Episode 153: Claire Ratinon on growing food in small spaces, and racism in horticulture
Claire Ratinon’s new book is a new guide to growing food in the smallest of spaces.
Transcript
Episode 153
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Jane: This week's On The Ledge is supported by Hoppy, the home management website where you can save money on your household bills and find tradespeople for all those jobs around the home. Why not see how much time and money you can save today at Hoppy.co.uk?
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Jane: Plants, podcast, Perrone! It can only be On The Ledge! On this week's show I'm joined by Claire Ratinon, food grower extraordinaire, to talk about her new book, 'How To Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving The House' and we also talk about the knotty issue of racism in horticulture and I answer a question about a Crassula ovata whose leaves have suddenly got very small. How mysterious! Just a warning, this show is usually a swear-free show, but for one week only, and in order to discuss a particular post of Claire's, I've rated this show as explicit because the f-word does pop up a few times. So, if that mortally offends you, you may wish to skip this episode, but otherwise keep listening because Claire has stuff to say that you need to hear.
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Jane: Those of you who follow me on social media, specifically Instagram, may be aware that I was having a little bit of a moment this week about the price of certain Sansevierias and promised I was going to say something about the price of rare plants in the podcast. I'm not going to do that this week because I want to give full breathing room for my chat with Claire Ratinon, but next week I will be devoting a whole episode to talking about rare plants. What is a rare plant and when does our pursuit of rarity begin to tip over into something that is a little bit ugly and not so good for the house plant industry? I'll be getting into all of that next week. If you've got any thoughts on the matter in the meantime, do drop me a line.
Thanks to those of you who have been in touch about last week's leaf botany episode about silicon with Dr Julia Cooke. I had a really interesting email from a listener called Dave. He wrote: "In the US we can buy silicon pre-blended into compost. It comes from Wollastonite, a natural mineral that releases silicon at the right level for absorption. I work in research and development at the mineral supplier. We have companies in the UK bringing this to the market but I can't say who." Ooh, interesting! Dave also warned the liquid silicon products that are often used in hydroponic systems do need to be used with care because they're very concentrated and have a very high pH, so you have to use them only at the recommended dose and not any higher, otherwise you might kill your plant. He says this explains why mineral-based supplements are being researched and brought to the market because they're "a slower-release form of silicon", so you're not going to end up overdosing your plant. He goes on to say that there are two natural minerals that do this - Wollastonite and diatomaceous earth, which some of you might be familiar with because it's sometimes mixed into potting mixes as a way of dealing with pest problems. So, there we go! Silicon is coming to a house plant supply shop near you by the look of it. I'm really fascinated by that news and I want to hear more. So, if anyone else has got an inside track on silicon and specifically who is doing this kind of work in the UK, I'd be interested to hear from you.
On with the main attraction this week: my interview with Claire Ratinon. Who is Claire? She's an organic food grower and she's worked in some amazing places, from growing crops for Ottolenghi's restaurant, Rovi, to delivering workshops throughout London to audiences including schools, community centres and corporate clients. You might also have heard her on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time - that institution here in the UK. She didn't start out growing food, as we'll discover in the interview, but she really has caught the bug and the brilliant thing about this book is that it is aimed at people who don't have a massive country estate to grow their fruit and veg. Maybe you've just got a windowsill, or a balcony, or a patio, or a ledge to grow on and this book will really inspire you to try new crops and pick up some simple things to make things thrive. So, if you've just been growing houseplants up to now but you fancy trying your hand at something, from an Oyster Mushroom to a delightful Purple Chilli, then this is the book for you! In the first half of our chat we talk about the book and in the second half we move on to talking about horticulture and racism - something that Claire has been actively discussing on social media, which is a brave thing to do because not everyone wants to hear that message. We'll hear how she got that message out and the reaction in part two of the interview. Do go and check out the show notes as you listen. There are lots of useful links there to the things we're talking about, so it's always worth having a click through to janeperrone.com and finding those links. It really does help you get a rounder picture of what we're talking about on the show.
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Jane: Claire Ratinon, you are here to talk to me about your new book, which I've got in my hand and it's a very tactile and beautiful book and I'm very glad that you've written this because there's so much really bad advice out there about growing vegetables, is there not? Can we agree on that?
Claire: There absolutely is! Absolutely, yes! I'm glad you're happy this book exists. It was a labour of love. I really am excited about it and so chuffed that it's obviously struck a nerve. There is a need out there, isn't there? People who are aching to be growing in containers, for various reasons, and my hope is that this is the thing that will get them going and encourage them and give them some good advice.
Jane: This must have increased your audience because there has been this huge, huge move towards growing food during lockdown. Why do you think that the pandemic sparked off that reaction? Was it just about food shortages? Or was it fundamental, or instinctive?
Claire: I think it's a multitude of things. Initially I do think it was tied up with that rush to the supermarket and suddenly not seeing things that we had taken for granted and as those shelves were empty, I think there was an instinctive move towards this idea of: "I don't know where my food comes from and I don't have control over that. If it's not on the supermarket shelves and maybe that is something I need to understand and learn." Then I think there's also that element of "We're going to be in lockdown and what are we going to do?" If you're lucky enough to have the space to do it, then growing food is a great thing to learn, when you have the time, because a lot of people think they don't have the time to grow food and that's why they haven't made the time to go through that learning process and give it a try. I think there's a multitude of things happening and in moments of crisis you look to what's important and you look to what's essential and connecting and universal, and growing food is one of those things. It's a profound act, as well as an act of necessity and utility, isn't it? There's something very grounding and humanizing. The thing that unites us all is growing food. So, I do think there's something more profound towards doing something meaningful in that very unnerving time that arguably we're not out of yet. Maybe we've just become a bit acclimatised to being unnerved. I got quite a few messages from friends who have never grown food before and said to me: "I wish I had your skills. There was no kale in the supermarket." I was like: "If I sow seed today, I won't have kale by next week! That's not how it works." I do think there was some element of it being: "There's not the ingredients that I want. I wish I had the control over those systems to make that possible for myself." From the more simple to the more profound, all those things playing into this collective impulse towards sowing seeds.
