Not all are the same. What for some might be easy and accessible isn’t for some. What I meant was to have just some basic information that all could get no matter what. If someone needs to use google translate, it would be easier to have some go to basics instead of trying to piece together from several sources.
I have previously tried to explain how adaption works and gotten as answer “it sounds like magic”. So there definetely is some work to be done to make it accessible. Best way for this I think is in practise, but with the right pointers so that people know where to put their attention and start to make their own observations.
Joseph’s book got translated to french. Maybe the course could be translated to several languages. I think we all agree that more education is a good investment.
People who have taken the course will receive communication about the seed share programs, at least in the USA and Canada. And we know that they have shown some level of excitement about landrace gardening, and that they are more likely to participate.
Some people will order seeds from the community because they are free and might not save seeds at the end of the year. I think that’s fine too. Maybe next year they will decide to learn more. Maybe they’ll just keep ordering seeds and donate a few $$. Maybe they just need to eat. Overall we’re creating some good in the world by sharing those seeds.
Took me 12 years to figure out I wanted to go full on with adaptation gardening. So there can be many paths to having additional involved collaborators. But in the end, you can’t make people figure things out, they have to figure it out themselves with the resources we provide (and yes we could provide more).
I agree strongly. But to translate the course to French we need time. I don’t have it right now and BTW my French sucks.
So for now members keep popping up out of I don’t know where… I hope they’re going to want some seeds, they seem quite shy.
I noticed people can’t believe they get something for free. They’re so used to always getting ripped off somewhere in the transaction.
But once they accept, they’ll never forget.
So it’s worth it to give.
And it always comes back.
I know I got tons of seeds and varieties more than when I started.
I agree the seeds should be for free. We just have to figure out postage costs.
Not sure I understand what it would take to duplicate the US system like the canadians did.
Meanwhile, I can donate and ship to a central point my best seeds, or I can ship “postage paid” to growers who want them.
about the risk of failure of beginners, I feel ambivalent myself, because I would not be happy to send seeds to many people who would either not grow them , or grow them and eat all the production (legumes for example) without saving seeds, or not grow them well enough and not get a result. As far as I am concerned , when I start to grow a new crop (linseed this year for example, I usually start with plain commercial / grocery store seeds of only one variety for one or two cycles until I feel confident enough that I understand how this species work. I don’t need landraces to discover the species.
I agree, it is about feeling yourself if you trust the one you send to. I’ve had a gigantic fava and pea failure this year. I’m not sending anyone until i’m stocked back up. Would i have succeded i could have send to everybody end of year. But helas. Maybe you and Cathy could help me out a bit later, i promise to be less reckless..
It’s better to be sure to help yourself first, especially if you have just about enough seeds you can easily cover a disaster. Or help someone out who has proven they are already experienced, not eating everything.
It can also help to say NO to the starters, we do not have that which you want, because it failed and we need to be responsible. It’s about involving people and take them seriously and involve them in the thinking proces. We’re sharing a mindset.
But i can not see running out of seeds of corn salad, orach/mountain spinach, sunflowers, squash or parsnip soon. Or member growth has to be very sudden and robust this year.
We might end up totally copying whatever works overseas, this was just inquiring what the community thinks about the Seed train becoming two tier and saying what we’ve agreed setting up hush hush for now. Until we meet in Croatia.
ps do you know people at Brin de Paille? The "national fete de permaculture " is up in August, last year it had a thousand people. I am sending an email to inquire if they would be happy having us to do some kind of presentation of sorts. I think permaculturists would be perfect candidates for quietly working on grexes with us.
Those two crops failing in your winter sound somewhat like Solanum habrochaites LA1777 getting late blight. Unusual, but stranger things have happened. Just let me know when it’s actual in case I were to forget!
And yes, like you said, always good to retain seed to be able to reboot even after a complete crop failure. That’s why I retained most seed of the for me, marginal crops like melons and corn, for now. I will share those when I have such a padding that whatever happens in three consecutive years I still have enough (not just amount, but breadth) to reboot.
I was late, but i was late the year before, when you said, “just plant them Hugo, you people have no winter, if it fails i’ll send new ones!” We did have some very hard frost that winter they survived -14C or abouts and gave so many favas. I saved all ! But i didn’t have time as life happened. Then it was the most cloudy horrible wet soft december, snails left very few and most just rotted away. A friend came and checked when i was in Spain, the few were still there, i had hope they would have survived as seeds and popped a few weeks back, but no such luck.
I did however get 3 different bits of dry resistant Spanish ones, but they should be send to some responsible candidate over there who can safely multiply them for those dry regions. Hopefully in the mean time the Spanish get a bit of a taste for Adaptation Gardening and realize the importance of sharing sources as a community.
