What an awesome collecrtive you’ve got going there Stephane! A true example!! How long did it take you guys to get from where you are now? How much do you pay in contributions? Did somebody make a documentary about the place?
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in 6 years with 2 years of COVID pandemic that have slowed us down in projects !
the annual membership is from 5 €, we make our financial entries only with a few events such as conferences, and then an annual sale of young tree plants to reforest, bread sale that finances a small salary for the baker… no public subsidy we hold to our financial independence!
The majority of machines are old stuff bought cheap but refurbished by tinkering.
The laboratory is private and investments are made by the owner entrepreneur who reinvested his profits in equipment pooled.
We do not have a report yet but we document all our actions but also failure with small videos, photos… One day it will serve us to show the path taken in a small film to make people want to invest in local collectives.
Thank you for your warm encouragement, because with our heads occupied we no longer see all this beautiful road travelled in such a short time.
All this seems normal to us today and we aim ever higher in the quest for the resilience and ecological functioning of our small rural territory.
A dream would be to see one day all these small local initiatives on each territory, in each country…to shift the current model of society towards a more joyful society filled with love and respectful for other life forms of the planet ! 
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It’s like that when you build, you forget how much work you’ve done. When building our ruin up. Having it documented in a little booklet with pictures has done a great deal for realization and is nice to show to visitors.
I’ve not heard of similar projects but maybe that doesn’t say much, being a caveman countrybum, but man does your example deserve copying! It would be such a relieve to the many people not wanting to live in the countryside, but in like small towns and surrounding villages. I hear a lot i would love to grow my own and stuff, but could not live in the countryside for this, this and that reason…
And i’m more than pleased you managed to keep government out, ruining things with earthquakes of paperwork and ridiculous rules.
You’re too modest, it’s an outstanding achievement you folks did together!
Honor and praise! Bow to Stephane
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Hugo is entirely correct - this is incredible! 
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What a dream you are building! Where can i learn more about it?
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thank you very much for your encouragements, I will send them to the whole collective at our next meeting. Our energy is you !
you can follow our adventures here :
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also you can know more than on the internet, by contacting me for specific questions and especially if you travel one day through central France we will be able to welcome you to show you all the projects in progress !
The whole GTS community is welcome!
we sometimes have people from collectives in other regions, Transitions tows, Greenpeace, Sea shepered… the more we are, the easier our common dream will be to achieve
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Would love to come see it sometime, dreaming of creating something similar in Mallorca. I’ll try to convince my partner that the next holiday should be in france!
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here the Indian summer starts again since 1 week with temperatures between 20°C (68°F) and 25°C (77°F) during the day and 13°C (55°F) at night 
! under these conditions we continued to have sweet peppers and aubergines.
we are preparing the seed for next spring’s fields. from 400g of seeds we have gone to 12kg in a poor year for corn.
Once again the old machine do a good job to go fast !
the seeds will still be kept for a while to dry for good conservation. Here our harvest of Soya
This grain seed moisture tester machine is a super investment to store seeds once the right percentage of internal moisture reaches.
Always in preparation for the seeds. Radishes were harvested since 1 year and stored in the cold room.
The pods were too hard and impossible to open last year. After a year, everything is super easy to break.
I also made a good investment with these small kitchen sieves that do a great job to get seeds sorted.
I also received a seed order from Sow Diverse Ireland 
. Many Japanese vegetables not found elsewhere in Europe. And also some specific varieties to continue working my grex.
Unboxing from an order from an Austrian nursery of xeric plants. Yuccashop has many rare plants especially of the yucca tree crosses. These new hybrids made on their park, allow to find plants completely rustic with the appearance of desert plants on trunk. Here too, hybridization allows for enormous vigor that allows these yuccas to grow super fast while they are normally slow plants. With a drainage of our lands, these plants will decorate our Californian/ Mexican garden in our future garden in preparation.
No more ugly plants that burn in the summer with + 35°C, no more watering…welcome aesthetic desert! 
Arbutus texana
Yucca schottii x Yucca pallida
Yucca elata x Yucca thompsoniana
Yucca glauca x Yucca thompsoniana
Yucca pallida x Y. elata
Cunila origanoides
Tripora divaricata
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congratulations, once more!
I am impressed by the old corn-threshing aparatus . I don’t need that for the moment because my production is still small, but I will keep an eye on the opportunities to get one.
Your corn is flour/grain only or do you grow several families ?
I agree with you that corn is a good crop… good yield , easy to sow, grow, harvest …
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This small manual device does an incredible job!
It is not expensive in the flea market, but we took 1 year to find one in good condition so start looking.
12kg of grain prepared in 2h, while the last time I made 3kg in 2h by hand. In addition, I had wounds and pain in the joints of the fingers.
Also I think this will add a positive selection pressure…some grains were less dry, the machine damaged those grains that will not be able to germinate so the population should evolve towards grains that dry faster so towards an even stronger precocity.
We only produce Painted Mountain grain corn, the best population that can exist.
Very early, very adaptive, very drought resistant, very nutritious… very beautiful!
the goal is to increase our bread diversity with a new corn bread in 2 years.
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Stéphane, can you tell us some more about how you organize the gardening group? I’m curious to know if you collaborate with others on planning for which seed to use and the process of locally adapting the crops. Do we even have some of your neighbors here on the forum?
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The grain group is managed by one person who organizes the work to be carried out in the field and asks for help from others.
