home to see what we can use them for or perhaps just simply admiring them as treasures of the season. And if you've been listening so far, you'll know that we're making a kind of a could do list for Autumn. We have a could do list in every issue of the magazine, and it's the very antithesis of a to-do list. So all our previous episodes are still available to download on your podcast app, by the way, so you can listen to those. But today, it's such a beautiful but short season, isn't it, Jo? Autumn? I think what we need is a few plans and a bit of inspiration to make the most of it, don't we?

Jo Tinsley (01:03):

Yeah, absolutely. This part of Autumn can really feel like a blink and you miss it kind of time of year. I think it's really good to remind yourself of all the things you can notice before it's over.

Lisa Sykes (01:13):

Yeah, very much so. I think it was our colleague Becks, who said in one of our early episodes that she says it's a season for the weekend, and I really like that.

Jo Tinsley (01:20):

That's nice.

Lisa Sykes (01:21):

It's so true, isn't it? Because the warmth of the day and the best light to get outdoors is during the middle of the day. So of course you've got much more time for that at the weekends, but it's a bit blink and you miss it, isn't it? You've got to grab your opportunities. Seize the day. Yeah,

Jo Tinsley (01:36):

You've got to use every time, haven't you? Yeah,

Lisa Sykes (01:38):

Yeah. And weather can be against us as well. But anyway. What should we collect first then?

Jo Tinsley (01:43):

Well, I think this is a season for crumbles, so I think for me,

Lisa Sykes (01:48):

Oh, now you're talking. Yeah.

Jo Tinsley (01:50):

I think for me it's got to be berries and I feel like anything goes in a crumble, and I think it's especially nice if you've gathered those ingredients yourself.

Lisa Sykes (01:59):

Oh yeah.

Jo Tinsley (02:00):

Like crumped apples and blackberries from up the lane. Of course it's a bit late for blackberries now, but what are your favourite crumbles?

Lisa Sykes (02:06):

I mean, I love a crumble because actually it's probably the only pudding I really can make. I'm not the best pudding cook. I'm not much of a baker, but crumbles are so great, aren't they? But I actually, I'm going to show you. I actually have the National Trust book of Crumbles.

Jo Tinsley (02:20):

Wow. How are there enough crumbles to fill a book?

Lisa Sykes (02:24):

I know. And my sister-in-law bought it me, and I was quite impressed. There are 50 crumbles, although I think they have included cobbler, which I'm not entirely sure. Count. They're the ones with the dumplings of crumble on top, aren't they? Yeah, I think they're North American. So slightly cheating. Have you made them all? No, because a bit like you, I have also my favourite crumbles, I think rebarb in spring without a doubt. Gooseberry in the summer and then blackberry and apple in the autumn. But then in the winter it's really nice if you've remembered to freeze some fruits, isn't it? And then you can bring them out and turn them into crumble

Jo Tinsley (02:59):

And just add them to the apples.

Lisa Sykes (03:00):

I'm just going to tell you because aren't you a fan of crumble cake?

Jo Tinsley (03:04):

I am a fan of crumble cake. I'm a new convert. Yeah. My friend Wendy makes her nan's recipe, so we call it Ivy's apple crumble cake. And it's so nice you kind of layer up the ingredients. So you put the batter slices of apple trust in sugar, cinnamon apple cider vinegar, and then finally the crumble topping on top. It's so good.

Lisa Sykes (03:22):

Very good. Well, they've definitely stretched the crumble theme far and widen this book. I'm just turning to a random page here. Lemon curd crumble muffins. I'm not sure. Wow.

Jo Tinsley (03:32):

Okay. That's a bit of a stretch.

Lisa Sykes (03:33):

But they've got an apple cake in here, but they've also got St. Strel in as a central European type of crumble, which is basically a sort of sprinkling of crumble. But actually the reason they've got 50 is because they've gone savoury as well, you see? So you've got fish and cheddar and dill crumble, which does actually sound really nice. Yeah. Now I'm really glad we talked about crumbles because now I'm going to go and make some, I've got this book. No,

Jo Tinsley (03:57):

You're just going to go away with that book. Look at

Lisa Sykes (03:59):

This. A pear and hazelnut mug crumble. That's just a crumble for one mug. Crumble.

