An interview with Taj Scicluna
Instagram: @botanical_education
Website: www.botanicaleducation.com
Email: info@botanicaleducation.com.au
BIO: Taj is an artist who fuses together her love of Herbalism, Foraging, Writing, Cooking, Ecosystem Health, Personal Health and Education into a cohesive offering.
Location: Macedon Ranges, Victoria
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More about this episode:
Join us as we explore the essentials of a successful herb garden with our special guest, Taj from Botanical Education. In this informative discussion, we'll delve into the cultivation of medicinal plants and the benefits of a diverse garden for both our health and local ecosystems. Taj, an expert in plant care, shares her experiences and insights on how a close relationship with nature can enhance our environments and well-being.
'How I Grow' is produced by The Seed Collection Pty Ltd.
Find out more about us here: www.theseedcollection.com.au
An interview with Taj Scicluna
Instagram: @botanical_education
Website: www.botanicaleducation.com
Email: info@botanicaleducation.com.au
BIO: Taj is an artist who fuses together her love of Herbalism, Foraging, Writing, Cooking, Ecosystem Health, Personal Health and Education into a cohesive offering.
Location: Macedon Ranges, Victoria
-----------------------------
More about this episode:
Join us as we explore the essentials of a successful herb garden with our special guest, Taj from Botanical Education. In this informative discussion, we'll delve into the cultivation of medicinal plants and the benefits of a diverse garden for both our health and local ecosystems. Taj, an expert in plant care, shares her experiences and insights on how a close relationship with nature can enhance our environments and well-being.
'How I Grow' is produced by The Seed Collection Pty Ltd.
Find out more about us here: www.theseedcollection.com.au
You're listening to how I Grow with the Seed Collection. My name is Gemma and today I'll be speaking with Taj from Botanical Education. Taj is an artist who fuses together her love of herbalism, foraging, writing, cooking, ecosystem, health, personal health and education into a cohesive offering. Taj is a wealth of knowledge of all things herb and herbal and I've no doubt that everyone listening will be inspired by Taj's passion and knowledge. Today, taj is from Macedon Ranges in Victoria, which is Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung country and a cool climate region. Hi, taj, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
Speaker 2:Hello Gemma. Thank you so much for your time and for inviting me here, Our pleasure.
Speaker 1:I'm really eager to learn more about how you grow. I'd like to start off with asking you what your gardening style is. So if you could please tell us a little bit about the land you garden on, how you go about it and why it's important to you.
Speaker 2:So the style of gardening that I have is sometimes quite wild and I like to be informed by nature and natural processes. So although I love ornamental, edible and medicinal gardening and I always have it in mind to make it beautiful, I sometimes don't follow the same parameters as a lot of gardening books or guidelines. You know, for example, I just got some big burdock seeds out of the garden and I just took a machete to the burdock kind of bush as it dried and macheted it into the garden bed and then created a bit of a no-dig garden over it so that it would grow, rather than saving every little seed and putting it in. So I have a little bit of a wild style gardening and I am gardening at the moment in my friend's market garden. So I rent two rows in the market garden and my focus is on medicinals that also act as bee fodder and insectaries, nectaries for insects and for habitat for other creatures, as well as providing me with the medicine that I need for clients.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds fantastic. You mentioned bee fodder. I know a lot of people are really, really keen to learn more about how they can help protect that really important species and attract them to their garden. What are your go-to plants for that?
Speaker 2:I love a lot of salvias, so many salvias will act as amazing nectaries for bees. It gets a little bit more specific as well sometimes, because there'll be specific bees in regions, solitary bees and things like that. So you can actually look into the bees of your bioregion and the kinds of plants that they like. You can even look at the plant families or genuses and then often if you provide those genuses in your garden, then it'll encourage bees from that bioregion.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay, excellent. So, along with bee fodders and things like that you mentioned, you're growing some herbs for your medicine. Could you talk us through what are in those two rows of market garden space you have at the moment?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's very exciting. So I at the moment I'll give you a little bit of a list. So I have chamomile, burdock, echinacea, red clover, sage, thyme, oregano, tulsi, motherwort, meadow sweet, and there's probably a few more that I'm forgetting right now.
