Stéphane’s landrace garden in Brionnais, France

[stephane_rave]

Late yesterday afternoon on 21/04, with the weather having been very mild (22°C during the day and 4°C at night) and sunny these past few days, and the soil drying out more and more (moisture detected at a depth of 5 cm), we sowed our community garden.
Population-type flour corn, population-type pepo seed squash, population-type moschata squash, and population-type maxima squash were sown over 1,875 m².

Why so early? Sub-freezing temperatures are possible until May 15 in middle of France, so we’re taking a risk of losing the entire crop…

It’s been generally mild since mid-February, with only two mornings of sub-freezing temperatures, and very mild, sunny days well above normal (already several days with record at 27°C !).
Then, on March 1, on a beautiful day, I decided to plant 10 Painted Mountain corn seeds in the ground just to see what would happen, and to my surprise, by March 30, three small sprouts had emerged; two days later, it was -2°C in the morning, but one survived.

So corn seeds have the ability to lie dormant in the soil and germinate later, even when temperature and humidity conditions are perfect. Why is that? Do they develop roots during that time?

Another reason for this extremely early planting is that in previous seasons we noticed that with a normal planting in early May, the soil is often already dry, and sometimes (like last year) there was no rain until mid-June, which resulted in poor germination and lower yields.

Regarding the project, here is what has been done:

• Maxima Grex :

Restarting a Grex project with small varieties, which are said to be very good taste, and genetics suited to warmer or drier climates.

Varieties : 25 varieties x 3 seeds per variety = 75 seeds.
Ambar
Australian Butter
Blue Ballet
Blue Kuri
Buttercup Burgess
Garbo
Hopi Orange
Green Hubbard
Lakota
Lumina
Macre
Marina di Chioggia
Mikoshi
North Georgia
Iranian Pumpkin
Olive Green Pumpkin
Potimarron
Solor Potimarron
Red Kuri
Stella Blue
Strawberry Crown
Uncle David Dakota Dessert
Ushiri Kuri
White Boer
Zapalitto del Tronco

Grex : 25 seeds

Desert Spirit Culinary Landrace = 7 seeds
Gete Okosomin x Desert Spirit Culinary Landrace = 5 seeds
Lofthouse Buttercup Mix = 5 seeds
Shiatsu (Maxima x moschata) = 8 seeds

• Moschata varieties Grex :

Restarting a Grex project with small varieties, which are said to be withe good taste, and genetics suited to warmer or drier climates.

Varieties : 13 varieties x 5 seeds per variety = 65 seeds.

Burpee’s Butterbush
Butternut
Butternut Ponca
Canada Mezoides
Carat
Chirimen
Doran Round
Futsu Black
Mini Musk
Shishigatani
Sucrine du Berry
Tromba d’Albenga
Vitaminnaya

Grex : 30 seeds

Jessel grex (@JesseI ) = 10 seeds
Tanja grex (@Tanjaeskildsen ) = 10 seeds
Lofthouse moschata grex (@Joseph_Lofthouse )= 10 seeds

• Moschata MAZUREK Grex :
  Start a grex using the exceptionally flavorful varieties created by Michael Mazurek. This will leverage his exemplary breeding work to transform it into a grex, thereby erasing his varietal breeding efforts and restoring a dynamic population.
  The Guatemalan green-fleshed Ayote squash will be included in this group due to its exceptional aroma.
  This grex will receive pollen from the Moschata Varieties grex in the first year, then the F1 seeds will be resown mixed with a 100% MAZUREK Grex F1 produced on another field. The overall idea is to eventually have a grex that is approximately 75% Mazurek but with greater diversity in shape, while hoping to preserve their aroma.

Varieties : 13 varieties x 5 seeds per variety = 65 seeds.