Jo Tinsley (04:04):

I just love saying mug crumble

Lisa Sykes (04:06):

For one. Yes. I'm definitely going to give that a go, but what other berries have we got this time of year? We've got slows, slows. Let it slow.

Jo Tinsley (04:15):

Yeah, slows let it slow. Yeah. So slows are like the smallest member of the plum family, and there's these sort of round black or doll purple berries and they taste, I dunno if you've ever tasted them raw, they're so tar.

Lisa Sykes (04:26):

Oh, not raw. No,

Jo Tinsley (04:27):

You'll only do it once, but

Lisa Sykes (04:29):

They really sharp. Yeah,

Jo Tinsley (04:30):

Really sharp. But they sort of add this enticing fruitfulness to desserts, and obviously they're best known for that warming sweet flavour they give to Jim.

Lisa Sykes (04:38):

Yes,

Jo Tinsley (04:38):

There's plenty more that you can do with them.

Lisa Sykes (04:41):

We have done some lovely recipes in the magazine over the years, and there are definitely some on the blog, actually. In fact, we'll put the link in our show notes. There's a blog recipe for slows and rose hips, which I know we're going to talk about rose hips in a minute, but there's also some forage recipes in there, downs and cheese, Hawthorne berry ketchup, salted slows, which sound quite interesting.

Jo Tinsley (04:59):

That sounds amazing.

Lisa Sykes (05:00):

Yeah. But do you remember that one we did in the magazine, which has got my name on it, slow Treacle tart.

Jo Tinsley (05:06):

I wondered if you're going to bring that one up.

Lisa Sykes (05:07):

Yeah,

Jo Tinsley (05:08):

That picture looked so good.

Lisa Sykes (05:10):

I know. Just the words trickle, tart make me start kind of my mouth watering. But yeah, no, that does just sound good because actually slow gin, I do find a little bit cough mixture. I think I like ordinary gin quite a lot.

Jo Tinsley (05:25):

Yeah, it doesn't need the slow,

Lisa Sykes (05:27):

It doesn't need the adornment of slows in my view. But you can put slow syrup on porridge and things like that as well, can't you? It doesn't just have to involve alcohol.

Jo Tinsley (05:34):

Yeah, that's true. And it's actually really good for you, isn't it?

Lisa Sykes (05:36):

Yeah, definitely. Do you actually slows, I mean, would you go picking them? I

Jo Tinsley (05:40):

Do slows, but I have to admit I'm a bit of a nervous forger

Lisa Sykes (05:44):

And nervous for it. I like that. Yeah. I think most of us are a little bit, we

Jo Tinsley (05:48):

Really, I've done loads of foraging courses, so it's really bad. But I always doubt myself when it comes to berries and mushrooms, obviously, in case you get the wrong ones, but I guess are pretty easy to identify, aren't they?

Lisa Sykes (05:59):

Yeah, well, they're quite easy for me. Actually. Got 'em in my garden. I've got a native hedge. And actually if you've got them in your garden, it's really easy because black thorn, which is the spiny plant that you get the slows on, and it's really spiny, so you do need gloves to pick them. That is the first blossom of the year, tiny white flowers before any of the leaves appear. So it's like, oh, there's my black thorn, there's my black thorn, there's my slow trees. And so they're actually really easy to find. But I guess in the hedgerow where there's possibly other things, it might be less so.

Jo Tinsley (06:29):

And I guess that's a good point. If you're not confident, you can plant them in your garden if you've got space and then you'll know. But yeah, is now the best time to pick them.

Lisa Sykes (06:38):

So what you need to supposed to do is wait till the first frost. But in these mild autumns that we keep having, you might miss your window. So actually what I would do and what we've recommended in the magazine before is pick them and then fake the frost by putting them in the freezer.

Jo Tinsley (06:56):

Oh, clever.

Lisa Sykes (06:56):

Because basically it just makes the flavour better. And so actually you can kind of provide the frost yourself with the aid of a freezer. Nice. But going back to growing things, there are loads of interesting berries you can grow in your garden. Of course. Now is the time to plant bear root plants. And I must say about bear root plants, when you get them, if you've never seen them before, you're going to be extremely disappointed

Jo Tinsley (07:20):

Because

Lisa Sykes (07:20):

They are just a load of twigs and they look dead,

Jo Tinsley (07:24):

Just a bag of sticks.