Speaker 1:That sounds fantastic. Is there any out of those? I know this is a difficult question. Is there any out of those that are your favourites? Like if you had to pick one thing.
Speaker 2:Well, I yeah, look, I do have some favourites. I very much always grow oats. I always grow oat straw and oat straw for me is an amazing plant, permaculturally speaking, as it has multiple functions For me. I love that. It is an amazing remedy for the nervous system and I think that many people could do with nervous system support. You can't really go wrong with it because it's quite a safe plant unless people are allergic to avenin. So oats usually don't. They don't have gluten. They're usually processed on machinery that does have gluten on it, but people can be allergic to the protein avenin in it. So unless you're yeah, you're allergic to it, it's pretty amazing for a remedy. But also, as we know, it's a food plant.
Speaker 2:So the seeds are used for rolled oats. So it's a food, it's a medicine, it's a fodder for animals, so you can use it actually for livestock feed. It can be used as part of a green manure or to help regenerate or rest beds. If you let it dry, then you can cut it and it can be used as carbon to add to your compost or to lay over the top of beds as a mulch.
Speaker 2:So for me it's a fantastic multiple function plant and one of my little tricks that I like with it as well is that it can be used as a little bit of a frost trap. I usually live in frosty areas and I also like to grow a lot of Mediterranean plants, so during the winter they need a little bit of a buffer, so I'll usually actually grow oats around them to act as a little bit of a frost trap so that those Mediterranean plants won't be too harshly affected. And the other thing that I love about oats is it's an annual, so you can't really go too wrong with it. If it doesn't grow right or it doesn't go right, you just pull it up and start again the next time around.
Speaker 1:That sounds really incredible. A very diverse range of benefits for growing those. What kind of growing conditions do oats require?
Speaker 2:So the wild oats is originally from the fertile crescent. They can handle a harsh summer and almost drought conditions, but they need wet feet, they need wet roots to get them going. So they're actually quite versatile. They're usually a temperate region plant cool to warm temperate region. You can grow them both in the autumn to winter and they will actually germinate in a semi-shaded or full sun position as long as they get that adequate water. They're quite prone to drying out when they're small, when they're young, but if you get through that period then they can actually be quite hardy throughout a dry summer.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. I really like what you mentioned about using them as a buffer as well. Not only does it help protect those plants from frost, but then you have all the benefits of having grown the oats as well. So I really like those circles of constant usage, multiple uses, like you mentioned with the permaculture principles.
Speaker 2:I think that's fantastic and a lot of people coming into winter now a lot of people are going to have noted that the oats are a wonderful plant as they do have the multiple functions, but people aren't very used to them in the sense of a gardening plant because they're a grass species, so they look very grassy and it's not usually the pretty uh yeah, the pretty ornamental that a lot of people go for. However, you can make them look really, really beautiful if you put them in certain tufts around your perennials and your other ornament more ornamental plants as well. So if that's something that you know you are concerned about and you do want to beautify your garden, oats can act as a beautifier. You've just got to know where and how to use them.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay, wonderful. I've seen on your Instagram recently that you tout the Hori Hori knife as your favourite gardening tool. Could you share with us what that is and why you consider it a must-have?
Speaker 2:The Horihori is a Japanese gardening tool. It's like a trowel, but it's a semi-trowel knife type thing, and I think that I just love it. I love it so much. It's the weight of it for me as well. It feels really good in the hand. It has a really good weight to it, but it's longer than a trowel usually is, so you can get more depth. So I really love it because I can dig up roots with it and root remedies. I'm quite often making those in my apothecary and I also love that. It's a knife serrated and there's a sharp side too, so it's really good if I'm working with bags any bags of fertilizers or anything or anything that I need to cut quickly in the garden. I use it for transplanting quite a lot, digging, harvesting I can even harvest grasses with the serrated edge, and I can take cuttings with the sharp edge if it's sharp enough too. So I always have it with me.
Speaker 2:I have those, and I take my secateurs everywhere as well.
Speaker 1:Oh wonderful, and I saw on the hoary hoary knife. There's also a little measuring engraved into the knife there as well, so you can see how deeply you're digging for planting certain things as well. That's pretty handy.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is, and for spacing as well. I do everything by feel, so I'm not much of a measurer myself, but it does really come in handy if you need to know the space between plants.