Jane: This is where it's difficult with growing food, in that in many respects it's so easy, yet it's so difficult at the same time. I'm trying to find a way of expressing this. I saw a tweet from somebody saying: "I've just realised that if I want tomatoes, I have to sow them every year!" On one level, that makes us laugh because, you know, but on another level there is such a disconnect for some people that even that, to anyone who has been growing for many years or even a few years, is an obvious thing to say. Some people are starting from that very low level of not understanding any sense of a cycle to do with certain plants being annual, certain plants being perennial. The mountain you've got to climb is perhaps greater for those people than even we would expect it to be, but you do say in the introduction to your book: "I honestly believe, if you want to grow your own, it is possible even in the city, even without a garden." You've been there and done that. You have lived in the city. Can you tell me a bit about how growing came into your life? Was it something that was there from a young age, or was it something that you got into as you grew?
Claire: I'm a late-comer to food growing, to nature connection, all of that stuff. I didn't grow up with that sense of deep connection with the earth and sowing seeds and growing food when I was young. It was of no interest to me, actually, so the person you've just described in that tweet, that was me not so long ago. I've been growing food - as a job - this is probably my sixth season, but I was volunteering a couple of years before that and I actually discovered food growing when I was in New York and chanced upon a roof-top farm there that completely changed my life. I really empathise with being that person who really didn't understand what those processes were, what it looked like to grow food for us to eat, I had no sense of that. I could very easily have been the person who found it startling that you had to grow tomatoes from scratch every year, at least in this country and the northern hemisphere. I started volunteering at Brooklyn Grange, which is this amazing roof-top farm in New York and it was completely by chance. I just happened to be walking in this part of my neighbourhood that I don't normally go to, looking for something that didn't exist and there was a sign on the door and I followed it with my friend up to the roof-top and it's this incredible, just-over-an-acre of productive space, full of vegetables! I was really bowled over. I went back over and over again to volunteer every Saturday - every day that I was allowed to really. That was where it started for me and that was in my late twenties. I think I was 27 / 28 when I found Brooklyn Grange. I found a sense of meaning and purpose that I hadn't found elsewhere. I used to work in film, tv and documentary, and as much as I really loved those years, I think that something really clicked for me in engaging myself in the process of growing plants, specifically edible plants. I'd never really accessed within myself before, a sense of purpose and satisfaction and it was so joyful. I really, really love food and I really love to eat. There was that participating in the full loop of sowing a seed all the way to harvest, and taking that home and turning that into dinner was just mind-blowingly brilliant to me. That's how I got started and I've ridden that passion into a slightly haphazard career.
Jane: You've worked in lots of different settings, so you've got a rich tapestry of things to draw on for this book. I must just say though, going back to tomatoes, whenever I talk to anyone who has a balcony or a little patio and never grown anything before, they always start with tomatoes. What is it with that? You and I have a few years of growing tomatoes under our belts - for me, anyway, I think I know what I'm doing with tomatoes but every year something goes wrong in a different way. They're not the easiest things! I guess it's something very visual. People understand how they grow. What do you think it is with tomatoes?
Claire: You're absolutely right and it's probably the first thing, other than salad, which is what I was trained to grow initially. It's probably the first thing that I sowed when I was trying to grow something at home, which was a laughably appalling attempt of growing tomatoes completely indoors. I don't know why. I think it's because they're the grow-your-own classic, right? They are very satisfying to grow when they work and they are abundant and they work well. I think that a lot of the skills that you will then use in other plants, you can cultivate them through that process of growing tomatoes. As with most plants, it's wonderfully straightforward but not always easy. There's logic to it once you engage in the process, but it doesn't make it an easy process, necessarily. I don't honestly know. I think it's one of those things that everybody assumes that's what you're supposed to start with and we all keep feeding that story over and over again by doing it. I'm sure I do it to other people too: "Why don't you start with tomatoes? Everybody's got them. Don't start with anything too tricksy!" That's the one of the things you see growing and it's pure ubiquity.
Jane: I think that's one point where people do go awry, right at the start, and your advice on this in the book is excellent, in that most people do look at what other people are growing and what they think they should be growing, rather than thinking: "What do I like to eat?"
Claire: Yes.
Jane: I see so many allotments where there's more onions planted than anybody could eat in a year or rows of cauliflower and you think do you really need that much cauliflower?
Claire: I know what you mean.
Jane: I think that's the same with growing in containers. We're subject to these ideas about what we should be growing that don't necessarily align with what we use in the kitchen. I like the way that you pointed out that a single courgette plant can produce up to 30 fruits. How much do you like courgettes? What can you do with these in the kitchen?
Claire: Absolutely! That's a classic as well, the courgetti. I love courgettes. This year is a perfect example -- a first year that I've got actual space that's mine and I can grow in. I moved to the countryside at the end of last year. I got six courgette plants. It's too many! I don't know what I was thinking. I always have early-spring jitters. I sow too many and always assume that I'm going to have a loss and then occasionally I'll be lucky, like this year, and I'll do well and then I'll have too many plants and should probably give them away, but didn't have the opportunity, I can't bear to throw a healthy seedling into the compost, so I just found a bag to put it in. Yes, I've got too many courgettes, but luckily for me I do like courgettes, but we are growing more than we can eat, so they're going to all the neighbours. It's that time of the year. It's almost like an assault, that we keep flinging them to whoever is closest by! If you don't like courgettes, just because it's a great plant, and it works, if you've got the right conditions for it and it works well, don't grow it if you're not willing to eat that many courgettes, or you haven't got somebody who's willing to take the excess because that's a waste of some really precious space. That's the decision that you need to make, because often, if you're growing in small spaces, or your sunny space is limited, you have to make a decision about how you're going to use it. The reason why I've got six plants is that I've finally got the room to grow them for myself and therefore I have completely overdone it. If I was growing on a balcony, there's no way I would grow six courgette plants. It would be so depressing because I wouldn't be able have space to grow all the other things that I would want to experience in the season. Take the time to plan what you want your growing season to look like because you don't want to end up, in August, having far too many courgettes and no desire to eat them!
