From what I’ve read thus far I think I prefer
- Adaptive
- Evolutionary
- Swarm
- Resilience
- Diverse/diversity
For key modifiers and,
- Gardening
- Breeding
- Growing
- System
As the core of the epithet.
That said, Seed Weavers presents a delicious bit of whimsy.
I usually say “locally adapted crops.” People get it.
I usually lead in with “saving your own seeds.” Thriftiness and self-sufficiency are popular here, so a lot of people like the idea of not being dependent on buying seeds every year. All they need to be told is that they can, basically given permission to try it, and sometimes also given a little bit of encouragement about how easy it can be to learn, with perhaps a little bit of information about the basics of how to do it.
Some people are resistant because it sounds like too much work or bother, and “buying seeds is cheap.” (I hear this all the time.) I usually agree, and then say, “But the seeds you save can be better than anything you can buy. If you save your own seeds every year, your plants will probably take less work to take care of every year, and they’ll start to do better with less work from you.”
Then even the people who don’t want to save seeds because it sounds like a bother get interested. They can see that it may be a path to less bother in the long-term, which is something most people are interested in.
So a usual conversation might go like this:
I say I like gardening.
If the other person does, too: I say I really like saving my own seeds.
If the other person saves seeds, too: I ask what sort of neat things they’ve grown from their own seeds. We have fun talking about garden adventures! 
If the other person doesn’t save seeds: I tell them saving seeds is nifty because it’s free, and you’ll almost always get something as good or better than what you grow before. A lot of people are intrigued by this.
If they say buying seeds is cheap, or less bother: I say plants grown from saved seeds tend to be better than anything you can buy, because the plants will need less work from the gardener every year. A lot of people who consider “too much bother” a barrier find that idea interesting.
If they still aren’t interested: Okay, no problem!
Maybe someday they’ll be interested. Maybe someday they won’t. If they never are, they’re still growing food locally, probably with fewer industrial pesticides and fertilizers than a huge monoculture farm would, plus fewer fossil fuels burned to transport the food, so it’s still an environmental win. Plus they’re having fun, and learning gardening skills, and probably eating a little bit more healthily as a result. All wins!
I personally think it’s perfectly fine if people want to keep crops inbred. Or clone them. If they’ve got something specific they love just as it is, that’s fine! I usually just focus on giving people permission to save seeds and not worry about possible crossing. They can decide if they want genetic diversity from there. It’s fine!
Maybe a title like this would be useful at some point?
Save Your Own Seeds: Growing Locally Adapted Crops
I would totally pick up something like that, and I bet a lot of beginning gardeners would.
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Since that could imply fixed varieties (there are many stabilised homogenous varieties bred for specific areas, including ones bred by universities and independent folk), how about ‘locally adaptive crops’?
Breeding crops takes more time, but as for seeds, if adaptive seeds are given away, then, they’re actually cheaper! Same goes for saving seeds.
“Locally adaptive” would either be misheard as “locally adapted,” or it would have to be explained. If we want a term that needs to be explained, “landrace” is better. It’s already well-known.
As I understand it, the point of genetic diversity in landraces is twofold: 1) to get crops locally adapted if they aren’t already, and 2) to allow crops to continue to adapt if the climate changes in unexpected ways.
I’m fine with people only focusing on 1), if that’s all they’re interested in. On the subject of genetic diversity, the only thing that is important to communicate to beginners is that they don’t need to fear it. Let people walk before running.
A homogenous variety that was bred for a specific area is a traditional landrace. If it works just fine, it’s fine to maintain it. Let’s be inclusive towards anything that grows well without aid.
I prefer diversity for its own sake (I like surprises!), but not everyone feels that way, and that’s fine! If someone wants locally adapted predictability – for instance, a farmer who needs homogenous crops because of a business model they’re locked into – let’s cheer them on. They are welcome to be part of this movement, too.
In general, I like to be broad and give people space to imagine. They may very well come up with new ideas that are better than mine.
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If it were mis-heard as ‘locally adapted’, it would be no worse than ‘locally adapted’. If it were needed to be explained, that could be a good thing since the explanation is worth hearing! And the ‘landrace’ already has a meaning, which to me as I explained above (and it would seem I am not alone) means something other than the seeds we are dealing with here, and they are generally much less adaptive - adapted does fit very well to landraces (in the established meaning), but then it’s often not so much worth sharing them outside of the land they are adapted to!
Oh I have to go, sorry!
After sitting with it a few days, this is the one that has really stuck with me. I’m getting a mental image of a network of guilds keeping the crops grown in their local areas vigorous and swapping seed mixes with each other.
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One thing I like about the name Going to Seed is that it captures an essential truth of breeding and maintaining vegetables: seed production almost always has to come along at some point.
But Going to Seed also implies to me going to the Source, or the Foundation.
If folks have read my other posts, you know that I’m interested in the historical aspects of land race varieties as much as modern ones. I feel that part of the beauty of the organization name is that it conveys a feeling that one could “go to seed” as a student of agriculture and nature, in order to learn these fundamentals. Then a person can apply that traditional/adaptive/landrace perspective to whatever farm or gardening projects are relevant to them personally.
Yes, agreed! I’m perfectly fine with people using whatever terms they want to when explaining a concept to people.
Shared terms can matter in order to facilitate communication. So I think this discussion does have value. You’re also right that getting hung up on strict definitions is likely to be counterproductive.
Good point that locally adapted seeds with very little genetic diversity are likely to only work well in the climate they came from. I think that’s perfectly fine when the goal of the gardener is only to share seeds locally (which may often be the case). They may also develop into excellent bastions of desireable traits to dip into for breeding new varieties for other climates, because (for instance) desireable recessive traits are being consistently maintained in a local population.
I recently found out that cattle in . . . I think it was Kenya? . . . are gentle and mild-mannered and almost like pets. Very different from American cows. That breed of cattle may not suit the needs of American farmers, but it perfectly suits the needs of Kenyan farmers. Kenyans don’t need to add more genetic diversity; they already have exactly what they need, and it’s great that they are choosing to maintain it.
I think it’s important to respect and honor cultures and locations all over the world choosing to maintain a consistent, predictable breed or variety that perfectly suits their needs. By doing so, especially if they’re maintaining a large population that is purebreeding for desireable recessive traits, they are also serving the entire world by keeping desireable unusual genes findable in the gene pool for future breeding.
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Thank you all sooo much. For all the mental energy, positive discussion and feedback on this! Besides naming ideas, it’s great to everything, even if sometimes I’m trying not to be a little defensive. I’m also trying to be more transparent, and now I’ve been influence by anarchy principles (by Joseph!) so part of that I think is direct democracy and that can look a little messy.
So I should say something more about how all this evolved. From talking to several hundred people over the last couple years, I had heard enough to know where was in issue with language that was blocking plenty of potentially awesome collaborators, but I didn’t understand the reasons or the extent of it. So a few months ago I started more systematically interviewing people on zoom. Some people who had interacted with the book or course but most who were gardeners and didn’t have any exposure. I recorded at least 10 interviews. You can message me and I will share a link to the relevant portions so you can hear it directly if it’s interesting to you, but I shouldn’t post it publicly.
Then I called Joseph to tell him what I had consistently heard and that I wanted to talk about it with him and advisors group, and he was in New York at Stone Barns at the time. He said for the past couple of days he had also been coming to the conclusion that Landrace was problematic for him with certain audiences, came to a similar conclusion I did, and wanted input on adapting language. Coming to similar conclusion independently in the same week felt serendipitous.
This conversation has also been going on via his facebook page, comments there are interesting too, here is a screenshot
@Mark Reed I hope this answers your doubts.
There are a ton of great ideas here, I hope we can use them all and keep this thread going. I also love this Going to Seed idea and all the versions of the word adapt.
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“Seed weavers” to me evokes images of stoned hippies sitting around while they talk gardening.
Not something I would follow up on, as I did out of curiosity the first time I saw the word landrace.
For the book, why not use either “Seed to Seed” or “Going to Seed” with a subtitle? I’ve seen several good suggestions in this string.
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“Seed to Seed” is the name of the most popular and well-known book about seed saving, by Suzanne Ashworth. Best not to start potential confusion.
“Going to Seed” would work well, especially since it’s the name of the website people can go to for more information.
This is something I have thought about before but have never read about it, until now. I actually suspect this is one of the reasons the primary narrative of seed saving promotes purity.
Yeah, I think I should admit now my reaction to the word “seed weavers.” Personally, I would never say those words when describing this hobby to a new person. I would feel like a giant wheel of cheese landed on my feet.
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Yeah. It makes sense that there is value to be found in almost all traditions, isn’t it? Usually the wisest course of action is to learn every tool available, and figure out the best times to use each one. “The highest genetic diversity possible” is an unwise extreme, just like “the lowest genetic diversity possible” is. There’s a huge range of possibilities in between, and each point along that spectrum has an ideal time and place for using it.
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That’s true. That’s also very advanced insight. Thank you
Irony in English speaking countries with Going to seed is it has the connotation of deterioration.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/to-go-to-seed-run-to-seed
Ha, that’s true!
But it’s not a very common phrase when used in that context; the vast majority of people think about plants with seed pods on them, not about humans whose health is deteriorating due to age.
Thanks for the transparency, Julia. I wish you luck in your cat-herding endeavors.
If I may, I thought Landrace Gardening worked for me. But to be clear I had no interaction with the word landrace until I read the book.
Someone mentioned “Evolutionary gardening”
That sounds both evocative, forward-thinking, and unlikely to be confused with other methodologies.
That’s a fascinating insight to me. My office-job, which I still need for interaction with the greater economy is a soul-destroying source of despair; an onerous obligation. Honestly, it feels like drowning. Working in the garden and especially working as a seed steward – collection, communication, book-keeping, bagging, etc, all while thinking about the journey the seeds are taking and how they’re going to make other peoples lives better brings me great joy and is obviously therapeutic for me. How wonderful that I get to actually help people not just grind away another day for the benefit of some fat-cats.
I don’t doubt that you’re correctly describing reality for some people, but my reality stands in the starkest contrast to what you’re saying.
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