Speaker 1:Taj, so our listeners can get a bit of an understanding about your background. I understand you come from a permaculture background, but could you touch a little bit on where you're at now with your gardening journey and perhaps some of your qualifications in the garden as well?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am a trained and qualified permaculturalist. I completed my permaculture diploma in 2011 and have completed four permaculture design courses, as well as taught on a bunch of permaculture design courses. I love learning, so I'm constantly signing up to courses and investing in my own education because it's one of the things that I see is really worthwhile and lasting. I don't have many things or assets. Whenever I write down my assets, I'm thinking, oh man, can I put how much I've spent on education down as an asset, because I think that that's my greatest one. To be honest, that's where most of my time, energy and money has gone in my life. So, apart from more of those garden qualifications and doing food forest courses and learning soil microbiology with Elaine Ingham in the States and all these different little pathways to learn more about gardening, I've always had a deep passion and reverence for medicinal plants and plants that have a capacity to heal through the effects of their constituents on our physiology. So I have done an advanced diploma in Western herbalism, a Bachelor of health science in western herbalism, and also a year-long phytochemistry course as well, because I love plant chemistry, and where this has taken me now is I mainly focus on medicinal plants.
Speaker 2:I don't much more design gardens for clients unless they're medicinal gardens, because that's the thing that really gets me going and I just don't see the point in doing after all this time, doing a lot of things that I'm not passionate about, and medicinal plants just really have my heart.
Speaker 2:I love making up different things in my apothecary, so now what I'm doing is I am growing most of the plants that are in my dispensary that I'm using for clients now because I'm a herbal consultant, so I'm a herbalist that will see clients online and face to face, and I love being able to grow or forage or wild craft the ingredients that I use and then, using my photochemistry knowledge, I will then prepare the remedies myself and dispense them to my clients. So not only do I know where the plant is grown, I know how it has been made, where the plants come from, there's a lot less embodied energy in it, etc. I also feel really good about assisting people to have more of a bioregional connection to the plants because it is grown close to them, and so this is something that I'm actually really deeply passionate about is linking people together with their bioregions through botanical practice.
Speaker 1:That sounds incredible and for anybody that hasn't seen Taja's Instagram page, botanical Education, I highly recommend checking it out. It radiates passion and there is just an absolute wealth of knowledge there. I love, taj, how you just mentioned there that you count your education as your greatest asset. I think that's a really powerful statement and it actually gave me goosebumps. I think, if we could, all you know, take that view when it comes to the things we're learning and how we connect with the earth around us.
Speaker 2:I think it would to acknowledge that I'm privileged enough to be able to have done those things as well, and that education doesn't come as easy for some, or the opportunities for education. So I do really want to recognise that. For me, with my business, it's actually a real point of contention, because I believe in education being accessible and I don't want to necessarily hold knowledge hostage for profit. However, I also have invested a lot of time and energy and my own money into this, and the way that I really wish to create a livelihood is by sharing it with people. So I'm doing my best to walk that line and try and make it accessible while still making a living.
Speaker 1:That's a really beautiful philosophy, taj. I really, really respect that approach, and you do yourself offer some education as well. You're not just hoarding all of this information you share quite abundantly on your socials, but you also offer some courses, don't you?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do.
Speaker 2:That's one of my favourite things to do with my time is to share what I have learnt with people, and quite often in my courses I I liken it to I've said this to a few people in courses that I I liken this to a sunset for me anyway. So watching a sunset can feel wonderful on your own You're watching it and it's beautiful. But for me, the treasured moment of watching a sunset is being able to turn around to someone and say, wow, can you see that? And they say, yeah, I can. And it's this moment of feeling like you can both witness the same beauty in the world.
Speaker 2:That, for me, is the point of it all, and that's the way that I feel about teaching is that I learn all of these things and I'm so excited about it, but it doesn't really translate or land until I can say to someone, oh, don't you think that this is amazing? And then the participants will say, or some of them will say, yes, I do, and you watch them light up, and that's the moment where it feels like it makes it all makes sense to me and it all comes together.