Jane: Do they grow well in containers? Presumably they do?
Claire: I've had really good luck with that and that's why I've included it in my book. The thing to remember, is, when it comes to feeding hungry plants, when they're really, really hungry for nutrients, the compost will run out reasonably quickly, so the thing to do, is you have to keep on top of feeding them and you have to keep on top of watering them and as long as you can do that, they're doing great. I've got two in bags because I've run out of space on the ground, I've got two in containers this year and they're doing really, really well. I would definitely recommend it. They do need a big container. They're not a windowsill plant, put it that way. I'm trying to think of how much I recommended in the book? I'm sure I said 50 litres, but you could probably do it in about 40 litres, but you need a big, big container for a courgette because it is a big old plant. If you like it and take care of it, it will reward you, so it's definitely worthwhile.
Jane: I'm sure there are some people listening to this who are despairing because they think: "I'm never going to have a tomato plant, or a courgette plant, because I've only got a really chilly north-facing balcony, or I've only got a windowsill inside, or a window ledge outside." Is there hope for those kind of people? What can they expect, in the most unpromising setting, to be able to grow in containers?
Claire: It's such a hard one, isn't it? That question comes up all the time, "I've got a north facing space". It is really difficult. A lot of plants require sunshine, edible ones especially, if you really want to cultivate a harvest. There's two things that I included in the book with people who have a challenging space in mind and not as much access to sunshine. The first one is micro greens and this is a bit of a classic of "If you don't have the ideal situation, what can you grow?" So the thing about micro greens is that you can harvest them at any point in their life cycle. So if they're starting to look stalky and leggy and weedy, even only after two weeks or even less, you can harvest them, eat them in your dinner and then start over. Micro greens are really, really forgiving and that's pretty much any leafy vegetable can be grown as a micro green. I'm a big fan of them because, especially in the bleak mid-Winter when you're just really craving a little bit of freshness that is lacking, micro greens can go from seed to harvest within seven to ten days, depending on what variety or what kind of plant you're growing. So micro greens are a good option. I know it's not as satisfying as nurturing a plant from a tiny, tiny seed to a great, monstrous, sprawling courgetti, or a tomato or aubergine, or a pepper. They are satisfying and it does at least allow you to bring some freshness into the kitchen, so I do really love that. I've also included a section on mushrooms, which you do not need sunlight to grow, because they're technically not a plant, they're a fungi but they don't photosynthesise, so you can grow them in a cupboard if that is all the growing space that you've got. So there is something for you!
Jane: I did a mushroom kit a while back and it was so cool. I loved it! It was really, really fun and the speed at which they grow is quite spooky.
Claire: It really goes from zero to 100mph in no time at all! The thing that I love the most about them - the speed is fantastic. Watching them grow is just amazing, but they're just beautiful, they're just so divine. I just love how structural and how stunning they were. It was so fun to take their photographs for the book. They're so wonderful. I sent all the images to my editor, having edited them myself, and she was, just like, "Why are there so many pictures of this mushroom!?" I was like, "Because it's just so beautiful! I couldn't stop myself!" So I think there's so much satisfaction because it's seemingly an implausible process to watch unfold, isn't it? We're somewhat accustomed to watching a seed germinate and watching a plant grow, which I still find totally miraculous every time I do it, but with mushrooms, that's just wild and amazing. There's lots of amazing kits that use waste products in order to grow the mycelium on them, using spent coffee grounds, and so it can be a really great way to recycle something that might otherwise end up in landfill, which I really love.
Jane: I'm fully convinced that mushrooms are going to save the world.
Claire: Totally!
Jane: That's another podcast topic. We should all be growing mushrooms! That's definitely something I'm realising more and more. Also, on a much smaller level, you've got the amazing work of mycorrhizal fungi with our plants. So there's a lot going on there, as I say, I think that's a whole other podcast strand right there. I was going to ask you what's the most underrated thing to grow indoors? Maybe it's mushrooms, but is there anything else? Or to grow on a windowsill, or a window ledge that's small and that people wouldn't think is... maybe it's micro greens? Is that the answer?
Claire: The most underrated? That's an interesting one. What's most underrated? I would say it's edible flowers. Edible flowers are so wonderful because they are a two-for; they look beautiful and they're great pollinators and they're just joyful to behold and then you can eat them, which is just a feast for the belly and the eyes. It's so cheesy to say, isn't it? I just think they're really satisfying and are a wonderful thing. We don't really think of flowers, obviously there's broccoli etc, but we don't really think of flowers as something we can add to our dinners, but I really love edible flowers and some of them taste really incredible.
Jane: I think if mushrooms aren't going to save the world, then Nasturtiums might have to save the world!
Claire: Definitely!
Jane: My garden is the world's driest garden. I'm gradually realising, over the years, that I've got to make everything super drought-resistant. Nasturtiums are brilliant because, even earlier in the season when it was drier and I wasn't watering enough, they were limping along, but we've had some rain and they've just exploded and everything's edible. What's not to like about that plant?
Claire: Totally, and it's so forgiving, isn't it? If you really consider yourself someone who can "kill anything" - although I dispute that because plants die, sometimes it just happens, so I don't let people blame themselves for that - but if you're one of those people who think they can't grow anything, Nasturtiums are for you! I guess they can be a little tricksy to germinate, they've got quite a tough outer seed coat, but once they've germinated, they're like: "I don't need you any more. I'm good. Just leave me alone! If you fuss over me then I'll punish you by doing something funny!" But they thrive on neglect, don't they? They are the plant for everyone!
Jane: Is there any way to trick them into germinating and get over that hard seed coat? Do you soak them?
Claire: I do that and I also nick them with a knife, which obviously you should be very careful with. You chip the seed coat, so they can imbibe the water a bit more readily, so I sometimes chip the seed coat if I'm not having any luck with soaking, or do both, actually.
Jane: It's such a cheap thing, isn't it? You can buy Nasturtiums seeds so cheaply. My current favourite is the one with the variegated leaf. Is it Alaska? I've got that growing.
