Episode 339: Growing Veg in Antarctica

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<v SPEAKER_1>This is the Roots and All Podcast, and I’m your host, Sarah Wilson.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Join me as I talk about all aspects of garden, with some of the top horticulturists from around the world.

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<v SPEAKER_1>This week, I’m speaking with Lockie Scicluna, who’s part of the crew living and working in Australia’s remote Mawson Station in Antarctica.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Lockie is closely involved in the station’s hydroponic growing setup, an ingenious system that allows the team to produce food in one of the most extreme environments on earth.

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<v SPEAKER_1>We took about the challenges of growing plants without soil or sunlight, and why having a growing operation might matter more than you might think.

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<v SPEAKER_2>I’ve just started getting into horticulture, and yeah, I can’t stress this enough.

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<v SPEAKER_2>I’m an electrician by trade, not a gardener, so everything that I say cannot be used against me.

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<v SPEAKER_1>That’s fine.

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<v SPEAKER_1>I think actually that’s more interesting because I kind of circulate with a lot of horticulturists, and we end up talking like in an echo chamber, really.

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<v SPEAKER_1>So it’s nice to get an outside perspective.

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<v SPEAKER_2>It’s definitely one of the benefits of working in an isolated environment, such as in Antarctica.

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<v SPEAKER_2>You are not pushed, but encouraged to get around some things that you might never have done before, whether that be cooking for 21-plus people, whether that be managing and rostering a hydroponic garden.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We have a small gym manager on station as well.

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<v SPEAKER_2>There’s a range of different community tasks involved in living in an isolated community.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Yeah, I was pretty interested in the hydroponic garden to begin with, and like my station leader, he wanted someone to step up and be a coordinator.

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<v SPEAKER_2>I said, hey, I don’t really want to do it, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else wants to either, so I’ll give it a go.

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<v SPEAKER_2>I might need some help.

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<v SPEAKER_2>He goes, yeah, get involved, have a crack.

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<v SPEAKER_2>It just so happens that the station leader used to be a gardener, a professional horticulturalist, and he’s just been a wealth of information for me, and I’ve been learning a lot about growing produce.

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<v SPEAKER_2>It’s a bit different too, because you’re not just growing it in your backyard for yourself, you’re growing it for 20 other people on station, and that can be a little bit demanding sometimes.

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<v SPEAKER_2>When you get your first tomato of the season and no one has bit into a fresh tomato for five months, people tend to go a bit crazy and go, no, come on, give it to me, give it to me.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And I go, no, we have to put it into a salad.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Cut it into 20 pieces.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Yeah.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Well, that’s so funny.

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<v SPEAKER_1>So take it back a bit.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Where are you and how did you end up there?

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<v SPEAKER_2>So I am currently in Mawson Station in the Australian Antarctic territory.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Mawson Station is the oldest permanent research station in Antarctica ran by Australia.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And I applied for this job late in 2023, I believe.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And then about February the following year, I started the employment process and there’s about five or six stages, depending on what sort of job you want to apply for.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So for me, I went through a group assessment, which involved they flew me from Melbourne out to Hobart and I stayed in a hotel with about 20 other people.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Some were electricians, some were managers, some were plumbers and welders and etc.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And they essentially give us a whole heap of little jobs and tasks to do and see how we can work together over about two days.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And like they can’t tell you the results, but I obviously passed that.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And then they called me and said, let’s do a technical assessment, which was a online through Microsoft Teams.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And that went for about an hour and a half.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And that involved a lot of technical questions based around the electrical tray.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And then following that was a medical assessment, a psychological assessment.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And I might be missing something, but I’m pretty sure I got the job after I passed all of that criteria.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And then that took me to Hobart, where I trained with the AAD for three months.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And then we hopped on an icebreaker on the 11th of December last year.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And we arrived at Mawson 45 days later.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So we were on the ship for a long time and we got off and got straight into our work.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And now I’m here and it literally just flowed on like that.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Wow.

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<v SPEAKER_1>And how long are you there for?

