Emily S
I keep everything separate and labeled in detail. When it’s time to plant seeds, I decide how many seeds of each bag I want in the mix, record exactly how many of each went into the mix, put the chosen seeds into a tupperware, shake it up, and chuck them around wherever I feel like chucking them. I’m not sure if that makes me wildly organized or wildly messy. 
I like data and keeping detailed records, so that suits me. If you don’t like keeping detailed records, an approach of simply keeping all the seeds in one pool and planting however many you want, and seeing what comes up, may be a better approach for you. I like exciting surprises, and it would make things very simple and stress-free, so I can see the appeal of that, too.
Holly T. Hansen
I can get caught up in details to the point I make no real progress. I’d like to exemplify @Joseph Lofthouse in taking 200 varieties of a species, forget their history and let nature pave the way. Fear of losing control or finding a variety I really love but don’t know how to reproduce it again if I lose it.
This feels like when I was 10 years old on the high dive and every one says it’s easy. Just plug your nose and jump. My plan is to keep my proven seeds labeled 2022 in one set of jars and make a second set of jars with only a species label and mix and shake and plant alongside my proven seeds to see what we get. I just don’t want to belly flop. Therefore my asking for everyone’s input.
Thank you for your quick reply. 
Emily S
There’s a very good chance that, as my garden gets bigger, I’ll say, “I don’t need all these details!” and do things as much as Joseph does. There’s also a good chance that I’ll keep putting each accession (all the seeds from each fruit, or all the seeds from each time I gather seeds from all the plants of that species in my garden) into a separate bag with a label, and just put a simple label and number and date on them: “Sorghum Harvest #1 Early November 2023” for instance. And maybe some kind of evaluation of anything super important, such as “Really sweet taste.” I think that’s very likely to happen as my grexes turn into full-on landraces.
For now, because I want to get the balance right, that is best served by knowing exactly what I’m putting in at the start, so that I can determine what kinds of patterns are good signs for me to keep an eye out for in the future, in my climate.
There’s also the possibility I’ll keep an eye out for exactly what I’m crossing with what all the time, in large part because I’m very curious and finicky details are fun. 
Ray S
I’m only just starting landraces but my intention is to keep them separate from bought or gifted seeds. These I will add in a small percentage to my landrace of whatever or, less likley because of the amount of work involved, grow them separately to evaluate them.
Joseph Lofthouse
I basically keep one jar of seeds per species. Expect that some species like corn might have several distinct varieties (sweet, flour, pop).
Holly T. H
Do you have a list of the 100 species? Do they have common names? I have to use Carole Deppe’s book to find common names. 
Joseph Lofthouse
I’ve never made a list. To count, I go through a comprehensive catalog like The Whole Seed Catalog, and count what I grow, then add the dozens of species that I grow which aren’t available in catalogs.
William S
It varies from project to project. With moschata squash for example I currently am pursuing green flesh from Green Ayote and banding from Autumn’s choice F1. So squash with those traits are kept specially separate through to a seed packet. I will probably open a Joseph Lofthouse long of Naples type for Thanksgiving. If it is as good inside as out I’ll save its seed separate too. Everything else may get lumped together moschata squash wise.
For tomatoes I am keeping lots of things separate because I have lots of goals.
For corn I may have lumped a little too much in 2022 and it may get worse in 2023. I may lump sweet, flint, flour, dent, and teosinte in 2023.
Holly T. H
Thank you for sharing. I can see how keeping some special projects or favorite variety separate would be advantageous.
Julia D
It varies for me as well. For my melons, I combined all my purchased melon varieties into one grex right before planting, and planted them separately from the Lofthouse Oliverson melons. I was glad I didn’t combine them, because the Lofthouse melons were so much more successful in my climate, and if I had combined them I wouldn’t have known that. I will do the same thing again in the coming year, so that I can see the melon landrace evolve over time. I did the same with cucumbers, but didn’t notice much difference in that case, so this year I will combine the Lofthouse cukes with my grex. For squash I did the same, but I planted them closer together. But for my seed contract I’m only pulling LH maxima from the side of the patch that was not exposed to new varieties. I grew heirloom dry beans next to the LH beans, but the heirlooms were so much less productive that I’m just going to eat them. I’m glad I didn’t mix them. So I think it depends-- don’t add purchased seed if you already have a population that might be superior, or is already diverse. Or at least don’t mix it with everything. I would mix them if you’re starting from scratch and the varieties are likely inbred and names are not important. Or don’t mix if you might want to know later what is what-- sometimes it’s great to see in real life how much more tasty or productive something is compared to something else.
