Beginners Guide

[MarkReed]

Discussion in the thread about suggestions for books, topics like phenology, people asking for advice and so on has got me to wondering. Part of what I’m wondering about is a question I asked somewhere, sometime but never really got an answer to, and that is who is the target audience? Farmers, big and small? Back yard gardeners? Seed savers? People with a house plant? People who have never had plant or planted a seed?

I think there is a mix of the above and even with those who may have actually planted a seed before there is a lot of inexperience and a bit of the blind leading the blind. There may be, contrary to what I used to think, people who don’t know much of anything at all. I don’t write this with any intent of being critical or derogatory, but accepting what I believe to be factual.

Now there are uncountable numbers of bloggers, youtubers and garden writers some of whom offer good information and some of whom don’t. So, how is the person who knows basically nothing but wants too, going to sort their way through it all?

It reminds me a little of when I went back to college in the late 1990s to learn about computers. I didn’t know anything; I mean nothing at all. What the hell, is clicking? Is it going to explode if I click left when I should have clicked right? O’ and by the way, how do you turn it on?

Some years later when I found myself as part time faculty at that same college, I got called to the department head’s office one day to explain why my students consistently scored higher on tests and did better in the next level classes. I had observed other instructors, some of whom I had studied under a few years earlier and I knew the answer right off.

It was because those instructors, with higher level degrees and much more experience commonly were more concerned with demonstrating their superior knowledge than they were about teaching and failed completely to grasp the fact it the student already had the knowledge they wouldn’t have been taking the class. Basically, I had not forgotten being afraid the mouse might explode if I touched it wrong, and they had.

Now I don’t remember a time of being afraid a seed might explode because I’ve been planting them since before I could read, and I could read before I started school. Still, I have retained the ability to understand that a student comes to a class to learn what they don’t already know. They aren’t dumb or lazy, they just don’t know.

So, in the set “target audience” how many are in the subset, “know pretty much nothing”? Is there a need for a Beginners Guide, emphasis on Beginners?

[Joseph_Lofthouse]

I’m reluctant in my online posts to teach gardening for beginners. For me personally, I try to stay focused on the uniqueness of my philosophy: genetic diversity and promiscuous pollination.

I have previously focused on small scale growers that already save seeds.

I’m expanding that to try to capture the imaginations of small scale market growers, and current gardeners who are not seed savers.

I know of one mega-scale farmer who grows only landraces. Would be nice to know more of them.

[hollyhock (Holly T Hansen)]

Very good questions and insights. I believe anyone with a desire to ‘try’ whether they have experience or not is who we are looking for. As you have identified, teaching beginners is often followed with higher success because they don’t have to relearn so much.

For myself I have gardened for my lifetime. Not farming just a family garden. I was taught seed saving is dangerous as you can accidentally cross things you shouldn’t. And I was taught it’s easier to just buy seeds. I saved seeds anyway. Just easy ones like corn, beans, and squash. The corn always made me nervous, so I usually bought new seed anyway.
When I read “Landrace Gardening” my whole paradigm shifted. But it was still hard to let go of a few ideas I had about seeds.

It was my good fortune and blessing to live so close to @Joseph_Lofthouse and partake of his willingness to mentor me. I had a desire that surpassed old ideas.

I think a book to help beginners is vital. One reason Joseph and I are working together to give details. Our book may be a bit beyond beginners only. We are aiming to help longtime gardeners/farmers make the shift as well.

Thank you for your thoughtfulness and putting into words the questions we all need to consider as we reach out and market our “GoingToSeed.org” website/community and the assistance available.

[H.B (HasBean)]

I also think it’s an excellent question and line of exploration.

To riff on Joseph’s point, I’ve intuitively felt that the focus on landrace gardening’s unique value proposition reflected a unix-like philosophy.

Landrace gardening appears to me to be a module for how to breed great plants. Within that scope it has some unique and important components to the definition of “great”.

It is not a module for managing growing conditions or even spatially organizing a garden, though it seems to be not without some natural inclinations on these matters.

It seems to me this module for breeding great plants can be used alongside a regenerative agriculture module, a permaculture module, or even a conventional agricultural module, despite what I’m tempted to call spiritual incompatibility with the latter.

I consider myself a beginning gardener, but based on your writing I think by “beginner” you mean a gardner who doesn’t yet have sufficient experience and wisdom to distinguish useful information from useless or counter-productive information.

I think providing gardening information for beginners that is suffused by the principles of landrace gardening could be extremely valuable. Not “landrace gardening for beginners”, but “gardening for beginners” congruent with the principles and practices of landrace gardening. In essence, information on gardening modules that “play nice” with the module for breeding great plants.

And written or taught by someone who still remembers not knowing that onions grow in the ground.

[MarkReed]

I was just kind of rambling about if I was to write a book, not suggesting what someone else should write. That’s why I put it in a new topic. And yes, it would be for beginning gardeners, no landraces, no wofaties, hugelkulturs, milpas, permacultures, regenerations or world saving and not really concurrent with anything. Just what plants need to grow and how to get started doing it. It would likely cover some specific crops, the ones most popular with home gardeners like tomatoes, green beans and sweet corn and probably a few others. It would be short maybe fifty to a hundred pages tops, with lots of pictures and hopefully would leave the reader with confidence they really could grow a tomato or even just a house plant and leave lots of questions, to be addressed in follow up books.