Ayote Guatemalan = 16 seeds

Brûlée butternut = 11 seeds
Honey patch (@ThomasPicard , @Sebastien ) = 26 seeds
Honeynut (@ThomasPicard , @Sebastien ) = 9 seeds
Koginut (@ThomasPicard , @Sebastien ) = 20 seeds
Lodi (@ThomasPicard , @Sebastien ) = 19 seeds

• Flour Corn PAINTED MOUNTAIN :

Our crop started four years ago with a small packet of 20 seeds, and then two years ago I picked up another sample in Antibes from a member of GTS. However, I feel that this isn’t enough and that this superb population is suffering from inbreeding, resulting in low yields and ears that are sometimes malformed and poorly pollinated.

The new idea is to genetically “pollute” PAINTED MOUNTAIN with other new varieties of flour corn. The large plot at Painted Mountain will serve as the pollen recipient, and we will collect the seeds there for next season.

Here are the varieties that were used to create the rows of pollen-donor corn.

Varieties : 23 varieties = 500 seeds.

Bardot des Dombes = 10 seeds
Blanc d’Astarac = 10 seeds
Flour Italia ( @Evelyne ) = 10 seeds
Gneismais = 10 seeds
Hopi Pink = 10 seeds
Hopi Turquoise = 10 seeds
Mandan Speckled = 10 seeds
Mergoscia (@Evelyne) = 10 seeds
Mexican x polenta (@Evelyne) = 10 seeds
Montana Lavender Clay = 20 seeds
Montana Morado = 20 seeds
Moucheté du Perou = 10 seeds
Polenta (@Evelyne) = 10 seeds
Rog de Aldover = 5 seeds
Rojo = 10 seeds
Rio Lucio = 10 seeds
Spinato Orange (@Evelyne) = 10 seeds
Spinato Red (@Evelyne) = 10 seeds
Spinato Yellow (@Evelyne) = 10 seeds
Supai Red Parchian = 10 seeds
8 row Bulgaria (@Bore ) = 5 seeds
8 file (@Evelyne) = 10 seeds

off typ Painted Mountain : 200 seeds

All the seeds of colors that are underrepresented (i.e., the least common genetics) in my Painted Mountain population—meaning unusual colors, striped and speckled grains… all those grains we sorted with our European friends in Croatia one evening, laughing and clucking like hens around a table…

(@malterod , @Bore , @mare.silba , @Laura, @marcela_v, @ThomasPicard , @Hugo , @Sebastien )

Grex :

Atomic Orange x Painted Mountain (@JesseI ) = 70 seeds

Planned next steps:

• I’ll return on May 15 to sow a row of the later-maturing Painted Mountain variety to try to synchronize the corn’s flowering with the later-maturing varieties we’ve brought in.
• No weeding, no watering… to the surprise of the members, we won’t return to this field until fall to harvest… this “Survivor Grex” technique (@marcela_v ) , which we already tested last year, worked, and with current fuel costs here, there’s no way we’re going to drive 15 km just to waste our time and energy damaging the soil on this field.

First report on the community field:

• 1 hour of tractor work to remove the winter cover crop of red clover.
• 2 hours spent preparing the various seed mixtures
• 2 hours of planting yesterday with 13 people…lots of laughter and conversation

This project is going to be really exciting to follow .

I hope that everyone involved (from those providing the seeds and creative inspiration from the local members) will help bring about simple yet beautiful outcomes:
adding a new corn’s bread with pumpkin seed to our collective’s bread lineup starting next year, and hosting a pumpkin festival this fall.To build connections among us all and to enjoy a local product that carries the mark of our community of breeders, as well as all those amazing people around the world who left us these incredible varieties, making this cosmopolitan endeavor possible!

[marcela_v (Marcela Velfl)]

Amazing My brain got on fire just by reading through the list of varieties

I am looking forward to see how it will develop through the season. I will start with corn next week

[stephane_rave]

The list is mind-boggling, there’s no doubt about it, it really gets the brain on fire !but it’s largely thanks to all of you, our conversations, our meetings, exchanges…

If Mexico and Peru are arguing over who invented squash and corn, we’re going to try to create a third origin in Charolais Brionnais !