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<v SPEAKER_2>We actually don’t have a return date yet.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So what’s part of applying for the job is understanding that, although there are possibilities to exit in the event of an emergency, or later on in the year when we get our summer expeditioners that will join our team, part of this is the AAD is so large that they actually have trouble planning, I guess, that far into the future.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So we’re expecting that we’re going to get home roughly April next year.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So we’ll be here for well over 12 months, which is exciting.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And I guess that presents its challenges as well.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We have 16 of the people that are here are first-time expeditions.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So 16 people have sort of never worked with the AAD and have never been through an Antarctic winter.

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<v SPEAKER_1>And what is an Antarctic winter?

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<v SPEAKER_1>How cold does that get?

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<v SPEAKER_2>So although we do get temperatures of wind chill below negative 30 degrees across the majority of the stations, we can receive wind gusts over 90 knots.

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<v SPEAKER_2>That’s not uncommon.

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<v SPEAKER_2>What winter really means for an Antarctic expeditioner is the lack of sunlight.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So over May, we roughly get 49 hours of sunlight per month.

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<v SPEAKER_2>For the month of May, that’s not including sunrise or dusk.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Over June, there is roughly zero hours of sunlight.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We will get a small dawn and a small dusk, but there is no real sun in the sky.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And then again, in July, it’s roughly 18 hours of sunlight.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So that can be really challenging for a lot of people, can really challenge their mental health, your motivation, our sleep patterns get affected.

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<v SPEAKER_2>I know myself, and I never struggle to sleep, but I am at the moment a little bit more.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We also in sort of a side effect of that is a lack of vitamin D.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So our moods change.

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<v SPEAKER_2>It can be really challenging to go through an Antarctic winter.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So I have been told, again, this is my first time down here, and I haven’t been through the winter yet, but I can already tell you outside where it’s starting to get dark at about three o’clock in the afternoon.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And that’s a big part of why I love the hydroponic garden, because when it’s really cold outside and you’re in an environment where nothing grows, it’s the largest desert in the world, is Antarctica.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And you can step foot inside a hydroponic garden and you can take your 15 layers of clothes off, get down to a t-shirt and shorts, you’re in 27 to 30 degrees heat inside, under UV lamps, you spend an hour in there a day, you’re going to be doing much better than the average person around station.

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<v SPEAKER_2>There is so many more mental health benefits to having a hydroponic garden.

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<v SPEAKER_2>It’s more than I thought when I first signed up for the job of being the coordinator.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Yeah, that’s a really interesting aspect of it that I hadn’t thought about, actually.

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<v SPEAKER_1>So there’s so many questions I’ve got for you, so I’ll have to narrow it down.

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<v SPEAKER_1>But from the sort of basics, I suppose, I assumed all of your food got shipped in to the station.

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<v SPEAKER_1>But is what you’re doing supplementing the food supply, or is it actually a really important part of it?

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<v SPEAKER_2>So what we do in the hydroponic garden does not supplement our food supply.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We have enough supplies on station, including diesel, to last maybe more than two years of continuous living on station.

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<v SPEAKER_2>That is a variety of dehydrated rations, canned fruits and vegetables, frozen fruits and vegetables.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Obviously, the good stuff doesn’t last forever.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We’ve probably got about a month’s worth, if that, probably less than a month’s worth of fresh frozen apples remaining.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We ran out of fresh frozen oranges, which are my favorite, about two months ago.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We only got here in January.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So any chance that we can get to generate fresh produce is good for station morale, although it does not supplement what we already have here now.

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<v SPEAKER_1>So what you’re doing is basically growing stuff that is a bonus for people, for their diets.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Correct.

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<v SPEAKER_1>And for the kitchen, this is just an additional thing that they can incorporate that enhances what you’ve already got there.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Yeah.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So we have a full-time chef.

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<v SPEAKER_2>There’s a full-time chef on all the stations.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And we’re really lucky.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Our chef has been through multiple Antarctic winters.