Claire: I have too, only because a friend gifted it to me! It was so kind. I didn't have any luck with my Nasturtiums this year. Well, I had one round of them. I was like: "Why aren't they germinating?" My good friend, Hannah, was like "How much?" They've got lots and it was sown by a seven year old, growing in a mushroom tray. I was like: "Well, look at me! I've been outshone by a child!" I didn't realise and they'd only just germinated and then now they've grown and I've put them in the ground, they're doing really, really beautifully and they are stunning.
Jane: They are great. Once they're going in a pot they will just romp away and you can eat the whole thing, you can even eat the unripe seeds, the leaves, they're really, really good plants. I agree with you, that's a really top tip. I like watching my children's faces as I say: "Try this leaf." Then they eat it and go "Mum, it's so spicy!" Their tolerance for spice is not established yet. They've got a little bit of a way to go. I want to go back to tomatoes for a second. This year, I've been doing that lockdown thing of finding old packets that have been sitting around for a really long time and germinating them and growing them. I think it was from a Thompson & Morgan trial tomato, which is a bush tomato, and it's actually really good, but I've no idea what the variety is. Are there any good varieties that work well in a container if you've got just a small amount of space? Some tomatoes can get seriously massive, can't they? They can get as tall as you, which is obviously not what you necessarily want. In fact, I've got some in containers which shouldn't be in containers and they've toppled over and they're leaning into the jasmine on the wall because they're like: "We can't cope, we're top-heavy." Are there any really good varieties that you'd recommend for container growers?
Claire: Absolutely! I would recommend looking for varieties that are specifically bred to be dwarf varieties. So that's not just bush, there's the indeterminate ones, which I'm thinking is what you've got, which are the ones that are towering. Those ones are the ones that you train. Or cordon tomatoes. Then there's the determinate ones, which are the bush, which you generally don't train but they can get quite massive too, so it's not that it depends on the size of the container, but if you're really working with a really small space, there are some really great varieties, the tumbling varieties that do really, really well in hanging baskets. There's one I grew for the book, which I thought was absolutely amazing and it came from Real Seeds and it was called the House Dwarf Cherry Tomato and it was so compact that it was just perfect. It was way more prolific than I expected it to be, but it was really quite tiny. It looked like a houseplant. It was really, really tiny! If you managed to get that off to a strong start, you could definitely grow that on a decent-size windowsill. I had it in about a 20 litre and it probably could have done with a bit less, it was so little. So, the thing to try and find is the dwarf varieties because those ones have been bred to stay compact, even more so than the determinate bush kind. Yes, all the tumbling, they are very happy in hanging baskets and that's a really great way to use space as well. That's what I would say. It was on Real Seeds.
Jane: It's so funny you should say that because about two weeks ago I actually mentioned that very tomato variety on the show.
Claire: You did!
Jane: Funnily enough! I haven't grown it but somebody was asking a question about tomatoes which was to do with them being overwatered while they were away. I love Real Seeds. I think they are brilliant and I love buying stuff from them. I just happened to have seen that house tomato variety on their website and thought: "Oh, I'm going to mention this because this looks really good!" and I'm so glad that I've now got your confirmation that it is as good as it says it is.
Claire: I loved it. I think I was just so completely captured by how little it stayed. It just means it was so accessible. It's totally brilliant. Also, what an excellent company to support. They are doing great work, seed heritage and they're doing that great seed-keeping work. I would definitely direct people to them. There's some really cool stuff on their website. There's amazing things.
Jane: There is some really cool stuff, especially if you're growing containers on a small level. Some of their oriental greens are amazing.
Claire: So much interesting stuff. Absolutely!
Jane: I'm definitely going to be trying that. One of the things about tomatoes, there's a seed-saving organisation whose name now escapes me, but it's based in the US, if you subscribe to them, you get this massive, massive - it used to be on paper, perhaps it's virtual now? - this massive list of seeds that can be swapped. The list of tomatoes, I'm not joking, is thousands long! I'm wondering whether that ties into the idea about tomatoes being this kind of foundation plant, in that it's amazing the amount of work that presumably thousands of people have put in to breeding tomatoes over the years, to get such a range of different sizes, growth habits, colours and textures. That's what I love tapping into with tomatoes, growing these weird, unusual varieties you've never heard of, because in there, there's just a rich history of people going: "I want a tomato that looks like this, and has these qualities!" I love digging into all that stuff. As you say, not all of them are good for us.
Claire: That's the only thing that's a bit of a shame when it comes to container growing: it does somewhat limit the range of varieties that you can try. If you are really excited about growing an amazing heirloom, often they're the bigger varieties and they're ones that need to be in the ground. There are some really wonderful varieties that are pretty compact and it's definitely worth a go. Speaking about seed saving, I love seed saving and tomatoes are a classic because they don't cross as readily as some other plants, so they're a really good starter plant to learn how to seed save and engage with that process. It doesn't surprise me hugely that that list is so long because, for me, they're such a foundational plant too and I love the flavour and I think they pretty much go in everything. Growing your own, it's not a guarantee of amazing flavour - some of the flavours are a little 'Blurgh' - but there is something very satisfying and if it gets enough sunshine you're going to get some fantastic flavours.
Jane: I'm going to send you some seeds of my favourite heritage tomato which is called Spike.
Claire: Yes please.
Jane: It's a green and pink striped tomato, midsize.
Claire: Wow.
Jane: I might have put it on my Instagram but it's really good.
Claire: Jane, that would make me so happy.
Jane: It's so good. It's a really tasty tomato and I'm growing it next to a black tomato which, I think it was one of the first black tomatoes, Indigo Rose, which is really tasteless. It looks amazing, but it's very tasteless. This Spike - somebody from a US seed company sent it to me years ago - but it's so good. I'll send you some seeds.
Claire: That's so fantastic. I would love that. Thank you so much. What a gift! I love that you know so well that's exactly what would float my boat. If somebody knows me, they know giving me a seed is a direct arrow into my heart, so thank you so much.