Speaker 1:I love that, I really love that, and I like something else that I've seen you mention before about your responsibility as a teacher. Could you touch a little bit on that? I thought that was a really powerful statement too.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, if I start this, I'll never stop, but yes, I do feel like I have a huge responsibility as an educator, and I'm not sure if all educators and teachers do understand this, because most of the time when you meet someone and they say that they are not good at a particular subject or a particular thing, if you ask them if their teacher what their teacher was like with that subject, they'll usually respond with oh, my teacher was rubbish. Or yeah, no, I didn't get along with that teacher, or you know something to that effect. So I feel like a lot of the time, the teacher, the educator, the facilitator makes a huge difference to the trajectory of someone's life and what they want to learn and do, and I think it's a huge injustice to the world to have to have people put off learning, like to me. That like that almost hurts when I think about it, for people to not feel like they're good at learning.
Speaker 2:I've had quite a few participants that have come up to me and said do you know what? I thought that I was bad at learning until I came to your course, and it saddens me to no end that someone would think that they are bad at learning. It's there for everyone to do and it doesn't matter how you do it. You've just got to be interested, and if educators don't foster that interest in people, then I feel like they're doing a massive disservice to not only that person but to the world in some ways, because the more that we learn about the world, the deeper the respect we have for it I think will be, and then the better we'll be at being custodians.
Speaker 1:Very true, very true. That's excellent. I really agree with that. The teacher can make a world of difference. They really can. So, moving back into the garden side of things, taj, what are some of the ways you use the herbs that you grow?
Speaker 2:Oh, there's so, so many things that I do. So the herbs that I grow in my dispensary so the herbs that I grow in my dispensary, they become loose leaf teas, or I make them into tinctures or drops using alcohol as a preservative, or I will make creams, balms. I can make different juices. Even so, the the list goes on capsules sometimes I prefer it's quite funny, because I don't think that the only method of uh, distributing a herb or or taking a herb should be ingesting a herb, should be just with a liquid extract or a tincture, and in the past it's really gotten to me that that seems one of the only avenues of administration for a lot of naturopaths and herbalists. But I have to say that now I have my own little dispensary that I'm creating and running. I understand this to a degree, because it's actually much harder to keep loose leaf herbs preserved and in good quality for a longer period of time. If you make them into a tincture or alcohol-based hydroethanolic extraction, then it's preserved and you don't really have to worry so much about it spoiling. So although I do have a lot of loose leaf teas, I actually have to monitor them a lot more than the other things, and then there's a variety of different kind of seed saving that I do for the next year as well, and utilizing different herbs for their properties, even in the garden. So making little weed teas as fertilisers, nettle tea for the garden and things like that.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I will actually give back to the garden with the herbs that I grow as well. There's quite a few that are very mineral rich and I really like to ensure that I'm not only just taking from the garden but giving back to the garden. So there's a huge uh degree of reciprocity in my work and I really try and think about how to give back, especially, you know, even with the me and my partner talk about it. There's a mulberry tree on this property. It's 130 years old. It's absolutely astounding and it gives so much every year and so much joy and so much fruit. And then we've been talking about, oh, this autumn we should actually go and feed that tree and fertilize it because it gives to us. So why not give to?
Speaker 1:it Lovely? Yes, why not? So some of the things I've seen actually quite a bit of garden art or food magic, if you will that looks absolutely divine on your page are some recipes and foods. I've seen things like lavender custard tarts and nettle and blackberry cupcakes that look amazing. Obviously these are things you've grown sorry, you've created from the herbs that you've grown in your garden. Do you have a favourite that you think you know the average gardener will have these items in their garden? Have these particular herbs in their garden Favourite sort of quick fix to make?
Speaker 2:So it's funny, a quick recipe from herbs in the garden. Now, I love getting creative with the herbs that I grow and what I can do with them, which you'll see on my page. It's funny because I've started offering recipes for my patrons and this is yeah, I make a little kind of recipe book, but for me it's actually very hard to measure because I do everything by feel. I even bake by feel. So I often will do measurements only because I've got people that will ask me for them.