Kim W
Yes, Quail Seeds and Jamie very nice to work with!! Trying to get our local Homestead group planting gardens and growing vegetables. Its our winter growing season and lettuce, kale, broccoli are bountiful here commercially…I grow all of my greens, dehydrate some, just learning how to freeze dry and eat 80% from the garden. Demographics say I live in food desert 
because of living far away from a grocery store. But myself and neighbors grow fresh vegetables year round. We have fruit trees growing too. All of us raise chickens and are trying to incorporate edible leaf trees for chickens to browse on, moringa and bogenvia to start with…trying to get to the non commercial grain egg. Or at least easily grown seeds chickens can thrive on. Okra, broom corn, quinoa, millet sprouted lentils…all these grow well here in sand. Our chicken landrace now has over 20 varieties of chicken breeds mixed. We only hatch our own replacement hens from our own eggs.
Oh, my apologies I digress…happy gardening!!
Emily S
That’s super cool! Landracing chickens sounds like is a great idea if you have enough land to support them. Do you buy chicken feed, or are you able to support them using only food you’ve grown yourself? My next-door neighbor keeps a few chickens, and I like the idea of having fresh eggs, like she does. But she’s totally dependent on buying feed, which kinda seems insufficiently self-sufficient to me.
Mark R
I’m actually going to sort and semi-isolate my beans next year. Semi-isolate as in each type will have its own trellis separated by a foot or so, just enough the vines aren’t comingled. They will still be close enough that the bees can still easily cross-pollinate, if they are so inclined.
I’m doing that because this fall when I pulled up some dead vines, I found a few with significantly more and larger nitrogen nodules attached to the roots, almost as many as I generally only see on peanuts. I have no I idea which beans came from those vines, but I intend to find out.
An added bonus is with each trellis having only one kind, any off types will be easily identified.
Christopher W
The general approach that I adopted a couple years ago was to mix all of a species in one jar. In most cases, I just back-slop that jar with the seeds I’ve saved and shake it up. But in the case of my field corn and common beans (separated by pole and bush), I currently have a general grex jar with all my boughten sources, and then another jar for my 2021 harvest and now another jar for my 2022 harvest. When I go to plant next spring, I’ll plant 1/2 from the most recent season and 1/4 from each of those other two jars to steer into the landrace without giving up on diversity sources that might have gotten missed so far.
I’m not quite sure what to do this year with some crops like basil, mustard, and arugula where the seeds I collected vastly outnumber the grex I started with.
Holly T. H
Haha! Isn’t that the truth! Share your seeds, keep enough to plant and add a few new varieties to the mix. I think once we really get the grasp of harvesting seed we will always have too many. I hope you were able to send some in to share with our seed project. I’d love to try some of them. 
Isabelle H
Thank you everybody for sharing your organization. On my side I find myself intellectually convinced to mix all of a species or sub-species (pole beans for example) but at the time of actually mixing, my hand hesitates, because mixing is loosing an information, and I feel like I am too beginner to take this risk. So I end up with some varieties that I keep per year and some bags I fill with anything that looks crossed (seed color or shape different from the bunch around). These “hybrids” I will cultivate separately with the hope to see the vigour next year. The rest I will probably mix just before sowing.
Holly T. H
That is the beauty of landrace. You get to choose. Since first posting this question I have created the mixes I will plant next year. I have kept my current landrace separate and then have a jar with everything else.
Some of my seeds were landrace or mixes to begin with.
It is a hard thing to wrap your mind around. By following the plan of mix everything the first and second year then start choosing flavors the third is finally making it into my brain. If it doesn’t survive you don’t want it anyway. If it does and it crossed you have added genetic diversity to your plants and their seeds.
You can always add more of something you really like so it is more dominant.
Landrace is letting go and having fun and choosing what delights you! You will never get your best flavors if you always take what someone else bred. To get what you like best you have to jump in and choose what you like best. You don’t always have to mix everything. If you have a favorite just mix as many of that plant variety you can get your hands on from different seed companies and seed swaps.
Good luck! You can do it!
Heidi A
I’m finding it very mentally freeing to put all the seed harvest in one jar (mostly). It’s something to aspire to!
But, since I’m relatively new to this, I have been separating some of the jars by harvest ‘wave’ and taste if it’s great, and location if it’s especially interesting (like with the patch I didn’t irrigate). So, now I know which ones are especially early, but still have the ability to add in the seeds that were from average, but perfectly healthy and fine tasting plants as well. I don’t want to lose any diversity early on.
My husband, though, was disappointed that I didn’t know the origin of the really terrific moschata squash 
, but it was good enough for me to save those seeds into the jar of plants that did great this year (our first year planting a mix).