Jane: I just want more people to grow it because I think it's a really good tomato. The only thing is, I'm sure that this is not you, but if you're used to only growing traditional red tomatoes, it can be a little bit tricky to know when it's ripe because it's semi-green when it's ripe, so you have to get the feeling right, just giving it a good squeeze. It's a really nice tomato and I just can't get them into the house quick enough because my son just comes and eats them.
Claire: Amazing. It's funny you should say that about the black tomatoes because that just reminded me, I took a picture a couple of years ago of a beautiful black purple variety called OSU Blue. It was a friend of mine who was growing it. This is what I've written: "But, alas, I hear they're better looking than they are tasting." That's so interesting that we sometimes go for these things because our eyeballs fancy them. In the end, sometimes you just want to go for a classic because you know you're going to get a good taste.
Jane: True, I think growing in containers, looks are important as well because I find with houseplants, the same with plants that I'm growing in containers for food, they need to please my eye. If they don't please my eye I tend to ignore them and not look after them properly. I know, I'm such a shallow person. In the book you have a lovely picture of a purple mange tout and those are amazing. Practically, they're also a lot easier to see on the plant and therefore to pick at the right stage, I would also say. They're so beautiful that it really makes me want to grow them. The same with chilli peppers, a really beautiful chilli pepper that goes through a range of colours. It gets me excited as opposed to something that's a little bit boring. There's a good chilli that I've grown in the past called Hungarian Hot Wax but it looks so boring, it's really dull.
Claire: It does. It's very plain, isn't it?
Jane: It's literally almost fake, but if I get a chilli that's not so tasty but looks cool, I'm a sad person. It's not even because I'm putting it on Instagram, it draws my eye and therefore I think: "Oh, that needs pinching out or watering or whatever," as a result.
Claire: That makes sense though. If your space is limited, it has to have more than one purpose. you want it to be a beautiful space that you want to spend time in and having beautiful plants makes that a reality and then you also want it to be productive. I don't think there's anything shallow in that at all, if you want them to be beautiful. There are lots of plants that aren't that exciting that are delicious. It makes sense that you'd rather grow something that you fancy with your eyes as well as your money. There's a beautiful chilli that I grew which has purple fruit on it and in fact the foliage was quite purple, it was a strange shape. It's on page 63. It's called Pretty in Purple and they didn't look real but I loved it. It grew into this little T-shape and it had fruit, mostly purple, but then also little spots of orange and red and it was just so, so pretty. It was probably one of the things that got the most questions asked about it and all wanted to know what variety it was because it was just so handsome, so I'm with you. It's a really, really lovely plant.
Jane: It's lovely. It looks like little fairy lights. It's gorgeous. That's a really, really nice one.
Claire: Yes, the foliage is such a nice purple as well. It's lovely. I'm with you on a pretty plant.
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Jane: We'll be back with more from Claire shortly but it's time for Question of the Week, which comes from Heather, who is from Ottawa in Canada: one of my many, many Canadian listeners. Heather's question is an interesting one. She has a Crassula ovata, the Jade Plant, or the Money Plant as it's often known. She bought this plant online and it's been under a grow light and living its best life but something a little bit odd is happening. The leaves that were on the plant when she got it are regular Jade Plant-sized, a centimetre and a half across by two or three centimetres long. All the leaves that have grown since she got the plant are about a third to a half of that size, they've gone teeny and she can't figure out why. This struck me as a very interesting question that I wanted to answer and I did put this out for comment from some other succulent experts for their opinion because I wasn't entirely sure of the cause, but the general consensus seemed to be that it wasn't a lack of light. After all, this plant was under quite a good-quality grow light. If it was a light issue - not enough light - we'd be seeing something of the effect of lengthening of the space between the nodes, the bits where the leaves come out. If you listen to the show regularly, etiolation can be a real problem in succulents but this plant is displaying none of that. I'll put a picture in the show notes to show you the plant. No, the internodal distance is absolutely fine, if not quite small in this plant. The problem is that the leaves are very small.
We reckon this plant is a cutting from a much bigger Jade Plant, remembering that Jade Plants can get very large. They can be trees. You often see them in Chinese takeaways and they're absolutely enormous, or one taking over somebody's conservatory. I think this is a cutting of a mature plant that's been cut away from the main plant, rooted, potted up and sold which is absolutely fine, there's nothing wrong with doing that as a way of making new plants and, in fact, it is the most common way of propagating Crassula ovata. So, suddenly you've got a plant that's used to being attached to a really big root system that suddenly those leaves are connected to a root system that's obviously way smaller because it's a cutting in a small pot and the plant has responded by putting out those small leaves. I think this is a pretty good theory. I'm not 100% sure I've completely cracked the answer to this one but it seems like a good theory that the plant, because it's had that shock of being taken as a cutting and then put into a smaller pot and rooted, the plant has responded by going back to a more juvenile form of foliage. If you've got any theories though, I'd love to know what you think because maybe this is something that has happened to you?
I have experienced this with other succulent plants, like Hoyas, where you've got quite a big leaf and then the first new leaves that come through will stay quite small. I guess it's the plant just cutting its cloth to suit its root system, if that isn't a mixed metaphor!? It's a really interesting phenomenon. Thanks very much to Heather for sending it through. The plant looks perfectly healthy, so I don't think she's got anything to worry about. It'll be interesting to see whether the plant does actually start to grow bigger and increase the size of those leaves as the rootball grows and the plant is able to access more nutrients. As it is, Heather has got a lovely, healthy-looking succulent, so what's not to like? I just love the way plants always have the ability to surprise us. If you've got a question for On The Ledge, drop me an email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com I know I keep saying this but we have got a Q&A special coming up soon, so get your questions in and I'll do my best to answer as many as I can.
Before we go back to Claire, I've got a few shoutouts. ClaireInTheUK, MJG1992, HousePlantsInTheDesert, MandasInTheBurbs and Jonathan, all in the US, and Elsa in South Africa, thank you! You've all written beautiful reviews about the show which gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I must mention Pradogee's review in particular because the final line of the review said: "In summary, if you don't listen to this podcast, you're a dummy." I wouldn't go that far, Pradogee, but I appreciate your sentiment, so thank you very much for leaving reviews for On The Ledge.