Lisa Sykes (07:25):

And to imagine them being a fruiting bush is quite hard, but they do really work and it is the best time to plum because they establish their roots really well and get a good sort of hold in the ground and then grow into a beautiful fruit bush. But yes, what are the things, because we featured a few of these. We

Jo Tinsley (07:42):

Did, yeah. And there were some really beautiful ones, really unusual, like te berries, wine berries, josta berries,

Lisa Sykes (07:48):

Josta berries.

Jo Tinsley (07:51):

They had such fantastic names, and some of them feel like they come straight out of the pages of the Gruffalo. They really do like wine berries. They've got their fruits encased in these monster jaws of thick, orange red bristles, and then they pop open as their ripe. And there's this juicy berry inside, almost like a tong coming out. So it's like really? That sounds gross. Just really interesting berries. But one of the real benefits of planting on unusual berries is that you can have this succession of harvest.

Lisa Sykes (08:20):

Oh yes, nice.

Jo Tinsley (08:21):

All the way through spring and summit and into autumn. So you can have edible honeysuckle, which is known as honey in the late spring berries in July, boys and berries, Japanese wine berries in August, and then Logan berries in September. So you can,

Lisa Sykes (08:35):

So there's a lot more to grow than just raspberries and gooseberries basically. And black parents isn't there? Yeah, yeah,

Jo Tinsley (08:41):

It's true.

Lisa Sykes (08:41):

Very interesting. And of course I've got rose hips in my garden.

Jo Tinsley (08:44):

Me too.

Lisa Sykes (08:45):

I've got dog roses in my native hedge and they are known for having plentiful rose hips. And we've got a lot of rose recipes that we've done as well. Obviously you make jelly and combine it with crab apple and it's really good for you, isn't it? Also, I seem to remember when I was a kid, wasn't it itching powder? Didn't you used to?

Jo Tinsley (09:02):

Yeah.

Lisa Sykes (09:03):

Did you used to do this? People would pop open the things and you'd try and tip it down someone's neck,

Jo Tinsley (09:08):

I'd just pop them down the back of someone's neck. Yeah, yeah, we did that.

Lisa Sykes (09:11):

I'm sure that were not saying try this at home. Okay. Because I'm sure it's not good. But it was definitely a thing when I was a kid.

Jo Tinsley (09:18):

It definitely was when I was young as well. But actually I looked it up and it was actually invented, I mean, discovered I guess in the early 19th century as a cure for lost feeling in the surface of your skin.

Lisa Sykes (09:28):

Oh really?

Jo Tinsley (09:29):

Yeah. When a person would lose feeling in their skin, such as a paralysis, they'd mix the powder from the inside of rose hips with an ointment and use it to kind of stimulate the skin to supposedly treat it. I dunno if it worked, obviously. So that's when they sort of noticed that it was an itchy substance.

Lisa Sykes (09:47):

Well, there you go. Oh, well, it is good to know there's actual some important facts there as well as just mischievous children. But actually we should, because Becks is not here. Our wellbeing editor, she would be cross if we did not say that. Rose hip syrup is our remedy of the week, isn't it, Joe? That is, yeah, there you go. We've remembered to do it. And it's because it's packed with vitamin C, isn't it? It's a vitamin boost,

Jo Tinsley (10:10):

Which you can put on top of anything. Imagine drizzling a bit of that on your porridge in the morning and just knowing you've got that boost of vitamins first thing.

Lisa Sykes (10:17):

Yes. No, that's true. I put slightly less healthy things on my porridge in the morning. Maybe rose syrup would be good, but that's the thing. Berries are fruits, but they often contain the seeds as well, don't they? And this is the season where nature releases its seeds. It lets them go. And we've used this as a theme in a piece we did last year about how our own seeds are sort of plans and ideas, and this is the time to sort of let them go and see what happens. And if they fail to germinate, you just have to sort of prepare the ground differently next time, don't you? And it is that lesson from nature, isn't it, about needing to release and shed things in order to grow and be stronger.

Jo Tinsley (10:56):

Yeah, I guess it's so true. We understand the benefits of decluttering our homes, but sometimes we forget that we can have that sort same sense of letting go of ourselves, relinquishing things that don't feel like they serve us anymore.

