Do you want elderberry seeds? Google seems to think elderberry is hardy to zone 3. My next-door neighbor has a massive elderberry bush, and she usually shares a lot of the berries with me. I could easily get some seeds for you in fall. There are probably plenty available right now, actually, still on the bush within berries that were too dry for picking in fall.
I would love some! I grew up around the red awful elderberries and have never got to experience more properly edible ones. Then I bought some EFN elderberry seeds, stratified them, and my cat knocked them over. So a replenishment would be very welcome.
Cool! I’ll see if there’s anything to gather for you now, then! The berries are black, and they’re very bitter without sugar, but they make delicious syrup or jelly with lots of sugar added. I’ve heard that red elderberries aren’t tasty! I’ve never tried them. I didn’t even know red elderberries existed until I read about them in a foraging book, actually.
If I hadn’t been stupid and thrown out the seeds from the chokeberries I foraged in autumn, I could have sent you some of those, too. Lesson so learned. Those are supposed to be hardy to zone 3, too, and they grow wild here near the river. They have an unpleasant astringent effect when you eat them fresh, but they make delicious syrup and jam, too.
Oh, I do have one chokeberry seed left that didn’t make it to the trash can because it rolled under the couch. If you’d like it, I’ll send it to you.
And if you want more later, I can gather lots of fresh seeds of both of them for you in August!
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Oh, I also have a load of cherry seeds and peach pits from local fruits I bought at the farmer’s market. Those are probably a long shot for you, but I have more than enough, so I’d be happy to send them to you.
Crazy to me how many different ways there can be to grow low input and delicious veggies!
I’m starting this year and have a lot of long term plans that I haven’t begun implementing yet. I think all of my projects will ideally be as low input as possible (direct seed, natural soil, no watering, disease and pest resistant), and grow productively in zone 4a with maximum possible variation.
- watermelon (if possible, I would like good keeping watermelon as well)
- flavorful zucchini at both summer and winter stage
- tomato (I am really excited about Joseph Lofthouse’s work on this already and am excited to see how this will work in my zone! I also bought some frost trial survivor grex seeds from wild mountain seeds that I am really excited about as well!) I will be trying to maximize cross pollination just like Joseph, if possible.
- flour corn, I think the challenge for my area for this will be resistance to raccoons and bears (side note, I would be interested if anyone knows any useful traits in corn for deterring black bears, since the strong and tall stalks might not deter them like it would other wildlife?)
- a light to medium hot pepper
- flavorful eggplant
Just got my c maxima and c moschata winter squash grexes from Going To Seed. I’m going to mix them randomly with the grexes I have been building, and plant them in burn-pits in spring. No expectations, just wait for fall harvest. I’ll report back then…
In the meantime, I’m looking for mustard seed, at least a pound. I have some patches of dead ground that I’m going to try cover-cropping. Maybe my ground is not really dead, maybe it’s just sleeping. Maybe it’s dreaming, and in its dream it is a lush, sweet, world populated with gazillions of happy, busy little critters eating and pooping, eating and pooping, for hours and hour until they die and are eaten by other little critters, all flloding the hungry little hairlets of my plant roots with nutrient molecular compounds.
Grandiose enough?
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I think it’s a beautiful image, and I hope you will see your soil awakened refreshed from its long dream. 
Thanks, Em. Remind me in the Fall if you (or anyone else) wants chokecherry seeds. They grow wild in my yard, in severely alkaline soil. They are so common here, everyone takes them for granted.
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I was very surprised that no bears went after my corn this year - it was pretty far from the house. Having neighbours with ripe apples might help, or a good salmon year.
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Maybe I need to introduce more spikes in my squash plants. If that could deter the deer fouraging in my garden 
As for now, I have to grow them on trellis, and all bush habit is excluded (or need special protection).
It’s great to learn, that improving on spikes will be a no brainer 
Very interesting altho I woulnd’nt call them thorns exactly. I feel like they they’re to deter bugs or hungry animals (Rabbits & Deer still ate everything regardless), but i’m not sure why the trait showed up in the first place.