In your garden, I was really surprised by all the little corn patches your neighbors have. Traditional corn farming still seems to be very widespread in your beautiful country.
Maybe your garden will become a source of interesting corn pollen that could genetically infiltrate the neighboring plots?

It would be cool if new shapes and colors of ears, and more resilient plants, gradually took hold in your area and your neighbors started talking to you about it.

In any case, I should be able to provide quite a few new varieties of flour corn this fall!
And if by any chance you go back to Italy or grow those gorgeous ears of corn this year, set aside a little mix of colors for me. This strain looks fantastic .

[stephane_rave]

Here are a few photos from our group planting session yesterday :

• layout of the crop rows

• strategic discussions

• sowing seeds one by one in narrow rows

• and on the large plot at Painted Mountain, a very promising new 2026 trial:

1/ Weeding of the winter clover was done using a disc tool (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRlrh7D0D0Y) that uproots the plants and shreds them at the surface in a single pass.

2/ The land was prepared for seeding using a rotary harrow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pd-8uTc-Ko).
This tool is very effective because it mixes the soil horizontally rather than vertically like a plow. The topsoil therefore remains on the surface and does not impact soil life under the first 10 cm that are worked.

3/ Seeding over large areas > 10,000 m² is typically done using a tractor-mounted seeder (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_c2UQ3IGM4).
In fact, to be effective, our older model needs about 30 kg of seeds in the hopper to function properly.

For our little area of over 1,000 m² this year, we only have 3.125 kg, which is too much to sow by hand quickly, seed by seed, and not enough for the seeder.

So we did a manual broadcast seeding, scattering the seeds over the prepared soil with two people working in a crisscross pattern across the plot, each handling half the seeds.

Then, to bury the seeds at the right depth, we went over the area again with the rotary harrow. And bingo—it worked! The seeds were buried without being crushed or blown away. In 5 minutes, the plot was ready; one person followed the tractor to manually press the remaining 5% of seeds that were still on the surface into the soil.
And that saved us 3 hours of work for several people !

Our old farm equipment runs on recycled fuel… Thanks to an entrepreneur among our members who dismantles oil-fired boilers to install geothermal systems, we’re able to salvage the leftover fuel tanks from home heating systems… It’s good for the planet, saves us money, and helps protect our backs by allowing us to use a little mechanization.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

@stephane_rave

Why so early? Sub-freezing temperatures are possible until May 15 in middle of France, so we’re taking a risk of losing the entire crop…

So that’s when there is still possible to have frosts and average last frost date is earlier? Generally the last possible frosts are quite week and if your forecast in the next 2 weeks doesn’t show sudden plunge of temperatures, you should be save. The biggest danger would be something like week before last possible frosts when it can get 1-2C colder than week later. Over here last possible frost would be around mid june, but it rarely happens. It did happen few years ago, but it was mild enough not to kill anything. Nothing important at least. Some staple varieties of moschata died (even protected so not from frost, but general cold), but mine just had fros damage in the leaves even unprotected. Must have been like -0.X since it was very patchy.

@stephane_rave

It’s been generally mild since mid-February, with only two mornings of sub-freezing temperatures, and very mild, sunny days well above normal (already several days with record at 27°C !).
Then, on March 1, on a beautiful day, I decided to plant 10 Painted Mountain corn seeds in the ground just to see what would happen, and to my surprise, by March 30, three small sprouts had emerged; two days later, it was -2°C in the morning, but one survived.

That’s interesting and maybe not that surprising. Biggest limitation with corn seems to be that it needs atleast 10C ground while it rehydrates. 10C seems to be the minumum for all (at least grain corn, sweet corn can rot more easily) to survive. There is very little information/research what is the absolute limit. Some sources say 5C, but seems iffy when there isn’t really anything to back it up. But it seems that there isn’t really reason to sow before you have ground at least 10C for even short period. It doesn’t really need that long warm period. There is more information tolerance of seedling and all sources seem to put the limit between -2C and -3C. Although it seems reasonable that they would survive more if they are sown deep and the centre is protected. Was that -2C measured at normal 2 meter hight or is it already ground level observation? If it’s from higher up, at ground level it could easily be -7C. That would be quite an achievement. Although in my case it doesn’t usually matter. It takes so long for the ground to warm up that there rarely are changes where I could sow them early, they would emerge and then there would be frost that is more than few degrees. But you never know.