Speaker 2:But if I was to choose one recipe that I think is really versatile for people and easy, it's to make pestos. So I love making wild food pesto and you can do this with nettles. I'm absolutely obsessed with nettle, I've even got a pot of it on the stove now and you can do this with nettle. Or you can do it dandelion or chickweed or any wild greens that you know are edible and you've identified correctly, and you can make them into a pesto so that it becomes quite palatable because they've got all these different flavors. You can add your nuts and seeds, your olive oil, lemon juice or vinegar, salt and any herbs and spices or garlic that you like and then whiz that up and you keep that in the fridge and it lasts and you have this delicious wild food accompaniment to meals in your fridge every day. So you don't have to necessarily go foraging every day either. So I love wild pestos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think everybody has to love a bit of pesto Delicious. That's something you were mentioning earlier, Taj, when you were talking about preserving your herbs. Do you have a preference for your own preservation of them? I know you mentioned the tinctures and things like that. What would be your preference when it comes to preserving things you've grown?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, although I don't think that tinctures are the best method of administration all the time, and that's because quite often when seeing clients or if people have an ailment, you've got to think about where you want the where you want that herb to go.
Speaker 2:You know, for example, if if someone has a respiratory infection, it's best to make a steam with herbs sometimes rather than taking a tincture for everything. But for me, there's an art and science to tincturing that I love and I find deeply enthralling and interesting calculating the concentrations and making sure that they're all right and then making sure that I actually can recreate that same concentration over and over again for my clients. So for me I think that tincturing, especially at the moment, is my favorite because I can, there's so much that I can do with it, there's so much that I can learn with it and I find it the science of it really really stimulating. And then it acts as a preservative for a really long time and then I can use those tinctures in creams or in other other recipes as well. So it's quite versatile.
Speaker 1:Ah, it is. It's nice when things are versatile like that. I think it's, yeah very handy. So, taj, could you tell us a little bit about what your current garden looks like today?
Speaker 2:Okay, so today I've got these two lovely rows within a market garden and I have. First of all, there's a wooden archway at the front which my partner lovingly built, and he lovingly built three more archways that go down the garden. The garden it's got quite a wide path so that people can come and do courses and things like that in the garden as well. But these other archways are made from rebar, so I've had pumpkins growing over them, which I love. I love pumpkins. I think they're the most whimsical vegetable, I think they're delightful and there's so many different kinds and I want to grow them all. And so they've been growing up these archways and then hanging like beautiful globes and they're now starting to shrivel up. So I'm on to starting the sweet peas along the archways for the winter. And then, yeah, I've got these two long rows which I am currently building the soil and mulching for the autumn plantings.
Speaker 2:There's quite a few herbs that I like to plant in autumn rather than in spring, and this is because in spring here we might get the rain for the the roots to really take hold in the soil. However, we have really really harsh and extreme summers here sometimes, and I really like the idea of growing, starting them in the autumn, because I think that they get a better head start, even if they are perennials, so they'll flourish for a little while, then they'll die back for the winter and then they'll come back for the spring. So I like to do an autumn planting of quite a lot of my herbs, and there's quite a few that I have ready to plant. Next week I've got a volunteer garden day with some of my students and they're going to come and be part of the garden preparation.
Speaker 1:Lovely and the use of space for the vertical pumpkins. I really like that. I think that's very clever. Have you found that the weight of any of the pumpkins have been a problem?
Speaker 2:um, no, no, not necessarily. It's been fine because the the rebar is actually quite strong and sturdy, uh, thanks to my engineer brained partner. Uh, so they're very sturdy and you'd be surprised. It's funny that the pumpkins they're weighty. But if you ever notice the pumpkins they grow on such a it looks like a flimsy stalk and a flimsy runner, but it actually can take a lot of weight. So don't let looks deceive you. By any account and yeah, they've been quite prolific You've got to find the ones that run and not the ones that just mound or kind of spread out like a zucchini. So they you know. I found that golden nuggets aren't very good. I thought that that'd actually be great because they've got these little tiny golden globes that look really, really cute hanging, but they're not as much of a creeper in the cucurbitay family, so I had to find some other ones that were best and so what species did you have growing up there?
Speaker 1:a variety, sorry what are they?