Something tells me the tetra squash bred for edible stems & Leaves might be exactly what your looking for. That or you could try interspecies crosses so the thronless trait from other species can show up.
Oh! I love this! Especially if it could be grown as an annual & still bear fruit but being perennial to zone 7 is fantastic too. So not too far from an annual papaya landrace? Since bannana ripen “off the vine” easily, would doing this generation after generation slowly shorten the days to maturity?
This is my goal too! Altho I really love the vigor of Dosakai Non-Sweet Veggie Melons, they grow like Kiwano (Cucumis metuliferus). Plus if your looking for different textures, dosakai has a nice spongey-Ice-Cream texture that melts in mouth (Very unlike the other sweet melons). Question would smaller seeds with smaller seed cavity be something you’d select for too? I’m wondering since dosakai had such small seeds.
Do you also want yours to be soo soft you can scoop up the flesh like ice-cream? Many cultivars exist that are edible to the rind (Sugar Kiss & Orange Dew for example).
In terms of colors, Here are all the Flesh colors I found (I wish the red color existed!)
Pure White, Off-White, Pale Yellow, Pale Green, Sharp Green, Orange (With Green outline), Orange (Without Green Outline).
Here’s all the Rind Colors I found.
I think that about captures all the diversity available in Cucumis melo
It appears Rind color has more diversity than flesh color.
And here’s the Flesh Texture Diversity. Seems to Range from Crumbly-Soft Spongey to Firm & Crisp like apple and everything in between like easy to scoop with spoon silky or melting.
I love that! Altho I wonder if some of the Lathyrus species can achieve the same thing with breeding work? Many of them are already winter perennials, some are just begging to be domesticated. I see no reason why Lathyrus can make good edible Sugar Snap Style stringless pods with selection pressure.
But specifally for Pisum spp. Peas, here’s the Pea flower color Diversity. Did I miss any color?
Doing a wider Pisum x Lathyrus would be EPIC! But it might be too far of a jump to make.
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Banana fruits do ripen off the plant easily . . . but.
From what I’ve been told by an expert (who often grows bananas from seed, and has even named a particular cultivar), banana fruits ripened off the plant won’t usually have viable seeds. You basically have to leave them on the plant until fully ripe in order for the seeds to be viable.
Which explains why it’s so hard to get any germination out of seeds gathered from the wild. Most people who go hunting for rare seeds in the jungle don’t know that, so they just harvest whatever these-look-ripe-enough fruits they can find. If most of the bananas in a bunch are not quite ripe, so the seeds in them won’t be viable, and they wind up selling those seeds to you . . . well, too bad!
As for cucurbit seeds, my goal for all cucurbit landraces to have fewer seeds that are larger, in a smaller seed cavity, with a thicker quantity of delicious flesh. Larger curcurbit seeds tend to be more vigorous (the embryo gets more of a head start), and it’s no big deal to chew the seeds before swallowing them, so I see no reason to consider smaller seeds desirable. Fewer seeds clumped inside a smaller seed cavity would be great, though.
, that really really makes it much harder. Why is that tho? Does it really take a long time to form Hard seeds? Kind of sad that many people who go hunting for rare wild seeds get unviable seeds. Speaking of which, is there a community or forums for rare seed hunters? Sounds like it be fun to communicate with these people, like a seed foraging network.
Is this the only goal? Do you plan on having a seperate Landrace for Hulless Pumpkin seeds where the traits are opposite? I have the same exact Goal for my Cucurbita Landrace but also want to grow other landraces that focus on other traits too like a Spaghetti Squash Landrace, Small Fruit Landrace, and a very long neck squash for soups.
That makes a lot of sense, no wonder my larger Maxima squash seeds germinated with such strong vigor compared to the smaller pepo & moschata.
Well it depends on how few, like 5 seeds per fruit low?
From what the guy told me, the problem is that the embryos inside banana seeds don’t fully develop until the fruit is fully ripe. That’s not uncommon in the plant kingdom; I wouldn’t be surprised if “embryos being fully developed and viable sooner than usual” is a trait we have inadvertently (or even deliberately) selected for in most of our domesticated crops.