The seed doesn’t go dormant that I know of, but it’s development is just very slow when it’s cool. I suppose ground didn’t get than warm even with the unusually warm weather. Over here it can take few weeks for them to emerge. Ofcourse the longer they are in cool ground, the bigger the change that some will spoil.

[stephane_rave]

The members are worried, but not me, lol.

I said yesterday that if we waited for perfect conditions, farmers like you in extreme climates would never plant anything. This line of reasoning always works here; it puts things into perspective for gardeners and shows them that while our conditions are certainly heavily impacted by climate change, we still have ideal conditions.

In fact, I’ve distributed your melon seeds all over the region—everyone knows that a gardener from Finland managed to grow melons and watermelons outdoors way up in the far north of the planet. No one here believes it’s possible, so from so far away, you seem like a god! You’re going to become a hero, and soon they’ll be erecting statues in your honor!

The temperature reading doesn’t come from an official weather station but from a garden thermometer about 1 m above the ground with no shelter. One thing’s for sure: I had to scrape the car windows, and the Actinidia arguta shoots were all black and scorched 2 m away from the corn, though less so on the lower leaves. I get the impression that our sunny days warmed the soil enough to let thermal inertia take effect until the coldest moment at dawn.

The Painted Mountain corn seems pretty hardy, in any case. Next year, I’ll plant more seeds in the ground starting on January 1st and on several different dates. To repeat the experiment and to be able to dig them up and see what’s happening underground and when they start rooting.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

The worry isn’t completely unfounded, especially if you have a lot of different varieties that you don’t know how well they do in the cold. Moschata out of those is in my experience the least cold tolerant. At least I haven’t had that good experiences with stable varieties when it’s cold. So it might be a gamble in the first year, but if you get lucky enough to get good mixing then next year you have more options. Like I was saying to Thomas at other topic, it’s so hard to predict how the plants will experience the cold there even if based on measurments they are exposed to same temperatures as futher north. Warmer winter, spring and overall warmer ground deep down warms up soil faster, but then again you also have a lot longer nights when average temperatures are comparable to more northern latitudes so maybe nights are more freezing. Although from my experience there is cold tolerance even in moschata that you should be able to get something once you have a diverse population. Melons and watermelons are a little less tolerant and I’m not as confident with them yet. Even they have lot more cold tolerance than you’d expect, but it’s seem to be even more rare. But it’s always a gamble. You at least have a lot of space. If you can just get people to sow (and possibly resow) a lot of seeds then you will get at least some that make it and be able to build from that on.

1 meter up is usually clearly warmer than on the ground level, but not always and it’s not always much. But changes are that, that survived a little more than it was supposed, as evidenced by others that died. Slightly doubful that anything will survive sowing in january (assuming that they will get watered or rain soaks the seeds) except with fools luck, but suppose you need to start at impossible to find where it starts to be possible. I might wait for snow to melt if you happen to have colder winter

[ThomasPicard]

One info : @Bruno has planted his sweet corn population for a decade around the 7th of April in Retournac, Haute-Loire, to avoid the flowering window of his neighbor’s hybrids, planted in early May - usual timing there.
My guess is that your 2 weathers are relatively comparable, so a bit colder than mine in winter/early spring. So go seeds… Go!

[stephane_rave]

We don’t see snow here anymore, or just a few centimeters that last a day at most… Just to give you an idea, we had days in February when it was over 20°C, which made me plant a few corn seeds.
So I’m going to explore the boundaries between what’s possible and what’s impossible in the coming years!