Lisa Sykes (11:07):

Definitely. I mean, I really struggle with letting go of busyness, which was one of the things we explored in the article. And it's like, are you always busy? Yes. Do you find it hard to relax? Yes. And that whole thing as well about whether you worry about letting people and yourself down if you're not on top of everything.

Jo Tinsley (11:22):

Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

Lisa Sykes (11:24):

And I think lots of women particularly do that. They, because you're juggling so many responsibilities and the mental burdens that you carry, you just worry it might fall apart if you don't think about it all the time. So there's a few things you can do. You've got to try and overcome the urge to multitask and create chunks of time where you concentrate on just one thing and then you avoid that whole mental fatigue, brain fog. So that feels like a good lesson from nature to me to let things go a little bit.

Jo Tinsley (11:50):

Yeah, absolutely. It's something I really struggle with actually, and I always have, whether it's jobs, relationships, friendships. I think at the moment I'm struggling to let go of the final part of my business, so I'm closing my independent magazine. As you know. We've talked.

Lisa Sykes (12:03):

That's very hard. Yeah,

Jo Tinsley (12:04):

We talked a lot together when we were both launching our independent magazine. We

Lisa Sykes (12:08):

Did. Yeah, we

Jo Tinsley (12:09):

Did. It's good that we're still doing this now

Lisa Sykes (12:11):

And no, but you're right. Letting things go that you've been really attached to is probably the hardest thing of all, isn't it?

Jo Tinsley (12:18):

Yeah. And I think it's just because everything overlapped. It was lockdown, closing a magazine, becoming a mum, losing all those freedoms, opportunity to travel, sense of identity. That's the final thing of closing it when you're not sure what's coming next. But yeah, we can all learn, I think a lot from holding things more lightly.

Lisa Sykes (12:35):

No, and I think I agree, and obviously I'm a slightly different life face from you. My children are older and they've just left for university, which is brings a whole other thing along with it, have changed and letting go. But one of the things that I've taken from many things that we've written in the magazine, because we have wellbeing features in every single issue, is it doesn't have to be cutting cords entirely. Sometimes it's about just holding things a bit more lightly, isn't it? And letting things perhaps drift away like sycamore wings whirling in the wind as opposed to just a big chopping it down in a timber sort of way. Yeah, it's true. But yeah, I mean we are going to be talking about more seeds in a less wellbeing way, in a more literal way to come later on. But now we're going to take a pause for a short story about autumn Treasure.

(13:32):

Treasure. A short story by Callum Robinson. Wriggling forwards with the tangled barrier tugging at the backs of our jumpers. We dragged ourselves under the hedge thorns, rake hair and flesh. And though the earth beneath was dry, our knees still squelched in the damp grass of the verge. First my head and then my shoulders emerged, and soon I could haul myself up into a crouch, dusting off my hands. I took stock to a left a wall of furs loomed above us while to the right and rolling out below freshly ploughed dark and thick as chocolate gelato. The fields seemed to stretch on forever we were in, but we didn't linger along. This was forbidden territory. Remember to stay low. I whispered. Rubbing hard as a nettle sting. Mark nodded his ascent, brushing twigs and dirt from his clothes and flashing that grin that could light up a room then without another word.

(14:27):

The hunt began. I had known Mark for years by then. His house was next to mine, and we'd always been the best of friends. Whenever there were trees to climb or bikes to skid or fallen apples in need of tennis rackets, you'd find us together running wild in the woods, scurrying about the roof tracks that crisscrossed the hills behind the steading where we lived making trouble and making each other laugh. It had been a day for me when he'd left our little class when they'd made him wear a shirt and tie instead of a sweatshirt, travel 20 miles instead of two on the bus each day. One less friendly face makes a difference in a school of only 50 or so. It certainly did to me, but at least we had the afternoons with Mark going one way and I the other. And both of us creeping as though we were stalking skittish game.