I did find though that I have to make sure to weed out volunteers in the field early on! Or not, maybe? But I did this year – they were seeds that made it through the poultry coop from “feed” squash last year. Those squashes that weren’t ripe enough or good enough for us to eat, but that the chickens and ducks loved. I’m thinking, though, there might even be some good direct-seeding, early sprouting qualities in those…
Mark R
Concerning volunteers, like everything else, it depends. What crop is it, what do I want to achieve from it? With my dill, radishes, marigolds and several other things I rarely even save seeds anymore, they are just basically wild in my garden now.
With my tomatoes I look at it kind of like you mentioned with your squash. Maybe it was bad flavor, or blossom end rot or something else but those fruits ended up in the compost or left rotting on the ground for some reason. I tend to treat volunteer tomatoes as unwanted weeds. But there are exceptions to that as well.
Beans! Volunteers are rare in my garden, and I treasure them.
Emily S
I roast all my squash and melon seeds that aren’t good enough to save, and eat them! Prevents me from having to worry about my compost pile producing volunteers from the rejects. Plus, it’s extra food! Yay!
Gregg M
with my F3-4 butternut grex, I stored the fruits, chucked anything that didn’t keep at least a few months, then went fruit-to-bag for the seed of each keeper. All of the plants were great eating, so this trait is probably fairly stable. So further selection is about vigor and productivity. I’m glad i did this - I’ve distributed seed to community growers for return next autumn. I wanted them to get the diversity from my growout, and many people have limited space. I made up individual seed packets, including equal number of seeds from each parent plant (~20 seeds). Growers were instructed to plant ALL the seeds in the pack (that way all the diversity gets planted) maybe 2 or 3 seeds per hole, and let the plants selfselect for vigor. There was diversity in seed size, and i thought just pouring 20 or so seeds out of the bag into envelopes might end up with some people mostly getting big seeds, and later packets mostly getting smaller seeds. in future generations we might just select for big seeds. Additionally i wanted everyone to get at least some of the highly productive plants.
Also since one line of plants was very productive, including all the seed from that line into apooled seed lot could well have swamped the diversity of the distributed packets, and since others will have different growing conditions, i thought including a measured bit of everything was a safer option for their success.
Holly T. H
That sounds like a great project. Butternut is a favorite of mine.
Gregg M
On the other hand, once you start breeding/collecting seed, after a few generations the record keeping and the seed storage requirements go exponential. I have half a huge fridge full of individually labelled bags of every plant of every generation of my diverse coloured snowpea projects for ‘just in case’ - which i haven’t looked at for maybe 8 years.
I think there is an ‘it depends’ answer, which you may not recognise until after the need has passed. I think until a few generations have passed its probably best to include a proportional amount of seed from varied parents until you have a pretty clear idea of how you grow and what interesting things (or faults) might arise, and let the next year’s growout do some of the culling. Then chuck out the original stored seed, lest you need to buy a second, or in my case, third fridge.
Emily S
Or, rather than chuck it, give it away! Especially if it’s seeds for good plants, which should still be very viable, and there’s a fair amount of diversity in there.
Kim W
Yes!! We save original seed too, just because “it depends” and there should be a long term seed storage somewhere for safety, or at least a duplicate copy with a friend. We just watched, “Seeds of Time” with Cory Fowler who started the seed vault in Norway years ago. It is important to save seeds for long term storage, and to wild forage for seed to introduce to the landrace. So much to do.
Mark R
Saving seeds for more than twenty years and doing this landrace thing for ten, I just ended up with too many seeds. Very old pure variety seeds, early generation landrace seeds, seeds I forgot I had, seeds I forgot what they were, trying to keep track of them all, no place to keep my newer seeds. I was never going to do anything with those seeds, it just got overwhelming.
They weren’t worth anything to make it worth trying to sell, it was a lot of hassle trying to track down people to give them to and explain what they were. I just didn’t enjoy having them anymore, so I gave some away, fed a lot of them to critters, used them for ground cover and just threw them in the weeds or compost to see if something would grow.
I still have a lot of seeds but probably only 10% of what I had three or four years ago. Very few of my seeds are more than three years old now and except for species I’ve recently started growing they are all the product of multiple generations in my own garden.
It’s too bad this platform didn’t start a couple of years sooner because I chucked lots of seeds that I could have sent here instead.
Joseph Lofthouse
About that same time, I started feeding older seeds, unknown seeds, and donated seeds to the chickens, or scattering them in the wildlands. I’m much happier keeping a reasonable amount of seed.
Heidi A
I just started wondering about endophytes on those volunteers…they stayed out all winter and sprout early and robustly. I was planning on planting the wild buffalo gourd seed with my cucurbits this spring to see how that worked out, but I also wonder about planting seed out with those volunteers as soon as they come up, flagging the volunteers so I know which to cut out once things get rolling. Something to tinker with.