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<v SPEAKER_2>She’s very experienced.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And so when my station leader elected me the coordinator, the chef sort of pulled me aside and said, hey, look, just to give you a heads up, I’m going to be telling you what I need you guys to plant.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So that I can plant and I can create dishes that is going to work.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And she sort of straight up the bat, she went, I need lots of basil because I’m going to be making lots of pesto.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And you can never have enough lettuce, chilies, dill, what else, tomatoes.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Yeah, she sort of gave us a list.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And yeah, Kez is highly involved in what we do in the hydroponic garden.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And I know I’m really lucky to have her.

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<v SPEAKER_2>She definitely helps point me in the right direction.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So yeah, I like to tell people who want to get involved in hydroponics, we have a bit of a roster set up and I have to take them through an induction on how to use the facilities.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And so I tell people that the chef tells us what to plant and when to plant it and when it’s coming out.

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<v SPEAKER_2>I just show people how it’s getting done and figure out who is going to do it with a roster.

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<v SPEAKER_1>I guess you don’t want to glut of something because it’s not like you can just go, oh, well, I’ll can that or I’ll stick that in oil or, you know, you might not have the supplies to be able to do that.

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<v SPEAKER_1>So everything has to be, like you say, precisely planned.

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<v SPEAKER_1>So you said, obviously, there are some of the things that you’re growing.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Is there anything else that you grow or, you know, do you have a certain amount of leeway to experiment with new stuff?

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<v SPEAKER_2>So the hydroponic facility is not very big.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Although I think in previous years, they have pulled over 350 kilos worth of produce out over the space of a year.

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<v SPEAKER_2>I think we might not meet that.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We’re currently growing a couple of different varieties of chilies, including jalapenos, got capsicums.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We’ve got about three or four different varieties of lettuce.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We’ve got cherry tomatoes, truss tomatoes.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We’ve got a range of herbs like oregano, thyme, basil, coriander, spring onions, chives, cucumbers.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We’re actually, we’re growing an aubergine, which I, like when my station leader planted it, and I was like, I don’t think this thing’s going to grow.

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<v SPEAKER_2>But about four months later, it sprouted its first fruit and we’ve got our first aubergine.

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<v SPEAKER_1>So for anyone who’s not entirely certain how the hydroponic growing works, can you explain, give an overview of the system?

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<v SPEAKER_2>Sure.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So we have a pretty basic system.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Because we don’t have the exposure of UV that the sun gives us on a day-to-day basis, we have UV grow lights all set up through the hydroponic garden.

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<v SPEAKER_2>They are on a timer.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So I think it runs from 7am to 7pm.

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<v SPEAKER_2>The lights go on and off.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We try and trick the plants into sleeping and that way they can go through their own natural cycle.

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<v SPEAKER_2>The nutrient comes in a bucket.

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<v SPEAKER_2>It’s pre-manufactured.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We mix it in with water and then we mix that into a large tank and that tank is plumbed with a little pump, feeds the water and nutrient to the top of these, I call them channels.

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<v SPEAKER_2>But essentially it’s just a really long tube with lots of holes in it.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And we plant our plants inside those holes and the roots, they just grow in the water and absorb the water and they absorb the nutrient through the water.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And we then use a couple of devices to measure the nutrient and the pH levels.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And we need to make sure that the nutrients doesn’t get too low or too high and also that the pH is relatively stable.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Every month to twice a month, I will flush all of the tanks and bring fresh water in because, and this is just advice from the chef as well, when the pH is, when we start chasing that pH with chemicals, well, we don’t want to, essentially, we want to try and reduce the amount of chemicals that we use inside there to maybe pH down per tank five, six times a month.

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<v SPEAKER_1>Because of the method of growing, I’m assuming it’s only things that have top growth, you wouldn’t be able to grow root crops, for example, in that, would you?

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<v SPEAKER_2>Unfortunately, not.

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<v SPEAKER_2>No, so we don’t have any potatoes, we don’t have carrots, nothing like that.

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<v SPEAKER_2>But we have actually been watching videos of different hydroponic facilities around the world in China.

