Starting my land race garden – Late, but with lots of seeds and curiosity!
I just finished reading Landrace Gardening and watching the Going to Seed video course, and wow—I am excited at the possibility of more resilient, flavourful food.
I’m on a new property this year outside of Calgary, AB in zone 3. Similar to what Joseph talks about my proximity to the mountains keeps me cold at night, usually below 10C.
I am late because I have landscape work being done that’s been delayed by rain. Our land is on a hill and I need to create level garden beds, plus install deer fence. The work is set to begin late next week. With all that I’ll be getting things in the ground a bit late, but I’m hopeful that it’s early enough for some wins this season.
To get ahead, I started seeds in the greenhouse the last few days. And in a liberating moment, I made grexes out of everything in my seed stash. It felt great to stop overthinking. I also started most of the seeds from the GTS 2023 and 2024 packages I had—pepo and maxima squashes, musk melon, radish, tomato, bush bean, sweet corn, and broccoli are all in the greenhouse.
I made sure not to baby them. I did mix some inexpensive potting mix and peat into my garden soil to use it up. But other than that no special treatment for the seeds. No lights. No heat mats. No fertilizers. The GTS broccoli is sprouting as of yesterday.
I’m excited (and a little nervous) to see what thrives and what doesn’t. This season is a bunch of first times all in one. New place, new climate, new growing strategy, new to seed saving. All that said, the course was really well done and I feel resourced enough to take this step. Thank you to Joseph, Julia and the team at GTS for making this resource available. What an incredible project and gift to all of us.
I’d love to hear from others who are starting this journey or have been doing it for a while—what was most worth sharing about your journey?