And yeah, that really makes it much harder. Given that bananas are perennials that fruit on a cycle of “whenever they feel like it,” you can’t even count on day length to trigger flowering at any point. If a banana trunk decides to grow a flower a week before the first frost, well, stinks to be you! Either you protect that flower from freezing all winter long, or you might as well just chop down that stem, because it’ll never flower again. There are a ton of reasons why banana breeding is so hard, despite so many people being motivated to do it.
I don’t know of any community specifically for rare seed hunters, but this forum and the Tropical Fruit Forum seem like the most likely places to find people really jazzed about that! 
Nah, I don’t plan on growing a hulless pumpkin landrace. Too much work to keep them separated from my other pepos. I want fruits that are tasty immature, tasty mature, productive in giving me lots of flesh to eat, productive in giving me lots of fruits to eat, drought tolerant, and preferably thornless. I’d rather select against large seed cavities, for two reasons. First: they tend to correlate with thinner flesh, and I want thicker flesh. Second: that’s a whole bunch of wasted space inside a fruit. How obnoxious! My space to store winter squashes inside is limited; I want that space to be used efficiently, and packed full of food.
I want the same thing from all my cucurbits (cucumbers included, which is why I’m excited to try Gagon cucumbers, which are supposed to be tasty when ripe! ). So, that makes my life significantly simpler.
Okay, maybe not all my cucurbits. I’m not gonna insist on luffa or lagenaria gourds being tasty when mature. That’s just not in their nature. But I can and will select for that with all the rest that do grow mature edible fruits!
Five seeds per fruit would definitely be way too low for cucurbits . . . well, at least from my point of view. Anywhere from 30 to 150 would be ideal, depending on the size of the fruit. I know there are people who think five seeds per fruit (for instance, in a mostly seedless watermelon) would be ideal, though. Not me, but I think that’s a reasonable goal to have.
My main breeding projects are;
Nitrogen fixing corn- I’m currently in Iowa, moving to my property in maine so Im in a perfect situation to breed a northern adapted nitrogen fixing corn. About 15-20% of my landrace exhibits the nitrogen fixing mucous that drips out of the aerial roots. I want all of my landrace to be nitrogen fixing, and have fat cobs of big floury kernels. Profuse amounts of pollen.
Moschata- a reliable, early, creamy smooth squash with deep orange flesh, produces a squash every other node till frost. Round and deeply ribbed, 5-8lbs each. Stores all winter long.
Common pole bean- strong stalk that breaks down quickly in the spring. Twin Vining with leaves the size of saucers, profuse flowering and promiscuous. A perfect companion to grow with corn.
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Just saw your mention of plants growing under the snow. That’s really common here in Montana to grow wheat that way. I have done that before with savoyed spinach also. It grows very slowly in a rosette really close to the ground then taller as the weather warms in spring. We haven’t had much snow so I haven’t been growing that way lately. It works best with a consistent snow cover.
My landrace dream descriptions are dock with large edible seeds that are easier to harvest but don’t drop off too easily and edible roots. Mallow with large blooms that attract honey bees. Serviceberry with larger fruit the size of blueberry. These three plants are already well adapted to my alkalinity and chaotic climate conditions.
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Thinking about this made me realize i’m already very happy with all the new crops i can grow, that didn’t work before, and that all the variety in there is more adapting me and people around me to finding new ways to use all the landraces. I’m starting to think i’m being landraced by the crops instead of the other way around! Out of control!!
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How large of dock seeds are you hoping for? The yellow dock that volunteers in my neighborhood grows copious seeds, and they’re easy to rub off but tend to stay put on the stalk for a few months.
I’ve never eaten the roots, but after leaving a volunteer seedling alone in my garden (and not watering it at all) for four months, I pulled it up, and I was startled to discover a huge taproot that looked similar to a yellow carrot. It was startling because the root was as deep as the leaves were tall. I was planning to eat it to see how it tasted, but I didn’t get around to it before it completely dried up on my counter.
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It sounds like you’re describing symbiosis at work. That’s awesome! 