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<v SPEAKER_2>At the moment, they’re started growing potatoes in hydroponic facilities, which is very cool.

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<v SPEAKER_2>The only thing is hydroponic facilities do tend to draw quite a lot of energy and that’s everything from the intake and exhaust air, the heaters that we have inside, the grow lamps, they’re not super efficient either.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And so we definitely try and strive for, I guess, value for money.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We’ve got a certain amount of kilowatt hours that we can use.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And so we really aim to try and plant a lot of things like lettuce.

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<v SPEAKER_2>For example, it grows so quick.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We can put four seeds into the seedling tray.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And within a week, they’re ready to go into the channels.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And within three weeks, they are, I’m going to say up to 400 grams per plant and ready to go into our meals.

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<v SPEAKER_1>You’ve answered a question actually, which is how do you start the plants off?

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<v SPEAKER_1>And that’s from seed.

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<v SPEAKER_1>So I’m assuming that the crops are fairly clean in terms of bringing in things like pests and diseases.

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<v SPEAKER_1>But do you ever have anything like that that kind of occurs in the unit?

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<v SPEAKER_2>We definitely don’t have any pests or nothing sinister like that again.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So it is a bit tricky.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We have to abide by guidelines set by the AAD.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And I believe they have been set by the Antarctic Treaty, which is pretty much laws that have been created by a number of different countries.

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<v SPEAKER_2>One of those laws is how we actually bring essentially a biohazard to a place and not let it turn into something bigger than it is.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So all the seeds brought in in pretty airtight sort of containers, we then remove them.

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<v SPEAKER_2>We leave them inside the hydroponic facility, and they don’t leave.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Any scraps are burnt inside our on-site incinerator, they do not get returned to Australia.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And we make sure of that, because this is a pretty awesome thing that we’ve got, and we’d hate for something to occur and when we lose that facility.

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<v SPEAKER_2>But yeah, the process is pretty cool.

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<v SPEAKER_2>So once you get your seeds out, we’ve got this stuff called rockwool.

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<v SPEAKER_2>It comes in little squares, probably by inch by an inch.

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<v SPEAKER_2>Push a couple of holes into the rockwool, drop your seedlings in, and then we spray them with just normal water straight out of the tap.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And we put them into a seedling tray with a lid to try unlocking that humidity.

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<v SPEAKER_2>And we actually put them underneath a separate light.

00:18:11.160 –> 00:18:12.740
<v SPEAKER_2>It’s an LED light.

00:18:12.740 –> 00:18:16.700
<v SPEAKER_2>I think it’s better for seedlings to grow.

00:18:16.700 –> 00:18:25.300
<v SPEAKER_2>And then once they start growing, then we can remove them and they go underneath the larger incandescent lights.

00:18:25.300 –> 00:18:36.320
<v SPEAKER_1>So where you’re growing everything in a very, very controlled environment, do you see more uniformity amongst the crops than you might if you were growing them say in an open field?

00:18:36.320 –> 00:18:37.740
<v SPEAKER_2>That’s a good question.

00:18:37.740 –> 00:18:44.880
<v SPEAKER_2>We definitely see some forms of uniformity, especially around the lettuces.

00:18:44.880 –> 00:18:53.040
<v SPEAKER_2>These are sort of plants that will grow for three weeks to a month, and then they are pulled out and eaten.

00:18:53.040 –> 00:18:59.400
<v SPEAKER_2>The other plants such as tomatoes and our cucumbers, they will fight each other on the vines.

00:18:59.400 –> 00:19:16.700
<v SPEAKER_2>And so it can be a little bit difficult sometimes to maintain uniformity, but we try our best to grow and sort of push their energy into creating fruit instead of trying to sort of kill each other in the system and on the vines, on the walls.

00:19:16.700 –> 00:19:29.280
<v SPEAKER_2>But yeah, to try and regulate how much fruit a plant is producing, we actually have to do the pollinating on quite a lot of plants because we don’t have these down here.

00:19:29.280 –> 00:19:35.280
<v SPEAKER_2>So that just involves getting a small paintbrush and going from a male flower to a female flower.