[stephane_rave]

The climate in Bruno is much colder; even though it’s not far away, it’s influenced by the mountain ranges surrounding it.
Here, the climate is closer to yours, with the major difference being that it hardly ever freezes from December to February, with minimum temperatures of -3°C. However, in March, April, and May, we can have one or two nights of late frosts at -5°C, which really hurt because everything is full of sap and just starting to grow… Or else in the process of sprouting, thanks to the optimism of the past winterless months.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

Yes I know, but you never know what is the actual range of say once in 5, 10 ,20 years events. Might have 10 years of warmer than average to exceptionally warm winters and then 2 that make you feel like it’s back to normal winters. Then you don’t know what to expect anymore from year to year. Personally I’m more looking at where is “the cut line”, where there is still possible to have temperature X even if it’s more rarely. Then use forecast closer to that date to define if it’s possible to go earlier. Whole winter is a too long for that. With corn it would go towards breeding it perennial that can survive the winter even if it’s killed back. That would be quite interesting project and in your climate probably has changes of success.

Just for reference, over here it’s common to have 8C difference in monthly average temperature from year to year, during winter even more. That’s why it’s so hard to grow warm loving plants here. Like last year average of june was 14C and few years ago record 20C. And there was 6 junes in row that were way warmer than average before last year. So it was a little sudden drop back to reality. It seems likely that something like that will happen there sooner or later even if the general trend seems warmer by the year.

[malterod]

Hey Stephane, reading about your seeding trials with interest and hoping you will learn valuable lessons in the process for all of us. I wonder if you have tested using a handheld push seeder - as a middle ground between hand sowing and tractor. If the ground is prepared, you can then sow at the speed of your own walking.

I use the most popular model, the Jang seeder.

[stephane_rave]

Last year we tested the Lang seeder on a few rows. It was a failure; the soil has to be carefully prepared beforehand, and even then it doesn’t bury the seeds deeply enough. The rows sown with the seeder had a very low germination rate.

I think it’s a good tool for light soils or soils that are frequently worked on permanent beds. For clay fields that form clods, it’s clearly not suitable; the planting stick performs better (like hopi people : 5.1 Procedure | The Pueblo Farming Project ) is much faster.

We think modified ski poles would be a good option

[malterod]

Interesting. I have only used it at a relatively sandy place where it works well. Corn, beans and pumpkin I have used with a dibbler - sounds like what you describe. Ski poles are aa good idea! I usually just saw a stick from a tree and cut and indent at the end I want to poke with so I control the depth.

[stephane_rave]

The wheats of Joseph’s grex have more than a month ahead of the local wheat !

The TGS from the gene bank is beginning to show signs of flowering

The first edible fava beans are ready. As always, the first hybrids from the Grex variety have the largest pods.

The blooms of the grex from CICADA Seeds are already showing a variety of flower colors, including beautiful magenta blooms, as well as pure white ones (without black dots), and a large number of bluish-pink blooms

[Julied]

Looks beautiful, Stéphane. Great job on growing and taking care of all that diversity!

[stephane_rave]

The first bean flowers are starting to appear !
It’s clear that growing a few bean plants in pots under cover results in a significant gain in early maturity. In fact, the direct-sown plants are barely at the first-leaf stage, and the recent heavy rains have hindered the growth of some of them. Mature beans can withstand the last days of frost and rain, but seedlings are very sensitive to them.

The peas have already been eaten for a few days. For the past two years, I’ve had a mix of three snow peas: a large green one, a small yellow one, and a small purple one. Yesterday, while harvesting, I spotted what appeared to be the first sign of cross-pollination : a large green snow pea speckled with purple!
I took a closer look and here’s what I noticed: this pea with the different pigmentation comes from a plant where all the peas are small and purple.

Is this a mutation in a flower, since I found a speckled flower on another plant among all the normal ones?

A sign of a flower that has just hybridized, as can be seen directly on certain plants like corn?

A pigmentation issue related to stress?

I’m curious to know if you’ve also seen this in your own plants or in the seeds I distributed.

[stephane_rave]

Some news from the community field :
It was to be expected, but now I have confirmation: Grex and landrace seeds are much more resilient when planted using the “survivor” method.