The first follow up would probably be about seed saving and introduce the different ways plants are pollinated and how to collect and store seeds. It would likely introduce the notion that home saved seeds could be superior in a number of ways and sneak in the idea that the world won’t end if your Golden Bantam and Silver Queen sweet corns fool around in the back seat a bit.

Then of course there would have to be one about soil, fertilization, composting and so on. And a whole string of other topics.

I’m very fond of the old War and Victory Garden campaigns (except for the parts about chemicals) and have downloaded almost all of the literature and artwork published back then, from the Library of Congress. There is some really good info and advice there, it just needs dusted off a bit and repurposed. I can see a generous dose of it, mixed in and modernized a bit, minus the chemicals. I like those publications because they are very much in line with my way of thinking, that every single individual person that can, should, grow at least some of their own food. Some of the oldest stuff is most interesting to me, especially regarding storage, because it was before a lot of people had freezers or even electricity.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

I have been thinking about similar things, especially conserning who to share seeds with. It’s easy to share staple varieties and hopefully it will encourage people to explore more, first seed saving and then maybe more experimental stuff. But I’m more selective in sharing genetically diverse seeds at this point. If people don’t save seeds or pamper their plants, then they are more of that forementioned gategory. There are still lot’s people to share diverse seeds with that have enough enthusiasm and drive. Skills can be learned if person has those. Some facebook groups that I’m in have people who have been gardening for decades that I would consider to still to be beginners. They have learnt something long time ago and take it to their graves. I think ultimate goal for me would be to have something that grows well here and being able to grow so much that there would be enough to sell (as market gardener and seeds as well) and just flood people with genetically diverse seeds. Some will find fertile soil.

[Logan_zzz333 (Jess)]

@H.B

“gardening for beginners” congruent with the principles and practices of landrace gardening.

As a beginner gardener, I concur. The plethora of resources out there for general gardening isn’t always helpful for those of us wanting to also landrace. Most general advice is “you must do it this way,” while most landrace advice is “do whatever you feel like,” and I often don’t have enough experience to know a reasonable balance between the two. Therefore, when I perform a given gardening action, I don’t currently know what failure rates I should expect.

Having expected failure rates is important because it’s the basis for knowing how to gauge where you’ve already been and how to move forward. Failure rates meeting expectations = good, keep going. Failure rates not meeting expectations = something’s not right, check your notes. Unknown failure rates = unknown progress, shooting in the dark, what am I even doing?

Currently, there is little guidance suggesting realistic feasibility of a given landrace goal.

Joseph Lofthouse had a chart that showed the ease of landracing crops based mostly on their cross-pollination rates. Perhaps we also need (from anyone in the community, or as a group) a chart showing the ease of common landrace goals. For instance, season-shifting, flavor, physical attributes, cold hardiness, pH tolerance, etc. It could be individualized for specific crops, or groups of crops, or organized by the landrace goal; I imagine it’s a lot of information for a single chart.

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

My thinking is that the best skill for beginners to focus on right away is seed saving. (I could be biased, given that that’s where I have chosen to put most of my earliest efforts. )

Happily, practicing seed saving can be really easy for beginners! In summer and fall, you can look at wild plants in your ecosystem and practice saving dry seeds from them. Bonus points if it’s a plant you like and want to plant somewhere, but it’s fine if you’re just doing it to learn how.

Practicing wet processing is easy, too. If you ever buy fruits to eat, just practice saving seeds out of those.

Very low barrier to entry, very low cost of failure, and the skill enables a very high potential reward: being ready to save seeds from your garden crops. It’s a great activity for a beginner to work on gaining skills in.

Then you have to learn how to select the best plants to save seeds from. But that’ll come with experience, as you figure out what you, personally, value most in your crops.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

Failure is only way to learn so don’t worry about that. I think failure means always that something went wrong. But it might be that you were expecting some to fail for example sowing too early or you made some mistake. Pay attention to conditions or what you have done and over time you will learn what to do and what to avoid. Don’t take easy way and blame weather or lack of fertilizers. Those are factors, but usually not main factor. I mean you gotta live with your weather so it can’t be the main reason, right? Either you haven’t adjusted to your weather or plants haven’t. Try different times to get some idea what is safe time for your area. After that you can start to explore more. Maybe better start with heirlooms, then you have couple years to trial before you have genetetically varied seeds with those. Although it’s not landracing or similar climate to yours, I could still recommend Charles Dowding in youtube. There are some overlaps with your season too. The best thing is that I don’t think anything he talks about is factually wrong. Style is different and you can just ignore what doesn’t feel like your style (for example removing lower leaves in brassicas). There are couple videos specifically for trouble shooting problems. There are many youtubers that have good content, but often with couple myths here and there.

[anna (Anna Bonner Mieritz)]

Could you invite that mega-grower to the monthly podcast? That would be really interesting.