(15:15):

We sneaked along the hedge line. At first glance, it was slim pickings, a few tlers strewn about the fringes. Some no bigger than cocktail olives with here and there, the promise of something all too soon kicked away. Long experience had taught us to be fastidious though. So inch by inch from end to end, we carefully combed the perimeter. 50 metres further on. I stopped beneath a tree turned earth sticks to the soles of your shoes. And I had already grown a good deal taller. It was an oddly disconcerting feeling, and I was bent double putting things right with a stick. When I saw it, the telltale flash of neon green that even today makes the breath leap in my throat, my face and jeans were already stained like camouflage. So IS san to the ground, commando crawling up and over the ridges elbow deep in dirt that rose and fell like a tidal swell strain beyond the canopy's long shadows, out past the fur trees protection and into the farmer's line of sight. One by one I peeled away the sudden leaves. Feeling that to rush might make my quarry burrow down deep or scurry away in fright. All of a sudden there it was, looking back at me, its narrow reptilian eye gleaned like a burnish mahogany reaching down. I snatched it up and green spines prickled sharp against my skin. Greedily. I shook out my prize, then lying back with the clouds above me, scudding across the sky, pushing my thumbs into the soft and creamy imprint left behind. I breathed it all in. Savouring the promise of autumn, just,

Jo Tinsley (17:04):

Oh, that was a really lovely nostalgic story. I had a friend like that at school too, and I used to love finding conquers and I really liked doing conquer fights when I was at primary school in the playground.

Lisa Sykes (17:15):

Did you use the tricks?

Jo Tinsley (17:17):

I did. I did use the tricks.

Lisa Sykes (17:18):

What did

Jo Tinsley (17:19):

You do? I used to bake them, soak them in vinegar. But my favourite one, because people always knew about them too, is sneaking one out from last year because then it would already be much harder.

Lisa Sykes (17:29):

Oh, clever. That's a bit cool. Yeah,

Jo Tinsley (17:32):

You could always tell though, because they weren't as shiny. Whenever you did something to them, they lost their shine.

Lisa Sykes (17:37):

I'm always finding conquers in my pockets because I pick them up because I can't resist them. Well,

Jo Tinsley (17:41):

Even now,

Lisa Sykes (17:42):

Well, I think they're like treasure. So I pick them up. In fact, I'm sure I've said this already, bey in an early episode, I'm repeating myself, but they're like little jewels, aren't they? And you just find them and they're irresistible and they draw you in. And then I just think, oh, I'll just take that home. And then I get, but actually that's quite nice. It gives me an opportunity to plug on Novemberish issue, which is the jewel issue because it's all about treasures and autumn treasures and things you can find. But also just the dual colours that are around right now. The golds and the silvers and the ambers and the rubies. So yeah, no, I'm really loving this issue at the moment because windfalls, they're the thing, aren't they? And horse chestnuts, they are probably the most famous windfall. Really conquers, aren't they? It's true.

Jo Tinsley (18:24):

And there's lots of ways that people use 'em as well, aside from having conquer fights. So they were ground for a mildly poisonous flower by the Victorians, but people also pop them in the corners of their rooms to deter spiders. I dunno if that works.

Lisa Sykes (18:37):

I dunno. That feels like a bit of an old wives tale, doesn't it? But worth a try if you really don't like spiders. But the one that is good is it's a moth repellent because it does actually have a chemical in it that is anti moth.

Jo Tinsley (18:50):

We need a lot of that.

Lisa Sykes (18:51):

So you can put it in your drawers and to wherever you're keeping in your jumpers. It does well. So that's good. And then we definitely have, and we will put this in the show notes, we've definitely done a little recipe for making a natural laundry soap out of conquers. That's brilliant. Which life might be a bit too short for that, but it's a nice idea. But do you keep your natural fines when you've collected

Jo Tinsley (19:15):

Things? Well, I have a 4-year-old, so yes, you have always bringing an unintentional nature table home. You have

Lisa Sykes (19:23):

Literally no, I love that. And unintentional nature tables. Yeah, I think we've all got some of those. Have we?

Jo Tinsley (19:27):

Seriously, you have no idea how many sticks I have in my car and every time I get something out of my bumba, it's just covered in crushed leaf dust. So imagine if I kept it all.

Lisa Sykes (19:38):

Yeah. Well I am now going to show you, Joe, a few of my collection because I'm sure you various pine cones of various sizes and this ginormous one is very tightly closed together.

Jo Tinsley (19:48):

That can't be from the uk.

Lisa Sykes (19:50):

Well, I found this on a beach actually on the south coast last week, so I don't think it is from the uk.