00:19:35.280 –> 00:19:41.940
<v SPEAKER_2>And there are a lot of ways that we can maintain uniformity, yes, but it’s a living thing.

00:19:41.940 –> 00:19:47.560
<v SPEAKER_2>So you still need to keep an eye on it and make sure that it doesn’t want to take over.

00:19:47.560 –> 00:19:49.480
<v SPEAKER_1>Yeah, and do the things taste different?

00:19:49.620 –> 00:19:53.200
<v SPEAKER_1>I can see sort of two arguments for why things might taste different.

00:19:53.200 –> 00:19:59.020
<v SPEAKER_1>The first one would be that A, you know, they’re growing in effectively water kind of a nutrient solution.

00:19:59.020 –> 00:20:03.820
<v SPEAKER_1>But the other side of that coin is that you haven’t tasted that thing for maybe some time.

00:20:03.820 –> 00:20:08.880
<v SPEAKER_1>So therefore it might taste a million times better than it would if you were just, you know, eating it normally at home.

00:20:08.880 –> 00:20:10.760
<v SPEAKER_1>But how does it affect the taste?

00:20:11.940 –> 00:20:14.920
<v SPEAKER_2>That is absolutely spot-on, you know.

00:20:14.920 –> 00:20:26.900
<v SPEAKER_2>It’s funny when I first got to Antarctica and I got off the boat, you know, after a month at sea, pretty much I walked into the hydroponic facility and we were pretty lucky.

00:20:27.220 –> 00:20:32.420
<v SPEAKER_2>The last group before us had planted some small plants to help get us going.

00:20:32.420 –> 00:20:41.480
<v SPEAKER_2>And I’ve walked in and the old coordinator said, he pulled a bit of lettuce off and gave it to me to eat.

00:20:41.480 –> 00:20:44.540
<v SPEAKER_2>And I was like, oh my gosh, this is really, really good.

00:20:44.540 –> 00:20:47.540
<v SPEAKER_2>And we kind of had a laugh.

00:20:47.540 –> 00:20:53.760
<v SPEAKER_2>And I said, I don’t know if it is that it’s so like, this is the best cause of lettuce I’ve ever had in my life.

00:20:53.760 –> 00:21:03.640
<v SPEAKER_2>But I don’t know if that’s because I’ve been on a boat for a month and the supplies might have started to get a little bit older than obviously something that’s fresh straight off the crop.

00:21:03.640 –> 00:21:05.720
<v SPEAKER_2>But yeah, there’s so many other benefits to it as well.

00:21:06.080 –> 00:21:10.200
<v SPEAKER_2>We don’t have any dirt, so you don’t actually need to wash the plants.

00:21:10.200 –> 00:21:13.400
<v SPEAKER_2>We don’t spray any chemicals or pesticides on them.

00:21:13.400 –> 00:21:22.740
<v SPEAKER_2>So our chef will generally pull the plants straight out, cut the roots off, they go into a bin, and it goes straight to the kitchen.

00:21:22.740 –> 00:21:27.820
<v SPEAKER_2>Sometimes she’ll wash them, I guess to maintain that fresh crunch.

00:21:27.820 –> 00:21:29.920
<v SPEAKER_2>But it’s hard to say.

00:21:29.920 –> 00:21:36.900
<v SPEAKER_2>I haven’t had a tomato back home in Australia for five, six months now.

00:21:36.900 –> 00:21:45.980
<v SPEAKER_2>But I can tell you that when you get the opportunity to bite into something fresh down here, you do not pass up on it.

00:21:45.980 –> 00:21:49.640
<v SPEAKER_1>Is that a plant that I can see on your window sill behind you?

00:21:49.700 –> 00:21:51.060
<v SPEAKER_2>It’s actually a fake plant.

00:21:51.060 –> 00:21:54.340
<v SPEAKER_2>I’ve got a couple of them around my bedroom.

00:21:54.340 –> 00:22:00.720
<v SPEAKER_2>So we are encouraged to bring down a couple of fake plants and put in our bedrooms and our work areas.

