Feel curious about landrace gardening? Want to discover how to grow resilient, locally-adapted food with less fuss and more joy? Join Going To Seed for a live Ask Me Anything Zoom session with Joseph, author of Landrace Gardening, on Tuesday April 29th at 5 PM Pacific Time.
Whether you explore Joseph’s work for the first time or continue along your own landrace journey, this session offers a chance to connect directly, ask questions, and hear stories from his experience. Bring your curiosity, your wildest gardening questions, and your seed dreams — Joseph welcomes all of it.
I’m curious about how your practices are evolving. I remember you used to prepare your annual beds with regular tilling, but more recently you’ve spoken about being inspired by no-till and regenerative methods. Are you moving toward more polycultures and companion planting guilds as part of your landrace systems? And do you think this direction could be overwhelming for beginners who are just starting to explore adaptive gardening?
What’s one mindset shift that helps everyone — whether you’re planting your first seeds or managing a farm — move toward more adaptive, resilient, decentralized growing?
Editing to add another question that really hits home for me personally, and that I am struggling with the most at the moment.
How to make an income and support ourselves financially? Can you elaborate more on your “taking a vow of poverty”, while helping those who no longer want to live in poverty? One barrier to entry into the world of adaptation gardening that I see when i try to share about it is the money aspect. As soon as people around me get any hint of there not being good ways to make $$$, they seem to disregard it, not take it seriously, or no longer take what i say seriously.
I would love to hear how you balance the “I want to feed my family” with “I want things that grow happily here” since that 2nd desire sometimes puts the first at risk for a few years. Yes, having the long view is necessary. Is there anything else that has helped you balance these two?
Alas, my in-laws are in town then, so I’m not likely to make it. Will you record it? Might there be a replay? Please?
Which Wild Edibles are Worth Domesticating? I’m interested in Domesticating Chickweed for Larger Greens, turning them as big as Collard or Kale Greens, are you too?
Have you tried Mixing pollens to create a 5 squash interspecies landrace?
What are your thoughts different species pollen mixing Tricking flowers into accepting foreign species pollen as to not reject it’s own? Using Mentor Pollination to bypass hybridization barriers.
Is domesticating Bi-Colored Black Nightshades (Solanum physalifolium) worth it? Do the fruits taste good?
What are your thoughts on Grafting Tomato or Black Nightshade Scions onto Super Cold Hardy Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara)? Any Horizontal Gene Flow Potential there?
What exactly went wrong with introducing wild Melons into your muskmelon landrace? and why did you try them all away? Bitterness is well behaved this you can easily select it out right?
Have you tried crossing Kiwano (Cucumis metuliferus) x Muskmelons (Cucumis melo)? Any thoughts/ideas?
Can we domesticate Potato Berries for Edible Sweet Melon Flavored Berries? How do I go about taste testing toxicity to I can select against it safely?
Can we select for Early Squash maturity by harvesting unripe fruits? Can we gain the best of both worlds doing this? Will it Work with Melons, Tomatoes & other “ripen off the vine” fruits too?
Have you tried freezing Pollen to remedy off sync flowering hybridization barriers?
Have you tried crossing all 6 Brassica species into 1 landrace? Have you also tried intergeneric crossed with Raphanus x Eruca x Diplotaxis x Sinapis? All are possible & fit into the Brassica Triangle!
Is there a point where you can’t landrace garden your way out of a Natural Selection pressure? Deer & Rabbits keeping eating everything, spikey, nasty even slightly poisonous plants. You solved Racoons going after Corn unintentionally via taller robust corn stalks.
Join the conversation here: Launch Meeting - Zoom