Jo Tinsley (19:55):

Do you think it drifted in?

Lisa Sykes (19:57):

Well, I'm hoping North America. I need to look it up. But it could just be France. It could not be as far, it was near Worthing. So it's the channel, I don't know. What is it? About eight, nine centimetres tall and quite fat.

Jo Tinsley (20:09):

It's an unusual shape, isn't it?

Lisa Sykes (20:11):

And it's not opening in the warmth of the house the way pine cones do, because I've got a whole bowl of them here. I love the different shapes and sizes you get though.

Jo Tinsley (20:19):

That's a classic.

Lisa Sykes (20:20):

Can we play, is my seed bigger than your seed? Because I bet

Jo Tinsley (20:24):

The one I brought along, I don't actually know what it is, I'll put it on the, oh, that's cute. Instagram. So maybe people can last can tell us. But it looks almost like a little upside down bunch of bananas. It's very cute. My daughter find it, the bishop's palace in wells the other day. So it is from an arboretum, so it's going to be something unusual.

Lisa Sykes (20:39):

Yeah, okay. So it will be exotic, won't it?

Jo Tinsley (20:41):

Yeah,

Lisa Sykes (20:42):

But not as exotic as this baby. Look at this.

Jo Tinsley (20:45):

What is that?

Lisa Sykes (20:46):

So this is, I'm going to shake it in case you can hear it, but it's got a slight rattle to it because it is a boab.

Jo Tinsley (20:53):

Okay.

Lisa Sykes (20:54):

Is it boab or boab I think, isn't it? And I was given it because I was given it actually from a beauty company who were making a product like a really nice eco moisturiser using baobab

Jo Tinsley (21:06):

Seeds. Lisa's holding this up and it's about the same size as her head. It's

Lisa Sykes (21:11):

Actually, isn't it?

Jo Tinsley (21:11):

It's a very large seed. In

Lisa Sykes (21:12):

Fact, we will put this on our social so you can see it. But it's very cool and it's furry and it just feels, I dunno, I really like it, so I just keep it. It's almost like having a little stress ball. You can get those things that you squeeze when you start working. And this is quite nice. You could just give it a little stroke every now and again.

Jo Tinsley (21:31):

So you don't want to plant it in the garden.

Lisa Sykes (21:33):

I don't think it'd be warm enough to grow here, would it? I don't know.

Jo Tinsley (21:36):

No, probably not.

Lisa Sykes (21:37):

They are cool trees though. I have seen them in Africa and they're amazing, aren't they? Oh, they're

Jo Tinsley (21:40):

Incredible.

Lisa Sykes (21:41):

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so there we go. That was our little show and tell who's got the biggest seed. Yeah. Be you won, which has worked so well on the podcast. But you've got to talk to me about pine cones, aren't you? Because we've got lots of uses for them.

Jo Tinsley (21:54):

Yeah. So pine cones are like the protective packaging for tree seeds. So sort of keep the cargo safe until the seeds are ready to mature.

Lisa Sykes (22:01):

Well, woodpeckers love them. Squirrels love them.

Jo Tinsley (22:04):

Woodpeckers love them. Squirrels love them. They're great for crafts.

Lisa Sykes (22:06):

Yeah,

Jo Tinsley (22:07):

Yeah. There was something in the magazine about pine cone fire starters.

Lisa Sykes (22:10):

Oh yes, yes. No, I know about this. In fact, I've actually done this because it's quite simple.

Jo Tinsley (22:14):

Okay.

Lisa Sykes (22:15):

My level of craft. So basically you dry your pine cones indoors, you get some cupcake cases on the baking tray, and you take just the wax out of a tea light, not the metal bit, and you melt them in the oven 150 degrees, and you add essential oils if you want them. And you put a pine cone in each case and leave them to cool. So the wax sets around it and then they help you fire going and they'll send you room as well. Oh,

Jo Tinsley (22:37):

That's nice.

Lisa Sykes (22:38):

And they're really nice. Yeah, they're really nice.

Jo Tinsley (22:40):

They look really lovely as well, don't they?

Lisa Sykes (22:42):

Yeah, no, they're great. And you made bird feeders with yours?

Jo Tinsley (22:46):

I have made bird feeders with them before.

Lisa Sykes (22:47):

How did that go?