Also, a big shout out to three people who have decided to pay annually to become a Ledge-End on Patreon. That's Kayleigh, Joanna and Rebecca. They've all pledged their support to On The Ledge via our crowd funding platform and they've unlocked a whole year of extra episodes of An Extra Leaf. This is my Patreon-only podcast. You can only hear it if you donate $5 a month or more. I do a free podcast that goes out four times a month, so I don't feel too bad about charging an extra five bucks to hear more of my dulcet tones. Do check that out in the show notes if you too are interested in becoming a Patreon and if you're an existing Patreon and if you want to swap over to an annual payment, that is totally possible too. Look out for a message coming to your inbox soon which will explain how to do that.
Back to my chat with Claire, we're moving on to talk about Black Lives Matter and Claire's reaction to it. There was one particular Instagram post that I knew I had to ask Claire about. Warning: This is where the F words start coming in.
Claire: It's been a challenging few months. Obviously, we're all in lockdown, so it was already challenging and then when this re-ignition of the Black Lives Matter movement came about, it seemed like finally these important and necessary conversations were suddenly bubbling and the possibility of having them in this way was seemingly paradigm-shifting, was coming up. If I go all the way back to the beginning of how I ended up raising my voice in the beginning, I was particularly affected by the video of the woman in Central Park who was threatening to call the police on the birder and using language that was really dangerous and putting his life in danger, effectively, and showing she knew exactly how to weaponise her white privilege in order to put him in a position where, potentially, he could have lost his life. You don't know how these things could turn out. So, I was really affected by that because it happened in a space of nature and this is something that I think about quite a lot, about who is seen in nature and who is included in the imagery that you see around nature, environmentalism, conservationism, and outdoorsyness, and for the longest time I've talked about how the representations both in gardening media and environmental conversations just don't include people who look like me. There's a lot of very complicated feelings that I have about that, that didn't necessarily have space to be expressed within both my personal and professional spaces, but also I didn't see those conversations happening in any kind of bigger and profound ways.
When the Black Lives Matter movement started gaining more visibility and momentum in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, I felt called to share my perspective on it because what seemed to be happening was that we were taking that lens of the importance of the visibility of black people and people of colour more broadly, of every domain. This is my world, growing food, growing plants, horticulture, agriculture. That's my world and so that's the place where I felt like I wanted to speak. It was what I wanted to speak about and my experience of it and in it. So, I wrote this piece that I shared in my newsletter that was called "I don't belong here". It was a real outpouring. It came from a real gut and heart place. It wasn't necessarily something that I expected to be shared quite as widely as it was and it was something that I just felt I needed to say. I don't even know who I was expecting to read it. Maybe nobody. I just felt like I needed to say it. It ended up being a piece that was shared quite widely amongst both my friends and colleagues and some institutions. It ended up in the New Statesman and it did the rounds around Q and RSPB and some people had picked it up and shared it with their colleagues. It ignited a lot of conversations. A lot of people were reaching out to me to say that they read my words and it resonated with their experience as a person of colour and other people said: "I had no idea that you felt this way, or that anyone could feel this way. I never thought of nature as somewhere that isn't a place that's safe for everybody and I never thought it could be exclusionary in any way." So there's lots and lots of conversations happening. Then there was a day, I think it was 2nd June, where there was supposed to be a social media "black out" and we could have a long conversation as to whether that actually meant anything but there was meant to be a social media black out followed by a few days where the social media was intended to amplify black voices. Those accounts that were run by white people and dominated by images of white people were supposed to quieten down for a few days, in particular on that Tuesday, to let the stories and voices of black people rise to the surface. I looked around and I saw so many horticultural and agricultural grow your own gardening accounts all just carrying on as if nothing was happening. I looked and I just thought "Wow. Either you don't realise or you don't care and both of those things are really upsetting for me because you don't realise that it means that you don't know that someone like me, and people like me who are in your world, exist, or you don't care that we exist." And I was really upset by that. I just thought what's the harm in piping down for a couple of days and showing that you actually give a damn about the lived experience and the words and the sharing of black people for a few days. You didn't have to post that picture of a flower and you didn't have to post that picture of your beans. You could have just stopped for a few days and paid attention and taken it as an opportunity to listen and learn. So, then I wrote a series of stories where I said this and I found it really hurtful to see that there's so many people who think it's fine to carry on as normal as though it wasn't an important and impactful week for a lot of people. I ended it with - I only say this because you've given me to permission to swear. It sticks in my throat a little. I hope that's okay.
Jane: There's an awkwardness here which is part of the intrinsic nature of what you're trying to say.
Claire: Yes, I just basically said: "Fuck your fucking French beans" because it doesn't matter, not right now. I'm not saying fuck your beans forever. I'm not saying fuck you either. I'm just saying you didn't have to post that at this time when the black community is really hurting in so many ways and this is a time of reflection and learning and listening. Instead, what you chose to do is carry on like it doesn't matter and that's because you have the privilege of carrying on because it doesn't affect you and that's what I was trying to say. At which point I got quite the epic unfollowing which I expected. In fact I think I wrote something like "Cue the unfollows" which did happen and it did happen along with a number of people telling me why they're unfollowing me and why I was in the wrong. There was a lot of tone-policing, telling me how I should express my frustration and hurt. I found that even more frustrating but I expected it.
Jane: Let me guess, were a lot of those people white people?
Claire: They were all white people!
Jane: What a surprise!