See, they did what they were supposed to do: bounced back from -14 (-22 at my place). Snail and slug pressure I don’t have; you have a selection opportunity there, as I will send an even greater sample size next time. And, statistically speaking, you don’t usually get such shitty, wet winters, so, yes, just get reckless again soon!
To me this is not a matter of trust but a matter of probability. I mean the people I trust to be well intentionned , but the learning process I know has many traps. So statistically giving precious landraces to beginners makes me hesitate.
It may be because I am still learning and subjet to failure and I have relatively small pieces of land to cultivate them (like 5 -10 square meters each specie), therefore limited harvests. I guess when I increase my production, I will be less ambivalent !
I have a lot of seeds of
quinoa (grex)
mustard (not green mustard, the one for the sauce) (one variety)
millet (3 varieties)
lentils (grex year 3 )
not enough left of my other legumes (fava, peas, beans) because i have heavy slugh and bird pressure.
Yes. Thx for highlighting Hugos post for me. Same thing here in Bonn every year. All winter we get max a week or two of below 0°C. Usually a short freeze of single digits end of November and the rest of the time the temperature is moving between 5°C and 15°C. Never a double digit freeze. Last year the worst frost was actually a night of - 9°C on the 23th of April! (For reference: yesterday was a summers night of 18°C!) And it’s wet of course. Slugs don’t go to sleep and don’t freeze. They keep feeding on anything edible. But it might be still worth it to try again with a series of plantings every two weeks apart in autumn. My growing beds are otherwise empty from end of October.
As for the starter kits: I think it’s a good idea to have both that and the seed train. More options for more kinds of people and their needs as well as good for when the community grows to big for the seed train. As long as it doesn’t become too much work for the people involved of course.
I’m happy to contribute with whatever I have enough seed of. This year I’m growing mostly favas and popcorn.
Same. But actually on that subject I need to go against my tendencies to send more than I can afford: I mean having a strong back up when you do serious work as we do is neccessary.
For ex:
I have already given more than 50% of my best selection of watermelons (early X excellent taste) prior to sowing my own… That impacts my breeding in different ways (like I can’t afford direct sowing of these now: compulsory transplants). But overall that’s ok, cause I’ve been giving those mostly to careful people I know, and by doing so I know that “my” eggs are not all in the same basket, let’s say… But it’s slightly counterproductive and actually stressful, not to say stupid with those transplants which I see as very risky, with such a thin or non existant back up. I would have needed to do another round of seed increase and selection before giving so many.
Anyway: each individual must find balance in those offerings, and it’s true that due to this overall risks your talking about @isabelle I will not put my best selections in those starter kits.
I think Serendipity Seed Swap + Starter kits and direct exchange between members is perfect.
Friend, don’t send me so much bulk Physalis that I indeed will recklessly direct sow on 66N, staggered, starting with 8deg soil (== potato planting time) that you yourself don’t have enough to direct sow them!
@JesseI You have a good point. F2s are particularly valuable to share with other people because of how diverse that generation of a cross can be.
@Hugo I love your thought that it doesn’t matter to you whether people understand landrace seeds before they try them. Absolutely! There may very well be people out there who are trying every approach they can find to see what works for them, and only after they stumble across one that does will they stop and look more into it. It’s an excellent way to explore! (In fact, one might even argue that approach is what landrace gardening is all about! )
@isabelle I totally understand wanting to make sure people who receive nifty seeds will save those seeds and contribute them back. One particularly hard thing about being part of a community is that we can’t control other people’s choices, and there will always be some people whose choices don’t live up to our hopes. I suggest that if seeds of something marvelous are currently still precious and rare, they should be distributed only to people you’re pretty sure you can trust to increase seeds and share them back. Once seeds of that marvelous thing have been increased to the point that there are tons to share, it’s time to make them available to anybody who is interested in trying them.
Every crop is a study, many farmers grow only one crop and know everything about it there is to know. Mostly about diseases and pests and when to fertilize and spray killing agents and how to harvest when and with what material, when to start the cycle:seeding..
. Diseases and pests are my teachers, i do some fertilizing with cow manure, the rest is up to the plants, no spraying, seeding by hand or in pots if i don’t have many seeds or want to be sure, i harvest by hand, the cycle is all over the place, climate is totally unpredictable where i am. Life is pretty simple for an adaptation gardener in comparison to professional growers.
I have some seeds in excess, people want to grow, i tell them hey i do this special thing with mixing varieties, they’re like “huh what, ok, send me the seeds, i’ll try”. I don’t care they don’t do a deep dive into it. I trust they will if it works. I trust.