Speaker 2:the province, oh, it's a, it's a uh, the musk province yes, yeah, that is. It's a beautiful pumpkin and that was one of the best to grow up the archways there. That's been really really prolific and amazing.
Speaker 1:They are gorgeous like the ideal cartoon pumpkin too, aren't they Like very Cinderella-esque.
Speaker 2:Yes, like I said, they're so whimsical and beautiful and so I love. I've got my prized pumpkin sitting here actually next to me, and I am really excited. I'm going to make a pumpkin pie for the people on the farm for tomorrow night.
Speaker 1:Oh yum, lovely for tomorrow night, oh yum, lovely. So we've touched on a bit of vertical gardening. Is there anything that you sort of would like to try, that's completely different in the gardening realm, something that you think might be a little bit quirky or unusual, that you'd like to have a go at or have had?
Speaker 2:That's interesting. I think I've had a go at a lot of different types of gardening vertical gardens, I've had a go at roof gardens, because I really like learning a bunch of different techniques, and not only the techniques, but where they're applicable so where they're applicable climatically and, uh, you know, with the terrain that you're working with, because a lot of the time I think that humans, uh, we try and overlay what we want onto an area rather than taking in what will work on the area. And now I know quite a few little tricks or things that I like to do within the climate that I'm used to. I guess I think that the I don't know if there's many out there ideas that I can think about right now, even though I know my partner would be terrified with me because he's the king of wacky ideas but we actually would love to grow a garden one day I'm a big fan of tiny house and big garden and my dream garden and have a big orrery. So me and my partner actually want to build a garden sculpture.
Speaker 2:An orrery is the thing where you turn the cogs and the planets spin. That's the way that I usually will tell people about it, because they know usually what it is but they don't know the name of it. So that contraption where the planets spin and there's a bunch of different cogs that work it. We actually want to make a big kind of life structure of one of those in a garden and in a beautiful medicinal garden with a place for educating and learning. I'm a big fan of getting people out into the garden. I think that one of the things that is destroying our health is that we're not exposed to enough movement, sunlight, air. You know, we're just not outside doing things as much anymore. So I would like to maximize more of our time in the garden and doing hands-on kinesthetic work as much as I can. So my dream and kind of out there gardening idea more has to do with the sculptures and the scope and the education and the infrastructure than it does just with the garden.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a range of benefits too, just for being outdoors. You know all the healthy microbiome, but also just our body's natural rhythms. They fall into a better harmony when we're outdoors and we're in nature.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can even see in kids. Kids act different when they're outside and I don't think that we're any different. We've just been conditioned to be adults. And I just thought as well that you asked me if I have any, you know, out there gardening ideas or things that I would like to try.
Speaker 2:Look, I haven't thought about it for a little while because of where I'm at at the moment, but eventually, when I am done with some of the projects that I'm doing now, I'm ready to move on to something else, and perhaps on a property where this is possible now.
Speaker 2:And ready to move on to something else, and perhaps on a property where this is possible, I would actually love to grow uh, people talk about food forests, but I would love to grow medicine forests, so medicinal forest gardens, and concentrate on ecosystems and recreating ecosystems, for example, and have a real scientific premise behind it as well. Of thinking about what niches these plants actually fulfill within the bioregion and what plants, what plant plants animals, insects, reptiles, mammals and things like that that these plants would be benefiting and that these little ecosystems would be benefiting. So recreating it in a way that is actually hopefully conducive to the bioregion that I'll be in but also acts as a little bit of a platform to educate people about medicinal forest garden systems and how they come from, ecosystems that help other things to be intact, help for habitat and food and nectar and places to rear young and all these kind of things. So I really love the idea of educating people about ecology, but through medicine. I'm not an ecologist, I'm an educator, but this is where I would really like to go.
Speaker 1:That sounds incredible, and is that something you would like to see more of in the gardening realm in terms of on an everyday gardener scale, people gardening more in tune with their specific regions as well, definitely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I think that it's one of the things that's missing a little bit. It's hard in this world because I contemplate, played it quite a lot. Um, I am very, I am very interested in agriculture. I'm very interested in the, the way that we garden, I love living on farms and things like that. I love milking cows, I love growing food and I like learning about it.