Claire: Yes. Funnily enough it was people who really didn't want to hear it. It was interesting in the way in which they framed their resistance to what I was saying. Like, how dare I tell people what to do. I was, like, I didn't tell anyone what to do. I just expressed my hurt at choices that people made at this time. A lot of people were like "This is why I post. I do it for my mental health. How dare you to tell me to stop." I said I didn't tell you to delete your account, I didn't tell you to jump in the sea, I said this was a couple of days where you could have chosen to be quiet and your choice not to really communicated something powerful to me. So it was an interesting, and very stressful, and very painful few days of having to feel those people telling me I was wrong. My lovely partner, Sam, cheered me up. A couple of people, not a couple of people, a lot of people were really supportive and were like "I agree with you because I saw it too and I thought it was really tone deaf and really inappropriate" and at least four people said "You should make it into a T-shirt. I'd buy that." I thought it was really funny and I was, like, "Haha, that would be really, really rude to wear down the supermarket!" Then my partner, to cheer me up, wanted to paint it. So he created a painting for me that said, "Black Lives Matter. Fuck your fucking French beans." I shared it with a few friends and they said you should share it on Instagram and then maybe if there's a few people who might want to buy one then maybe you could raise a little bit of money. I thought yes, those people who have unfollowed me, what could I possibly lose for saying this again. I meant what I said, so I posted it. It did the rounds, it went pretty far and wide, then more unfollows but then also lots and lots of support. So we ended up going from Sam having painted ten paintings to him painting over 50 and raising about £2,200 for Black Minds Matter and the black curriculum and Land In Our Names, so despite how trying a few days that was, some good stuff came out of it and I made my point.
Jane: My probably wrong feeling is always to try to educate with love, but sometimes there has to be a voice like yours which just told it like it is. You're going to get lots of kickback from that and you did get kickback, but more power to you for doing it. It's a message that horticulture needs to hear because there's a lot of very comfortable, lovely-flowers approach to life that is excluding lots of people from horticulture just because they feel like they wouldn't fit in.
Claire: Absolutely, I'm with you. I do think that the best way for somebody to see where you're coming from is to come from a human place and a place of love. I suppose the way that I chose to express myself in that moment was an expression of love for myself and expression of difference of my heart. That was something really wounding to watch people who I would hope would see me as part of their community completely either ignore my existence or ignore the fact that this thing that was unfolding would affect me and I'm part of that community too. I'm with you. I think it was an expression of love for those around me and for myself as well to say that's not okay and I need to say that out loud and you don't have to agree with me but I know I need to say it. Horticulture is a very white industry, it's a very white space, both in the collective imagination and in reality as well, but black growers and gardeners exist. We're out there. It's not just a handful of us, there's plenty of us and I just think we all deserve to have an industry that has space for us, that supports multitudes of stories that reflects us and supports us and encourages us to all be part of a community that is vibrant and full of difference in the best possible way. I think horticulture really suffers from this weirdly homogenous image of one kind of person gardening only.
I think it was Sui ,@thetemperategardener, who wrote to a gardening magazine. I did see a letter to the editor that went in, that talked about what representation looks like within their pages. The pushback was "Are black people gardening?" It wasn't literally that glib, but it was something similar to that and it was just the erasure was bizarre, frankly, because it was not even real or true but it was also deeply painful. If people don't even think you exist, they're not going to try and speak to you in any way shape or form in the ways that garden media or gardening organisations communicate, so, of course we get left out. I just think of how much working with plants has changed, transformed, enriched and created the deepest of meaning for my life. Look at all the people who might also experience it in the same way, who don't see it as something that's for them. I was lucky. It was pure chance that I found my way to plants. I was completely indifferent to them before this encounter in New York that completely changed the trajectory of my life. Not everybody can bank on having a moment of serendipity like that, right? We should be able to see ourselves in this world, all of us, so that we know that this is for us.
Jane: That, for me, is the most painful part of it: to think that there's a whole segment of society that has missed out on this experience because of racism and other kinds of prejudice.
Claire: Classism is strong in horticulture, for sure.
Jane: And you think, gosh, there must be some amazing growers, some amazing designers, amazing horticulturists who don't exist because of this. That really is painful to think about. I guess the only way to deal with that, and to tackle that, is to move forward to try to change the structures as the wider Black Lives Matter movement is trying to do.
Claire: Totally, I completely agree.
Jane: It's been really encouraging on On The Ledge to have overwhelmingly positive reaction to stuff that I've said about Black Lives Matter. I'm just trying to think. I had one review and one message from somebody whose argument was basically: "I just want to talk about plants." Again, I'm trying to address the fact that you can't really talk about plants without talking about where they come from and slavery and all different kinds of fascinating topics which I'm hoping to get into in future episodes. You can't separate plants off from any of this stuff. It's part of the rich tapestry of plants. Some of it is painful but we need to look at it to understand them fully.
Claire: That typifies the erasure of those stories, which is part of colonialism's reason to exist. That's what domination looks like. It's erasing that which came before it. It's erasing the stories, it's erasing those narratives, it's erasing histories and that happened to people. It happened to my ancestors, absolutely. It's happened to plants too. We look in our gardens. Most of the beautiful things that are growing there arrived here as a result of the same pillage that was taking place throughout the world, throughout different colonial enterprises. That's how those plants came to these shores. So, to say you just want to talk about plants is privilege in action, isn't it? It's choosing to talk about one aspect that pleases you without acknowledging all the journeys that they took in order to get here and who is responsible for that and what that symbolised and then all the consequences that that had. Those wonderful botanical gardens may be beautiful, but they were also colonial tools that upheld the institution of slavery and made it possible for so many to have sacrificed and died and been murdered and exploited. Yes, it's ugly, but I can tell you as somebody who has had to claw back this knowing, this knowledge and these stories as an adult, it's so painful to realise you live in a country that refuses to acknowledge that as though it wasn't important and it doesn't matter. For me, it still is a very live space that I'm trying to figure out for myself and reconcile that I work with plants and that is not a space that is a benign space, it's a radical space. To do this work, for me, is an act of reclamation of that which was erased. I do think there are bigger, wider conversations to be had because quite literally all of horticulture was built on colonialism and it's only when we look those things in the eye that we can be honest about them, that someone like me can go through a process of healing that makes it possible for me to access those things and then we can even consider moving forward in unity. As long as we're in denial then we're always going to be pushing someone's story somewhere to the side. For me that's just not good enough.