00:22:01.540 –> 00:22:05.560
<v SPEAKER_2>Something about the color green, we don’t see much green when you’re down here.

00:22:05.560 –> 00:22:11.860
<v SPEAKER_2>It’s a lot of white and under the white is either water or rocks.

00:22:11.860 –> 00:22:13.580
<v SPEAKER_2>You don’t want to be near the water.

00:22:13.580 –> 00:22:26.260
<v SPEAKER_2>So they encourage us to bring some fake plants that are green and remind us of the nice trees and grass and everything that we’re going to get to see when we get back home.

00:22:26.340 –> 00:22:30.640
<v SPEAKER_2>And yeah, so no, that’s just a fake cactus.

00:22:30.640 –> 00:22:31.640
<v SPEAKER_1>Ah, never mind.

00:22:31.640 –> 00:22:33.720
<v SPEAKER_1>Well, I did think it might be a bit ambitious.

00:22:33.720 –> 00:22:39.100
<v SPEAKER_1>So if people did want to get involved, is it possible for anybody to apply for this?

00:22:39.100 –> 00:22:41.260
<v SPEAKER_1>Or is it kind of limited to people?

00:22:41.380 –> 00:22:45.140
<v SPEAKER_1>If you’re going to the Australian station, do you need to be from Australia?

00:22:45.140 –> 00:22:51.320
<v SPEAKER_2>I definitely don’t think that you need to be from Australia to apply for a job with the AAD.

00:22:51.320 –> 00:22:56.640
<v SPEAKER_2>I know that our balancing technician on station, I believe, he’s Hungarian.

00:22:56.640 –> 00:23:07.420
<v SPEAKER_2>And I also know Australian expeditioners that have applied with British stations and have had winters with some of the British stations.

00:23:07.420 –> 00:23:13.560
<v SPEAKER_2>I think because it’s such a different world down here, give it a go.

00:23:13.560 –> 00:23:22.640
<v SPEAKER_2>I think people value experience and they value your personality and your personal qualities over your resume.

00:23:23.540 –> 00:23:27.280
<v SPEAKER_2>That’s probably the best advice that I can say is give it a go.

00:23:27.280 –> 00:23:32.020
<v SPEAKER_2>The AAD, I think, are really good at picking the right people.

00:23:32.020 –> 00:23:37.820
<v SPEAKER_2>Like I said earlier in the piece, they go through this pretty enormous employment process.

00:23:37.820 –> 00:23:48.480
<v SPEAKER_2>And although they can’t tell you or hint to you if you are high up on the list or not, you’re always with a sense of, I guess, communication.

00:23:48.480 –> 00:23:49.940
<v SPEAKER_2>They’re pretty big on communication.

00:23:52.460 –> 00:23:57.840
<v SPEAKER_1>Thank you very much to Lockie for inviting us into the world of the Antarctic, and to you as well for listening.

00:23:57.840 –> 00:24:08.540
<v SPEAKER_1>If you like this episode, you might also enjoy episode 226 about soil bacteria, and episode 289 where I chat about animal-friendly fertilizers with Erin Riley.

00:24:08.540 –> 00:24:12.840
<v SPEAKER_1>You can download or listen to the podcast direct from the website rootsandall.co.uk.

00:24:14.420 –> 00:24:21.920
<v SPEAKER_1>Please also check out my Patreon where you can make a one-off donation or take out a monthly subscription to help support the podcast.

00:24:21.920 –> 00:24:26.120
<v SPEAKER_1>Because if you enjoy the show, please help it continue.

00:24:26.120 –> 00:24:29.640
<v SPEAKER_1>I also have a GoFundMe where you can make a one-off donation.

00:24:29.640 –> 00:24:34.780
<v SPEAKER_1>Even a one-off donation of one pound helps, and I’ll be really grateful for your support.

00:24:34.780 –> 00:24:38.880
<v SPEAKER_1>So please go to Patreon or GoFundMe and search for Roots and All Podcast.