Jo Tinsley (22:48):

Yeah, no, they went well the other day. I actually made some fat balls for the birds, but it went really wrong because I don't really follow recipes, which is going to be really interesting when we do our stir up Sunday

Lisa Sykes (22:59):

Episode. Yes.

Jo Tinsley (23:00):

I like to do things by eye. Yes. I think I put too much lad in so they wouldn't form balls. So I just press 'em into a Tupperware and now they're in the fridge and I'm really worried someone's going to think it's a flat jack and eater.

Lisa Sykes (23:12):

I once had that problem actually because at Christmas my mom likes to put nibbles around, but she also has bowls of potpourri and I accidentally dipped into the wrong bowl. And it was Christmas. There had been some celebrations going on and it did end up with a mouthful of the most disgusting potpourri. But yes, I think you need to label those flapjacks, Joe. Otherwise it could go down badly.

Jo Tinsley (23:40):

I think I do.

Lisa Sykes (23:42):

But actually Goldfinches love seeds, don't they? And they are one of my favourite birds. They're so pretty.

Jo Tinsley (23:47):

Do you know what? Because we always have collective nouns in the magazine. We do. Do you know what the goldfish one is?

Lisa Sykes (23:51):

I can't remember. I think we've done that one, haven't there you go on, you tell me.

Jo Tinsley (23:55):

Yeah, it's a charm. A charm of goldfish

Lisa Sykes (23:58):

Is. Oh, that's so sweet. And also you do get them in little flocks, don't you? In the winter they're noisy and cher, but charming, which is presumably where it comes from. Nice. So have you ever done seed bombing where you create a little kind of cake of seeds in the clay ball, don't you? And then throw it somewhere?

Jo Tinsley (24:16):

Yeah, I have tried making those, but I've never got the seeds to grow before. But yeah, I dunno what it was I was doing wrong.

Lisa Sykes (24:22):

I've done more made little mini wildflower meadows in my garden and things, and they're tricky because often if you lived in a new build that just had a building site of a garden, actually that's probably going to be the best place to grow wildflower meadow because they need really poor soil. And most of our garden lawns that we try and grow them in are already too rich, so the grass takes over.

Jo Tinsley (24:44):

Yeah.

Lisa Sykes (24:45):

Do you know about yellow rattle?

Jo Tinsley (24:46):

No. No. I mean, I heard of the plant

Lisa Sykes (24:48):

Yellow rattle is literally, you can hear the seeds rattling in the summer when they're ripe. It's a plant that you, well seed that you sow with your wild flour mix, and it's a parasite of grass, so actually it reduces the grass so that the flowers can grow and it reduces their domination of the grass. So it's in quite a lot of wildflower mixes. But you've got to be careful because a lot of wildflower mixes are like corn flour and poppy and they're annuals. And so you get a really good show the first year, but then if you don't disturb the soil again, they don't come back the next year. So you kind of just need to do your research, I think

Jo Tinsley (25:22):

On the old wildflower. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not as easy as it looks.

Lisa Sykes (25:25):

But CBOs are mainly gorilla gardens as who use them. They

Jo Tinsley (25:29):

That's true. And I have actually done that. Have you?

Lisa Sykes (25:32):

Yeah. So radical.

Jo Tinsley (25:33):

Yeah. So back in 2010, I launched a project called The Love of It, and it was kind of encouraging people to live more playfully. Nice. As part of that, we did lots of gorilla gardening, gorilla art in Bristol. And so I didn't seed bomb, but we did plant up unused and unloved bits of land around the bare pit and it feels really good. And it's just a nice way to meet people.

Lisa Sykes (25:54):

I guess it's not so gorilla, but I do like to plant oak seedlings.

Jo Tinsley (25:58):

You,

Lisa Sykes (25:59):

I live in Sussex where it's really wooded, so oak seedlings are always coming up in your garden or whatever. And I like to plant them into a pot and then move them somewhere and plant them. Nice. And I've given them to people as well. And so I like that. I like to be a prolific oak planter.

Jo Tinsley (26:12):

Do you know who else is a prolific oak planter? Who is Jays?

Lisa Sykes (26:17):

Oh, what the birds?

Jo Tinsley (26:18):

The corvids. Yeah.

Lisa Sykes (26:19):

Are they?