Jane: We've gone a long way from your book. In a way we haven't, actually. We should be thinking about all these issues, with that in the background, and the other message that is coming out of this is anybody can do this. Armed with a bit of information, this is accessible to everybody. You don't have to own a massive, huge two-acre garden to grow food. You can acquire knowledge and get these skills with a few pots on the patio and that's a powerful message too.
Claire: Yes, thank you so much for saying that. That's my greatest hope, is that book is useful: it's useful to people who want to get started, because it is a very much a beginners guide, it's a real "from scratch" guide to how to grow in whatever space you have available to you. My hope is that it's accessible. One of the things I think is really amazing about growing in pots and containers is that you can put them at a level you can access them. So, you don't have to be somebody who can kneel down and put their hands on the ground, as wonderful as that process is. If that's not accessible for you, then growing in containers is an alternative. It's an answer to that. So my hope is that it's accessible in various ways and that it will encourage people who thought that maybe they couldn't do it to give it a try because it also doesn't require you to seek out a piece of land that you can then cultivate. You really can start right this second. Hopefully, it's an accessible enough introduction to getting started. We could go into able-ism but we won't do that. My hope is that it shows that it's possible to do this even if you have access support needs that prevent you from being able to garden in the ways that we see in the magazines and on the telly and in the collective imagination. There's going to be gardeners with different needs and they should be gardening too. So my hope is my book will maybe help that happen.
Jane: What a great message to finish on. Claire, thank you very much for joining me today, it has been delightful.
Claire: Thank you for having me.
Jane: I need you to email me your address for those seeds. I should also say I'll include in the show notes details of the book and all of that jazz and I'll also include links to your Instagram and to Sui's Instagram too. She's @TheTemperateGardener isn't she?
Claire: She is and she has been amazing.
Jane: She has been amazing.
Claire: Her resources are remarkable, she's been speaking truth to power in a way I'm deeply grateful for because for me it's so exhausting.
Jane: Yes, anyone who wants to educate themselves on this stuff, you and her have been doing amazing work, so it's definitely worth following you guys. I'll put all that in the show notes for everyone to take a look at. Best of luck with the book and I hope it sells really well.
Claire: Thank you.
Jane: I'll get those seeds off in the post to you once they've gone through the process of being stuck in a jar and rotted. I have to put a sign on it because everyone thinks this needs chucking away.
Claire: Yes, or "Don't open this and check! You won't be happy with the results!"
Jane: Yes, exactly!
Claire: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It's been lovely.
Jane: Thank you, Claire.
[music]
Jane: Claire's book, How To Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving The House, is published by Laurence King and is available in all good book shops, as they say. If you've never tried saving tomato seed, don't be put off by the fact it's a bit stinky. It's also very fun! If you're a Patreon subscriber you can go and listen to an episode of An Extra Leaf where I talk about how it's done and if you're not a Patreon subscriber just trust me. If you're not a subscriber I'll put a link in the show notes to some instructions on how to do it. That's all for this week's show, I'll be back next Friday to talk about rare plants. In the meantime, I'm off to lust after Sansevieria Bantel's Sensation. Bye!
[music]
Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, Friends by Jahzzar and Whistle by Benjamin Banger. The ad music is Whistling Rufus by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit janeperrone.com for details.
Subscribe to On The Ledge via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Player FM, Stitcher, Overcast, RadioPublic and YouTube.
Organic grower Claire Ratinon joins me to talk about her new book, How To Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving The House, and I answer a question about a jade plant with tiny leaves.
Warning: On The Ledge is usually a swear-free show, but this episode is marked explicit as there is use of the F-word in the second half of the interview.
Check out the notes below as you listen…
Claire Ratinon.
Want to find out more about Claire? Read this portrait of Claire in magazine Gardens Illustrated. Her own website is here.
Claire’s first introduction to growing food happened at Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop edible garden in New York, where she volunteered in her late twenties.
You can find her on Instagram as @claireratinon.
If you like the idea of growing your own mushrooms, I ordered my oyster mushroom kit from Merryhill Mushrooms.
The Nasturtium variety I mentioned that has variegated leaves is ‘Alaska’.
When it comes to tomatoes for containers, look for dwarf tomatoes, either indeterminate/vine types, which need to be trained, and determinate/bush types, which do not. The variety Claire suggests for growing on a windowsill is the ‘House Tomato’ from Real Seeds.
If you want to see a REALLY large list of tomato seeds, check out the Seed Savers’ Exchange (more than 9,000!).
My favourite heritage tomato is called ‘Spike’ - you can get it from various seed companies in the UK. The black tomato I am growing is ‘Indigo Rose’.
Patreon subscribers can listen to an episode on saving tomato seed here. If you are not a patron and would like more detailed instructions for tomato seed saving, check out this PDF from the organic growing charity Garden Organic.
The boring chilli we mention is ‘Hungarian Hot Wax’: the purple chilli Claire mentions is ‘Pretty in Purple’.
If you’re not familiar with the incident involving a black birdwatcher in Central Park, the details are in this Guardian piece.
Claire’s newsletter is What A Time To Have A Garden.
You can see the ‘Fuck Your Fucking French Beans’ painting on Instagram here.
If you want to learn more about racism and horticulture, another person to follow is Sui Kee Searle @thetemperategardener.
LEGENDS OF THE LEAF
Question of the week
Heather’s small-leaved jade plant.
Heather’s new jade plant has been under a growlight, but all its new leaves are less than half the size of the original leaves. After consulting with some other succulent growers, we thought that the likelihood is this plant has been taken as a cutting from a much bigger specimen of Crassula ovata. Now the new cutting’s root system is much smaller, it has reacted to its change of circumstances by producing smaller leaves. I’ve seen similar things happen to cuttings of other succulents such as Hoyas. It will be interesting to see if the leaves increase in size as the plant’s rootball develops. If you’ve got another theory, do let me know!
Want to ask me a question? Email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. The more information you can include, the better - pictures of your plant, details of your location and how long you have had the plant are always useful to help solve your issue!
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CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, Friends by Jahzzar and Whistle by BenJamin Banger (@benjaminbanger on Insta; website benjaminbanger.com). Ad music is Whistling Rufus by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra.
Logo design by Jacqueline Colley.