Speaker 2:However, I am aware of how, on the land that I'm on, agriculture really has been overlaid onto this landscape through colonialism, and I think about that quite deeply, because I think about, oh, how do we, how do we bridge these gaps? And not necessarily go back, but I do feel like our agricultural practices have been deeply damaging to this land in a bunch of ways. So, yeah, my hope is that we would. My hope is that we would start living with a little bit more awareness about where we are and who lives there with us, so not just humans, the human who, but the other who lives there with us. Yeah, and then try and design our gardens and interact with that space, with those creatures and kin in mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's very important. Has there been anything that you've found it particularly challenging to grow, and it could just be the one specific herb or vegetable or plant, anything in particular that's really challenged you, that you've learned a lot from?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, there's, there's a couple of these, um. So first of all let's talk about, first of all, one of my dear loves, my love affair with Dittany of Crete. And I was growing that really successfully when I lived in the Dandenong Ranges, or in the surrounds of the Dandenong Ranges, on more flatter topography rather than the hills, and I was growing this quite well. But as I moved to Macedon Ranges the frosts were just destroying it and it just seemed to be so sensitive to moisture so I would have it inside all winter and then I would put it outside, because it's a Mediterranean plant, and then, you know, one night a frost would get it or something, and I was like damn. So I would try and try again, as I've been here and finding different ways, and now I have four of them growing successfully.
Speaker 2:So a couple of the things that have been really helpful to that is that getting the plants. I think that the company I was getting the plants from they were actually too. They were too small to be sent off and transplanted, so I was having real trouble with those and keeping them alive. But these new ones that I got were quite a little bit more advanced in their life cycle and development, and I think that that's helped quite a lot. And then I've I put one in a pot in the garden so I could move it around and see where it liked it best instead of putting it in the garden, and I have just tried things very slowly with them. So, for example, the two one hasn't been transplanted and another one I just transplanted with succulent soil and monitored both of them to see, okay, does this transplant well or doesn't it? And that one's flourishing now and flowering. So I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 2:And the other plant that I have had a little bit of trouble with, which is quite hard to get your hands on, is rhodiola, and that's because I look, I only had one of them really to experiment with and I can't. I try not to be too harsh on myself, and I would say this to a lot of gardeners or budding gardeners that, like you, will kill things, and I I've been doing this for a really long time and I still kill things and I, though I'm disappointed, I do see it as a really big learning curve and quite often when I get a new plant, especially if I know that it's rare or it's hard to grow, I'll give myself a little bit of leniency, I'll know, okay, I'm experimenting here. I can look up the books, I can do the things that they say, but really I am in a different climatic, yeah, a different microclimate to. You know a lot of books. We all are. We're all very, very climate specific to our region, so I give myself a little bit of leniency with it.
Speaker 2:But the rhodiola has been hard to grow. It's an alpine plant, so that can be a difficult microclimate to mimic and I really would like to grow it though, because it is an endangered species, and it's become endangered because it's a great remedy for adapting, to stress. So the Western world has become privy to this and it means that it has threatened that species in China massively, has threatened that species in China massively. So I try and grow a few species that I know are threatened, as a little bit of a homage or stewardship type program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it's a nice way to give back too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't. Often I don't really like using utilising plants that I don't grow or forage myself, or at least haven't tried to. I feel like if I've tried to grow something and I've had that relationship with it, then I feel much more okay with the idea of dispensing it or working with it.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned letting other gardeners know that you know it's okay, you will kill plants. We've all been there. If you could go back to the very beginning of your gardening journey, or if you were speaking to somebody who's listened to you today and thought, wow, I'm going to get out there and plant a herb garden, what would be the bit of advice you would give to them or yourself when you were starting out?
Speaker 2:I think there would be a couple of bits of advice that I would give to people.
