Vivien Sansour is an artist, storyteller, researcher and conservationist. She uses image, sketch, film, soil, seeds, and plants to enliven old cultural tales in contemporary presentations and to advocate for the protection of biodiversity as a cultural and political act. Vivien works with a global network of farmers and seed advocates to promote seed conservation and agrobiodiversity. As part of this effort, she founded the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, with the goals of finding and reintroducing threatened crop varieties and to collect stories to assert the ownership of seeds by communities.

This episode features a conversation between Vivien and Owen in East Rock Park in New Haven, Connecticut from dusk to darkness amongst deer and woodpeckers, with mariyamiya tea and einkorn cake, and about grief and doing good things in the world with seeds.

SEED STORIES:

• Qarn al-Ghazal

• Khobaizeh fruits / Mary's Cake

• Bamyeh (Palestinian Okra)

• Filfil Gazawi (Gazan Peppers)

• Olives

• Jarjir (Arugula)

• Molokhia

• Wild Asparagus

• Figs

• Loquat

• Jazar Ahmar (Palestinian Purple Carrot)

• Mariyamiya (Sage)

LINKS:

• Palestine Heirloom Seed Library homepage

• Palestine Heirloom Seed Library newsletter 12/2/2025

• Instagram: PHSL and Vivien Sansour

• Donate to PHSL's The Apple Path: planting another 2,000 heirloom fruit trees in Palestine

THIS EPISODE SUPPORTED BY:

• • YOU! Please become a Patron for $1 or more a month at Patreon.com/trueloveseeds
  • Scribe Video Center and WPEB, West Philly Community Radio

ABOUT:

Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden.

trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio

FIND OWEN HERE:

Truelove Seeds

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

FIND CHRIS HERE:

Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden

This episode features an interview with our friend Maria Hernandez of Cruz Family Little Farm about an hour northwest of Philadelphia in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania. Maria grows vegetables, herbs, and flowers for her community, including many Mexican specialties, some of which she shares through our seed catalog as well. We discussed Maria's life from growing up with eating mangos with chili in a hammock in her grandmother's orchard by the river in Mexico as a child, to moving to NYC, and then starting a farm in Pennsylvania.

We walked the field visiting her favorite plants, including Cempaxochitl, which filled her grandmother's house with their aroma and beauty. Cempaxochitl are orange marigolds planted in May or June and harvested for Day of the Dead celebrations in October.

SEED STORIES:

• Cempaxochitl

• Papalo

• Epazote

• Cilantro Macho

• Jicama

• Flor de Jamaica (Roselle)

• Tomatillo

LINKS:

• Cruz Family Little Farm web page

• Cruz Family Little Farm at Truelove Seeds

• Cruz Family Little Farm: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok

THIS EPISODE SUPPORTED BY:

• • YOU! Please become a Patron for $1 or more a month at Patreon.com/trueloveseeds
  • Scribe Video Center and WPEB, West Philly Community Radio

ABOUT:

Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden.

trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio

FIND OWEN HERE:

Truelove Seeds

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

FIND CHRIS HERE:

Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden

This episode features an interview with our friends Hassan Muamer, a seed keeper and environmental advocate and engineer, his wife Hannan, and mother-in-law Fatimah. They had been visiting Philadelphia from Battir, Palestine for an extended stay and we were able to build a friendship through a shared love of seeds and land over a couple of years. For this interview, we made a fire at our farm, harvested young Yakteen gourds and tomatoes, and they cooked a delicious stew while we talked about Palestinian vegetables back home and in diaspora, Hassan's work to establish his farming village of Battir as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the work of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library - which is how we first met. In early 2024, our friend Vivien Sansour, the founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, came to speak at Bartram’s Garden and introduced us.

Hassan, Hannan, Fatimah and their family began visiting our farm and with some of our other Palestinian friends, they helped us cultivate molokhia there for their family and for a big molokhia feast at the farm. We have also been working with the PHSL the past couple of years as one of their many US based seed protector sites, increasing several varieties of seeds from their collection here in the diaspora, and it has been such an honor. This year Hassan and his family grew many traditional crops at our farm, which you will hear about in this interview.

SEED STORIES: (some links take you to our friends at Hudson Valley Seed Company and Experimental Farm Network, who work closely with PHSL)

• Molokhia

• Battiri Eggplant

• Yakteen Gourd

• Faqus

• White Cucumber

• Kusa

• Farfahina / Purslane

LINKS:

• Palestine Heirloom Seed Project

• Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines – Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir - UNESCO World Heritage Centre

THIS EPISODE SUPPORTED BY:

• • YOU! Please become a Patron for $1 or more a month at Patreon.com/trueloveseeds
  • Scribe Video Center and WPEB, West Philly Community Radio

ABOUT:

Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden.

trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio

FIND OWEN HERE:

Truelove Seeds

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

FIND CHRIS HERE:

Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden