I’m meeting with a local library in a couple days and they’re asking for advice on starting a seed swap. I’ve done a bunch of research into seed-saving and I’ve been doing it for about 6 years but I’m far from an expert. So my question is: should we, in the Landrace community, put together simple guidelines for landrace swapping as something that can be included in local seed lending libraries? It seems that a local lending bank would lead to landrace crops anyway. Maybe it could just be a page with, say 4 easy crops to start with, and guidelines for how to save seeds, avoid sterility etc. It probably should be super super simple.
On Cape Cod we have two other libraries within 30 miles that have recently started seed lending and it seems that it would be a great opportunity to get community landrace building going to include landrace projects, say starting with a few easy crops, as part of every library swap around the country? After all, we’re aiming for ‘locally-adapted’ seeds.
When I talk about landrace with non-gardeners, scientists and generally savvy people, they all thinks it’s obvious and a great idea but when I talk to gardeners I get a luke-warm response. Maybe it’s too complicated for them to think about or they’re all set with their heirloom varieties (?). But, I can imagine our small town library and several local gardeners getting excited about growing their own ‘Eastham Landrace Turnip’ which grows huge in our sandy soil and I just learned about. I think that would be a great boon to gardeners everywhere.
So, any suggestions for a simple paired down, maybe 10 step, set of guidelines?
Look for varieties that are already adapted and have been grown from seed in your area at least 3 plant generations.
Keep seeds from the tastiest and best adapted plants
Grow as best you can without fertilizers, pesticides, etc. The plants should be adapted to the existing environment rather than an artificial environment we create for them.
If the variety is not exactly what you want, allow cross breeding with other varieties and select seeds from those offspring that are closer.
Maintain as much diversity as possible so the plants can adapt to changes in their environment.
Allow the soil, diseases, and pests to do some of the selection for you.
Trade seeds of locally adapted plants with other growers in your area.
Select for traits you like. Do not keep seeds from plants that have negative traits.
@dougrugh If you would like some brochures to share at the swap or leave at the libraries for patrons to take, I’ll be glad to send you some. Or if your library has a budget for their seed library, perhaps they could print some themselves. Thanks to @bramblewoodhill , we have a professional tri-fold version and another version that’s better for a home printer.
If you would like some, let me know how many (I already have your address from the seed exchange last fall). I send increments of 25, up to 100. Thanks.
Debbie, those are great. Let me show those at the meeting. They may print copies themselves. If we could find a sponsor to print thousands (it shouldn’t be too much) I could find local places to hand them out…
I think the question of why established gardeners are luke warm on landrace is an important and interesting question. Landrace to me is a way for me to start gardening when i thought i didnt have a good enough location or good enough land or enough resources to garden. But my mom has been gardening for decades and is supportive but isnt going to implement it herself. She says she will save some of her dry beans and replant them but beyond that she will continue buying seeds, starting indoors with a seed mat and lamps. And she is only doing it for beans because they dont cross, which i think is missing the point.
Is it that people don’t like change of any form?
Is it a pride in accomplishing this more difficult and exclusive level of gardening and not wanting to acknowledge that all the extra effort and expertise is needed to accomplish this?
Is there something else that they are thinking that makes them hesitant about landrace?
Is it that putting a fancy sounding term on it (landrace) make it seem more inaccessible than it is?
I think this is a super critical question for helping bridge the gap between conventional and landrace gardening and aiding uptake in implementation of seed libraries.I would be interested on what anyone might say from their own experience of transitioning from conventional gardening to landrace.
One thing to keep in mind is that, all else being equal, a fertilized garden will produce a higher yield than an unfertilized one. In my mind, fertilizing or not fertilizing are equally valid choices; it depends on what the limiting factors are in one’s garden.
Really, landrace gardening/evolutionary plant breeding and low/no input gardening are two separate topics. They complement one another, but they aren’t necessarily connected; one could certainly grow a landrace garden with fertilization.
Nor is fertilization a modern concept. For instance, traditional slash and burn/milpa growing provided a higher level of nutrients in the soil compared to unamended plots; similarly, the traditional English ley system of plowing up a temporary grass/legume pasture before planting arable crops was a form of fertilization. Traditional French horticulturalists used heavy applications of horse manure collected from city streets and stables. Even the old fallow systems had some fertilizing effects, allowing nitrogen to accumulate in the soil and giving additional time for phosphorous solubilization.
So I’d be hesitant to emphasize the “no inputs” aspect. Maybe “no pesticides”, since they have negative impacts and since plant evolution should be enough to avoid disastrous insect pressure in most years. But if gardeners are told that everything they ever learned about horticulture and agronomy should be tossed out the door, they will probably be more reluctant to try landrace growing. And if they do try it, they are more likely to fail the first year and then reject the whole idea.
My guess is some of it is short-term focus versus long-term focus. (Note: although there’s sometimes a default tendency in our culture to applaud a long-term view and criticize a short-term one, please don’t read those kinds of judgments into what I’m saying here.) The short-term focus is someone who just wants to harvest some nice tomatoes at the end of the season. From that perspective, going with a “tried and true” variety and coddling it to the max makes total sense.
For crops that I’m working to improve the genetics of, I’m willing to sacrifice yields in the short term in order to have a better result in the long term. That might not work for everyone. Or, maybe it works for some crops in someone’s garden but not others. I have sweet potatoes too, but I’m taking more of a short-term view with those.
And like many things, these views are a spectrum and people can fall part way between them.
I’d like to help with putting something like this together. I’m going to be doing 2 presentations to seed libraries in the next 2 weeks to local communities organizing themselves to start their own community seed projects, so I’ve started something, but I think it makes sense to combine efforts. Then I’ll be able to hand out the guidelines to participants. I’ll find what I’ve started as a google doc and share it here.
@KayEverts has a seed library and has a landrace drawer and some materials. Here the insert she gave to us to share that goes with that ‘Resiliency Drawer’ (meant to be cut in half).
@MalcolmS You’ll be happy to know that you and Emily convinced me about the low input aspect, I’ve removed it from any of the ‘principles’ we use so now it’s optional
To clarify, low input growing is a great objective when it fits! And landraces will probably be much more successful in those situations than typical modern varieties.
Another thought on why gardeners are reluctant to adopt landrace growing: seed-saving guilt. After reading many books which stressed the near-impossibility of keeping seeds pure, keeping populations large enough, and keeping quality up, I think a lot of gardeners have a certain amount of trepidation around saving seeds. There is also the fear of “doing it wrong” and so losing a growing season (particularly for those of us in short seasons areas.) I know I feel this, which has limited my experiments in landrace growing in past years.
Maybe it would be good to include explanations of the few cases where outcrossing really can be detrimental (ornamental gourds with pepo squash, hot with sweet peppers) or suboptimal (kale with cabbage if you want heads, snap peas with shelling peas) to reassure gardeners that we do know what we are talking about. Most gardeners see saving random seeds as a “rookie mistake” made by those who haven’t studied the literature and don’t know about outcrossing, inbreeding, etc.; so we’ve got to work to counteract that impression. We DO know about hybridization, etc.
As @dougrugh mentioned above, part of this may also be an attachment to heirlooms; not an actual emotional attachment to particular varieties, but a feeling that those who plant and save heirlooms seeds are “the good guys”. You’ll read heroic stories about individuals going to extreme lengths to save thousands of inbred and endangered varieties.
And on the other hand, other gardeners feel that those who use up-to-date hybrids are the “good guys”, the advanced and knowledgable gardeners, who know enough to get high yields and impress all the neighbors.
Maybe it would be just as well to note and commend what is good in each of these: that we need to save genetic diversity (though maybe not in particular arrangements) and that landrace gardening is the best way to do this and create “new heirlooms”; and that hybrid vigor is a real thing, and landraces have lots of it!
I am so excited to start a Landrace garden and excited about the possibilities . I cant get my garden started soon enough. A note on fertilization. I am going to make mine own from my weeds and grass and spent plants. By simply throwing these in a bucket, 5 gallon or any other size and add water and let that soak for a couple of weeks before I use it on my plants.You can also let it set much longer and it get more potent. I dont feel like this is cheating as it is things from my garden, helping things from my garden…Hope this makes sense.
I would guess that people involved in this group enjoy thinking through things and tend to dive deep when they get interested in a subject and that most of us here just had to read a little about landraces and we were all in. I would say that there are many more people (99%) who prefer not to experiment and just want a nice tomato now and then. I think, also, that most people don’t have much land at all and don’t want to risk a failed garden so they’ll buy bags of compost and starts and coddle them along in a small area in their backyard.
So, I sent ahead some notes to those interested in starting a local seed library. My suggestion for the landrace project part of it was to start with a couple crops, something easy like a squash and something like peppers or cukes that need seeds to be harvested from a ripe fruit, and then each year add a couple more crops. If one fails at least you have a chance at the second one working. I would also say to just harvest seeds from everything the first year (selecting for vigor) because new growers may not get a lot to choose from, and then the following years start to select for flavor and other traits.
This is the feedback I got from a local farming coordinator/volunteer:
My beginning thoughts, just throwing these out there… Lets not forget many people buy starts because they are summer people or because they are intimidated by starting plants from seed. For the latter group, some seed-starting education might be helpful as a baseline?
Seed-sharing: suspect a lot of people will be initially attracted to the idea of being able to obtain a diversity of seeds in small quantities. Start with this idea…
*Seed-Saving: for people prepared to invest a bit more time. And for those interested in growing better plants, adapted to our growing conditions (weather/climate, pests etc), which will change over time. *
For the first year to get things going, focus on seed-sharing But to prepare for seed-saving in year 2, run a class or 2 on why and how to seed-save in the summer /fall of year 1 timed to when seeds of interest are ready for saving.Because tomtaoes are so popular, suggest one of the classes might be on saving tomato seeds…With this info in hand, more people will have saved seeds to share in year 2. Frome there develop the idea of landrace gardening.
I think that’s very practical and that the best way to get information out there is with very simple clear graphic material and these brochures, I think, will be very helpful.
I worked on a little booklet including some of this language, but now I realize it’s lacking for brassicas and for peas!
Everyone who’s interested feel free to check it out and lmk what you think. First use is for giving to the participants of my presentations, but I’m hoping they can be useful beyond that. And the second one is for a seed library that wants to use our template for a collaborative seed project.
Here is a booklet for seed libraries adapted by Joseph (I think shortened a little more by me +resources)
In the booklet for gardeners I added some language to honor seed keepers/breeders that want to keep things pure. Anything else I can add here or language we can use in other areas? For the heirloom people, to show that keeping heirlooms pure is important, and allowing cross pollination is also important and people can do whatever they want, no judgement. But I don’t like the last sentence… appreciate any suggestions!
"Mixing Isn’t For Everyone, or Every Seed
Seeds and humans often have deep cultural connections. Certain cultivars or heirlooms may evoke memories of childhood, or be important for any number of reasons. Some people are stewarding traditional, culturally important seeds. Whatever the reason for an attachment to or appreciation of specific food crops, we want to recognize and give credit to the seed guardians all over the world for stewarding seeds. We support you or your community in maintaining those without allowing cross pollination. "
Here are some thoughts about my meeting yesterday with our local library:
The coordinator didn’t have much growing experience but has enthusiasm and we were also joined by two of our local farming group who have experience with farming/permaculture/foraging…
We decided that what would probably happen is that the majority of people who got seeds from the library would use them because they are free and because they are relatively new to gardening. Diversity of cultivars would be interesting to those with more experience. It appears that there may be sources for free sets of seeds available to libraries and that the library would do educational programs at appropriate times in the year on how to set up their garden specifically for saving, seed saving and cleaning/storing and then hold a seed swap in December where people could also donate leftover seeds from packets. The following year, we would start to include one or two landrace projects within the library that would start off with a presentation/talk and informational materials. It’s clear education–talks and informational materials–is really the main way to get landrace ideas going (and people find it very interesting) but being a gardener requires that we hold a lot of details in our head and it can easily overwhelm someone with less experience. I think it really needs to be done in simple, slow steps. For example, I would say ‘no F1’ in the beginning just to make it easy and then later talk about how to use them…or start with crops that cross without complication and at each step, each succeeding year, introduce a new variable.
I waxed poetic to my dad, a lifelong gardener, about landracing and my efforts towards it. I emphasized the minimal input approach and my goal of having seeds I can just throw outside and have grow without any interference from myself. In reply, he said: “But…to me, that defeats the whole point of gardening.” He explained that being out there, clearing the land, tilling the soil, watering often, weeding, applying fertilizer where needed, etc., were all labors of love; they were the essence of what farming/gardening is. The whole point. Though his garden is open-pollinated and he says he does save some seeds, locally adapted plants that thrive on their own is antithetical to his attachment to and enjoyment of gardening. He wants the plants to be dependent on him.
That really pulled me up short.
Editing to clarify: His reply surprised me in a good way because it challenged my assumptions, and I don’t judge him for his position. I wanted to add his perspective here in case it could give anyone else insight as well, that it’s not just a lack of landracing education that can make others hesitant or unwilling to try it.
Seed swap packet suggestion that I believe we should encourage early:
A quick overview of what conditions the seeds are adapted to/were grown in, such as: light level, soil quality, geographic region, growing zone, water frequency, weed density, any fertilizer, wind, humidity, temps, direct sown, etc.
For example, I’d be able to note that my current seeds were direct sown into nutrient-bereft sand with searing direct sunlight, high water input, moderate weed competition, no fertilizer, and no pest deterrence measures.
Could also note landrace-specific concerns regarding the improved/changed growing habits and fruits of the plant. I haven’t had anything grow out yet, but I assume it’d be things like seed size, crossing rate, independence from trellising, etc.
In my case, I’d been wanting to try landrace gardening for years but was hesitant because I wasn’t sure how to do it - even after reading Joseph’s book, I had so many unanswered questions. With conventional gardening, you can always count on getting answers to questions (even if most of the answers are wrong!) This course and community finally gave me the confidence to get started last year.
@julia.dakin I think these resources are pretty good! In the “Sometimes Avoid Cross-Pollination” section, I would definitely add a section on the brassicas, maybe just mentioning that kale, cabbage, brussels sprouts, etc. will all cross, and that this could be good or bad, depending on a gardener’s intentions.
If you don’t like the last sentence of “Mixing isn’t for Everyone”, could you maybe say something like “Whatever the reason for an attachment to or appreciation of specific food crops, we want to recognize and give credit to the seed guardians all over the world who are stewarding specific crop varieties. Individuals may want to keep particular varieties or populations genetically distinct, and such strategies can and should coexist alongside landrace gardening.”
Maybe we could also note that an heirloom or traditional variety can sometimes be improved by combining a number of distinct strains? For instance, if I was very attached to a particular heirloom, I would probably start by buying or trading for seeds of that heirloom from as many different sources as possible, growing them out, and then combining all the lines that met my basic criteria. These different lines are sometimes quite diverse, and could restore enough genetic diversity to strengthen inbred heirlooms that are in danger of dying out.
@Logan_zzz333 That’s interesting about your dad—and I certainly get that attitude! Interacting and stewarding a garden is a deeply meaningful pursuit. Maybe you could point out that a landrace approach could still be used under such management; it would still allow plants to resist pests better, even if these other goals were not relevant. (I doubt anyone has an emotional attachment to fending off devouring hoards of pests!) And by landracing, we can enter even more deeply into the labor of love that is gardening; helping our crops to adapt to the future and saving the seed stock for the next generation.
@MashaZ I agree; after spending a lot of time reading about landrace gardening on forms that Joseph and others used to participate in, I still wasn’t sure how to go about it properly, and that kept me back from exploring further, even though I had a lot of success growing and saving seed from Joseph’s landrace squash and melons.
You know, I like that as an illustration that it’s okay for people to have different wants. What your father wants is to nurture plants. That’s entirely valid! In essence, it sounds like his plants are his pets, not his livestock. Some people really, really want pets.
I think that’s similar to why a lot of people love houseplants, even if they aren’t interested in gardening.
@Logan_zzz333 this is so helpful for me in thinking about this question. I think your dad seems super self aware and eloquent, and this has generated a lot of thought in my mind.
I do see a lot of parallels with other sorts of relationships, such as with pets, kids, peers. Even my husband and i have different philosophies when it comes to our pet dog. We both love him, but my husbands philosophy is more showing love all the time through treats and affection, whereas my relationship with the dog is more based on working together towards a common goal. So i emphasize things like observing the dog and thinking about how to impact his behavior for the better, or how to improve our relationship to make us both happier in the long run. And i have a very similar take on that with landrace and gardening. I think that the connection with the plants could be what everyone is actually working towards, but its just different philosophies of how to do that. For example, i think that i am excited to do a lot of observation of the garden, plants, factors like pests or weather etc. And i am excited to connect myself more closely with the plants by being a part of their whole lifecycle and by influencing where they go in the future. Even looking at it as putting the plants in situations and shaping conditions so that the plants are successful and stronger in the long run i hope to be a deep source of pride for myself. And by extension, i believe that will also make me feel more connected to past present and future humans, even if i dont know them and my name isnt connected to the plants in any way.
I think the connection that you and your dad are pointing out is a really critical peice of this, and im wondering if what i am relating gets at that same concept as your dads philosophy?
Is this something that could be better understood and communicated to achieve the goal of getting more people into gardening of all types?