The gardening group is a more transversal, informal way to the sandstone of desires and needs of each. It’s mostly related to the management of the seed bank. Each one grows at home what he wants and we put in common our production of seed. People like it for autonomy and independence to seed groups, plus in our small villages we have little choice for seeds so sharing what we found is appreciated. A seed producer for Kokopelli helps us sometime with the technical part of seed production.
We meet several times a year to discuss our problems, make garden visits, order equipment together, do learning workshops…
We also exchange our surplus production and carry out experimental crops together. This year we tested pumpkins with bare seeds, black sesame to increase the possibilities on our breads. I would like that part to develop but does not want to force the step… people are free they must feel the desire, propose it and do it.
Otherwise what becomes of the collective, if the motor person is no longer there? all the collective efforts are out? It isn’t a good road to sustainability of our commitments…
I would like to raise awareness of the need for adaptive gardening. Here the climate becomes more and more crazy…we must react we soon enter the Mediterranean climatic zone which implies big change for us who were in temperate continental oceanic climate.
I wanted to bring Joseph on the European tour for an event in Charolais Brionnais, but local gardeners have not yet understood the value of landracing. So I’m organizing a discovery workshop again next month, will leave a copy of the book of Joseph in our common library, often talks about… to infuse ideas.
For the moment I’m doing this adaptation gardening part alone in the group. I have put the seeds in common but for now people still prefer to collect and grow the seeds from traditional varieties. The trigger has not yet taken place in their minds, so my goal is to convince them by the result of my cultures in place. Words are beautiful things for the mind but action is good for the body! 
So we’ll play the contest for the best zucchini if that’s what makes them laugh ! 
Most are completely focused on agroecological and permaculture crop modes: organic soil amendments, no tillage, mulch…
Now I feel liberated from this that takes too much time and which is not in my opinion a sustainable solution by importing more and more material from other field.
the plants came out of the sea on a bare rock without soil…they should be able to continue growing without a debauchery of human action wanting to saturate it with nutrients 
So I try to take people of my community on this path of plant genetics by sharing my learning within the GTS collective.
Thank you all 
, these simple words that you write all end to end are the solution to agriculture of the future because we are all different, we come from different origins, We all grow different things in different places… but the power of our brains together is infinite! Plants have become resilient for millions of years because they have always worked in cooperation with other life forms, and we should be inspired by them. 
My neighbours are not here on the forum. Many are elders who use little internet, and as the youngest are with us to learn and do this in their garden for their families…
But we are a small handful of old land pirates 
at casting off the moorings to go towards the unknown distant communities to reinvent this important knowledge transfer network and meeting.
As in biological communities, the best biodiversity and wealth appears at the interface between two environments… So I do everything to be in the interfaces to find this treasure, like a mantra 
: between several communities, between several methods, between several varieties…
I realize as I get older that collective thinking is not easy for everyone, and even asks me sometime if thinking for others while sometimes forgetting our own needs wouldn’t be an even more fulfilling journey !
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This is so cool Stéphane ! Very ingénieux
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chicory salad sowing for the 3rd time since September ! the slugs have eaten everything every time now that the temperatures are cooler I did indoors to accelerate the shoot before transplanting in the garden.
We still haven’t seen negative temperatures, so the peppers continue to ripen in the garden with the sun.
the super hybrid salad Radichetta. This landrace is really great growing salads in any season. Hurry up with the F3 !
Swiss chard is starting to have more and more strong colors.
the cultivation of cauliflowers becomes impossible here in spring and summer with global warming…but it succeeds very well in autumn with cooler temperatures and especially rain. Here the plants have only one month !
Japanese mustard also like autumn here selection of Mizuna, Wasabino… and a population created by Franck Morton
Japanese radish doesn’t grow quickly this fall. I start a little grex to mix the colors
still some lemon crops… zest on a small fresh goat cheese accompanied by a salad of arugula rapel the flavors discovered in September in southern Italy !
soon harvest of Yuzu…2nd year we have the first fruits.
a small plant exchange with a local gardener. New rustic citrus fruits arrive in the garden: Meyer lemon, Enzo pomelo , Sudachi lime. So happy !
after a small discussion with @malterod on the genus Zanthoxylum, here are my one year old seedlings of Z. armatum, the Timut pepper.
superb autumn colour on the nursery side. We open fire with Acer cordatum a rather rare plant which has non-lobed leaves.
Another rare Acer takesimense, also illuminates the garden.
Acer x ‘Herbstfeuer’ (circinatum x palmatum).
this one will serve me as mother for crosses that I will try with the other maple of the palmatum section. The objective: to have very vigorous Japanese maples that are less susceptible to crytogamic disease.
Landrace Japanese maple trees !
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The purple peas are a normal variation in that Swedish pea.
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I finally got the answer, thank you Cathy! 
no hybridization therefore, but in any case the vigor of Lokförare with sometimes purple grain can let imagine that it is perhaps a population and not a fixed variety…
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It’s known to be quite variable. In Sweden, we save seeds only from the normal color and, especially, the non-poofy pods. If it’s poofy, like there’s air in it we don’t save from that.
The purists, that is!..
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So many beautifull things Stephane, both in the garden and the community! It’s so inspiring reading about what your collective achieved in 6 years and seeing it in the photos
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It is wonderful to see and to hear about all these wonderful successes Thank you for sharing
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