On our community field, all the seeds currently undergoing genetic adaptation (namely Painted Mountain corn and ‘Emerald Naked Seeded’ pumpkin) are thriving.

Clearly, we should sow more densely than 10 g/m² for hand-broadcasting the corn, as the field isn’t as dense as it would be with row planting. Already, a few plants are standing out in terms of development.

For the Pepo squash grown for eat seeds, we have two nice rows : one sown seed by seed with about 70% of the plants, and a third row improvised on a whim, made in a hurry before leaving in the evening with just a shallow furrow and the seeds tossed in as I ran… 100% success !

All the other seeds from the collected varieties have a success rate of about 10% at this stage!

At home, I’m doing some experimental corn crossbreeding this season… and to my great surprise, I have a Painted Mountain plant that already has a stunning, never-before-seen genetic combination: it’s variegated !

After the first harvests of fava beans, which suffer in the heat, I’ve decided to stop spring planting for good. The seeds germinate quickly without any frost issues, but then everything speeds up with the arrival of aphids, dry weather, and heat.
Seeds sown in the fall have no problems and keep the ground covered in winter. Plus, the seed harvests come earlier to free up space, so I’m all for it.
Here are the first little gems I’ve selected. The best seeds aren’t ready yet, so if all goes well (I’m watering them for that reason), I should be able to find even beautiful seeds.

[stephane_rave]

After a month of suffering… enduring daily temperatures above 30°C, with half the time seeing temperatures between 35°C and 40°C, tropical nights at 24°C, going out around 10 p.m. to water the crops as quickly as possible before nightfall, trying to save the plants…

Here’s the result: the garden is dead!

Beyond the physical fatigue and mental exhaustion, it’s truly heartbreaking to see that we’ve reached the limits of agriculture.

No matter how resilient our seeds are, or how strong our collective motivation is… water is, without a doubt, the limiting factor of life.

When the heat wave begins in late May, when the rain stops falling, when the few small thunderstorms are systematically diverted by cannons to prevent hail from hitting a farm that wants to protect its greenhouses, when the relative humidity remains below 30%… for more than 50 days, life comes to a standstill.

Here is the reality of climate change : we’ve already reached a 2.1°C increase in France. I’m sorry to sound so pessimistic, but as someone who’s been proactive on this issue, I realize that all the measures we’re taking such as shading, mulching, irrigation, early planting, and plant breeding, won’t be enough to cope with the projected 4°C increase.

The reality is hard to accept…
Of course, we have to keep going, keep fighting, speed up our work, and expand our collaborations…

But we also have to stay strong when birds fall from the sky from thirst, when the roadsides are littered with the remains of fires, and when cows moo from thirst and hunger.
And clearly, it’s hard to stay balanced when green has given way to brown and black.

So to all those who are still lucky enough to live in areas where the climate still allows for farming, step up your adaptation efforts significantly, because overnight the rope will snap and everything will spiral out of control. be ready

A summer without vegetables or fruit is sad… Seeing the greed of some people fighting over the few vegetables that producers (who are in tears and about to lose everything) manage to bring to market is heartbreaking…

Later, we’ll take stock of all this; for now, I don’t have the energy for it.

After sowing some beautiful, colorful fava bean seeds this winter (orange, green, yellow, and fingerprint)… finding a few seeds that are completely different raises some questions.

This splattered pattern is surely a message from life trying to reinvent itself, so let’s create this new path rather than get lost on the old one.

[rsalzman (Rachel)]

Sending a huge hug across the ethers! I agree that we must also let ourselves feel grief and pessimism because it’s there, and obliging ourselves to always push it down to stay inspiring or positive will become counter productive at some point or another. I have been finding solace in the few surprising successes (accidental or planned) in my garden this year like a semi shaded spot with very happy corn and sweet potatoes planted together and whatever is managing to survive the oven on my newly dug swales. Let’s try to stay strong together by passing the ball of optimism to another person when we need a break from keeping afloat. Sorry for the mixed metaphors, but I hope you know what I mean!