Jo Tinsley (26:19):

Yeah, they're incredible. I was listening to some at Amal and Somerset the other day, and for such beautiful birds, they don't sound beautiful, they're very screechy. But yeah, so they collect and store vast numbers of acorns and they plant them and actually they use vertical structures in the landscape to remember the location of them. Wow. They only remember about 75%, so like 25% of them germinate. But also amazing is they never find other jay's acorns. They only find their own when they come across an oak seedling. They dig it up, eat the acorn, and then try and replant the seedling.

Lisa Sykes (26:54):

No.

Jo Tinsley (26:55):

And most of them take,

Lisa Sykes (26:56):

That's brilliant. I love that. I love that

Jo Tinsley (26:58):

Story. Lots of the oak trees in our country have implanted by Jays.

Lisa Sykes (27:02):

Oh, that's great. Now I know you want to tell us about the seed detectives because this was a really moving story and you really taken with it, weren't you that we had in the magazine?

Jo Tinsley (27:12):

Yeah. It was about a guy who'd found this really rare sort of sweet and fiery kind of pepper on a Ukrainian market. And he talked to the lady and it was like her mother's and her grandmother's before her. It's like a heritage loom seed that had grown. And after he found that one and learned the story, he just became hooked to finding these seeds in local markets and finding their stories. And he ended up having a library of about 500 seeds. And I just thought it was really interesting. He was sort of talking about how important it is for displaced people to be able to grow these vegetables from their homeland, that sort of taste of the homeland of their ancestry.

Lisa Sykes (27:47):

Yeah, the food and memory link.

Jo Tinsley (27:50):

Exactly. And yeah, I'd encourage anyone to read that and think about that. It just shows the importance of protecting these seeds, I guess.

Lisa Sykes (27:59):

No, that's really interesting. I think there's so much we could talk about with seeds and berries and obviously we've talked about being slightly nervous forages. And even if you don't go out and pick them or save them or cook with them, they're just beautiful to know that the stories behind them, they, I'm probably going to stick to my crumbles from reliable berries and just go to the woods to enjoy the season. But I do like that idea of making land art though, don't you?

Jo Tinsley (28:26):

Yeah, you can do that with fur cones and things like that. There was another really beautiful feature in the magazine that was this artist. He'd done spirals of acorns around the roots of a tree or like a spiral of colourful maple leaves or a delicate web of twigs in the fork of a branch.

Lisa Sykes (28:43):

And although his work was so professional, he gave some advice, didn't he, about obviously spend as much time there as possible so you can understand the landscape you're in. But then he was saying there are clues, aren't they? You can find natural frames or create spirals and mandalas, so you can actually start in a really simple way.

Jo Tinsley (29:02):

It's another way of just being mindful in there and noticing things in the landscape, isn't it?

Lisa Sykes (29:06):

Definitely. And we'll try and put a few of these links in our show notes. We've got a bit more expansive on the show notes this season. There's lots to share and tell, isn't there? So time to set our intentions. Before we go, Joe, I'm going to try and make some art for people when they go down the woods and it'll make them smile because I've got a very bad mandala in there or something.

Jo Tinsley (29:25):

Nice. How about you? I think I'm going to try and be a more courageous forager because I do probably know which of the slows and I'm going to be brave.

Lisa Sykes (29:33):

I think you could identify a slow. Yeah, I think I could. Yeah, definitely. So thanks for joining us, Joe, with your knowledgeable advice and for always getting out there.

Jo Tinsley (29:44):

Yeah, thank you for having me back again. I'm looking forward to our stir up Sunday.

Lisa Sykes (29:47):

Oh yes. I shall tell you about that in a minute. And we hope you found something useful or fun or just be vaguely entertained by our seed chat. And if you have, then you can follow us on your podcast app so you don't miss an episode next week in which wellbeing editor, Bex Frank and I will be talking about things that nourishes at this time of year. And keep an eye on our social media because we have plans for our cook. Along episode on Stirrup Sunday, we're going to be making some recipes for cakes and puddings. I won't say exactly live because we don't want to be on air for hours and hours, but you can join us and cook along. And if you're new to simple things, you can also try subscription. You can get this November issue straight away. Our Jewel shoe details are on our show notes and on the website, the simple things.com. See you next time.