Welcome to the Fern podcast, As the Season Turns.

I'm Leah Lane Dirtz, and I'm delighted to introduce this Found Sound for May, created by musician and sound artist Alice Boyd.

Found sounds are a new addition to As the Season Turns for 2024. Brief, meditative episodes for listeners who wish to feel that little bit more immersed in the natural world as we move through the year.

Grounding ourselves in nature and the rhythms our ancestors have always followed.

This month, Alice meets writer and poet Dr J. C. Niala and artist Sam Skinner at Elder Stubbs allotments in Oxford,

where they have created a 1918 style allotment using open-pollinated non-hybrided seeds of heirloom plant varieties.

This episode will last approximately 10 minutes.

You may wish to pause the podcast here for a moment,

while you find somewhere warm and quiet to close your eyes, sit back and settle down into this month's found sound. So I've just walked into the allotments in Oxford and in the distance I can hear someone playing the pipe and I'm on the way to meet J.C. Niala. I'm an allotment historian, an artist and poet.

I'm Sam Skinner and I'm an artist and curator.

So can you tell me where we are right now?

Yes, we're in Elder Stubbs allotment in East Oxford.

So it's a charity-run allotment. It's been here for about 100 years and before that

it was common land for grazing and we're between my allotment or figs allotment and a little wood

that was planted here about 30 years ago I think so it's a nice little spot it's a gorgeous day

the sun's actually giving off heat

which is wonderful there's lots of birds

around

and there's lots of birds around

the Could you tell me a little bit about this project?

So the fig project really began with, after a few years of having my own allotment,

and becoming more and more interested in horticulture,

...