Speaker 2:I think that, yeah, the advice to myself and the advice to others might be a little bit different. The advice to myself would be to not give too much energy away, and I know that that might sound incredibly individualized, and it's not that I don't believe in community and working with community. I believe in it very, very much. However, I believed in it so much that I sometimes that would be to my detriment, because I would be involved in a lot of community projects or communities or different things, and what I gained from that in learning is amazing and I'm really happy about that. But in terms of kind of my energy and how grief stricken I was when I had to leave a project or a garden or something like this, it really had quite an impact on me. So I think that it's okay for people to work within their, the parameters of their own energy, because working with community, the whole premise behind it is it actually supposed to make it easier. You're supposed to share the load together, you know. So to myself I would say don't forget that. Don't forget that community is supposed to make the load a little bit easier altogether and I think that the bit of advice that I would give to others if they're, you know, getting started getting out there into it is start small.
Speaker 2:I think the backyard blitz just completely destroyed gardening and the idea of gardening. A lot of people just think that they can create a garden in a weekend and then they get really dismayed because they want to do everything, plant everything out. You know, even if they've got acreage, they'll try and do the whole lot. Or even if they've done a permaculture design course, they'll try and design the whole lot. Now, let they've done a permaculture design course. They'll try and design the whole lot, now let's get into it.
Speaker 2:It's like no, no, no, it's overwhelming because we weren't ever supposed to do this as a nuclear family model, we were supposed to do it as a village, and now for us to be working and raising kids and looking after sick family and all of that as well as trying to garden for beauty or for food, it can be really overwhelming.
Speaker 2:So I think that starting with a patch and getting that patch growing well and getting that feedback from the garden, just focusing on that first, and once that's growing well, once you're used to it. Once you know how much it takes to maintain, then you move on to another thing, because otherwise people can think they're just rubbish at gardening, when you're not. It's just a case of time and energy and, yeah, knowing what you're working with. So, starting small, getting that going first, getting feedback from the garden, because then you get that feedback of, oh, it's going well, and you're like I'm great, I'm great at this, I can do it, and then that spurs you on to keep going rather than being dismayed that all corners of your garden aren't flourishing.
Speaker 1:I love that. I think that's fantastic advice. Just taking the time to spend with one area at a time, one thing at a time, and it does. It goes a long way in helping the confidence with the garden and it also goes a long way in what you'll learn and observe from your own garden too. Like you say, the feedback from the garden that's so important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you need to. That's what it's all about Having that feedback, having those relationships, seeing what the garden is actually saying to you, what it's telling you Quite often. You'll get to know the language if you actually pay attention.
Speaker 1:Yes, very true. So, Taj, thank you so much for your time today. It's been fantastic chatting with you, and I'm sure we've got listeners out there who have been completely inspired by you today. We really appreciate you having taken this time and sharing your wisdom and passion with us. It's very clear how passionate and knowledgeable you are, and I could chat with you for hours, I think, but before we sign off, could you please share with us how our listeners can find out more about you and perhaps some ways that they can find you?
Speaker 2:No worries, gemma. So I'm Taj Sukluna and you can find me at botanicaleducationcomau. I have a Patreon as well, where people can sign up to get little packages and study groups and things like that. I've just released, with my lovely colleague, willow Herbnerd. We've just released our botanical education knowledge cards which we use in courses, and these are designed to help people learn herbalism in a visual and kinesthetic way rather than just through endless reference books.
Speaker 2:And apart from that, I have a few upcoming courses. The herbal apprentice is an eight-week course focusing on the foundations of grassroots herbalism. I love, I love teaching that. That's a face-to-face course. And I am releasing a program called ritualbalism, which is a whole year online course, and this is dedicated to learning about ecology and your bioregion, your bioregion through seasonal living and botanical practices, so really kind of diving into the deeper realms of how I feel about botanicals and what they can actually offer us on a deeper, more meaningful level and how that can connect us to the land. I've got a bunch of other little short courses and things like that that you can find on my website, but that's really the gist of it, as well as offering herbal consultations in my little apothecary and our home created dispensary.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, taj. So that address again for our listeners is botanicaleducationcomau. You've been listening to how I Grow, produced by the Seed Collection in Melbourne, australia. It's our aim to make gardening more accessible to more people, and this podcast is one of the many ways we're doing that. If you don't already know who we are, jump online and visit wwwtheseedcollectioncomau. You'll find a treasure trove of gardening information, as well as a huge range of garden supplies and accessories. That address again is wwwtheseedcollectioncomau. Thanks for listening.