2022-01-20T08:00:00Z
Most people are unwilling to do things like mix varieties and let some plants die. Or even seriously consider that there is another way to grow food other than the dominant paradigm of commercial seed breeding.
What caused you to look for something different? Was it something immediate like wanting to be able to grow your favorite vegetable in a place where it doesn’t normally thrive? Or something big picture like long term sustainability?
Gregg M
I’ve followed Joseph’s journey from a decade or so ago on Homegrown Goodness.
The shift to landraces in my mind has been gradual - and is still not complete, and there are multiple currents leading in the direction of local adaptation. Many home gardeners have tight limits on their ability to grow, and sacrificing one or two years of harvest might be a leap too far for many. For me getting a bigger garden and being able to dabble in a couple of crops I never had the space to grow - squash and corn primarily - has allowed me to continue with my normal gardening, but allocate an isolated space where I could do some growouts. Additionally, the move to a property with a slightly saline bore for garden water made me examine the need for more adaptability in my lines - particularly peas which are susceptible to saline water.
I’ve also been an Antipodean source for diverse potato onion true seed, and the variability in those growouts (which is desirable) has enabled my to embrace the diversity angle. Additionally, the approach of Wild Garden Seed who make available some of their diverse mixes in lettuce, mustard, leeks, and kale for others to select has been a stepping stone. While my initial approach to these has been to re-select specific lines, it’s a small step from there to just plant everything and select more widely as populations rather than individuals.
Sharing some of my early breeding lines in parsnip and carrot with a couple of market growers has also expanded my horizons - while I was focused on producing uniformity in them, these growers loved the variety - their buyers - CSA and restaurants - weren’t buying a particular named variety of carrot for example - they just wanted ‘carrots’, so a bit of diversity was not an issue. And the growers loved the vigor of my seed, which might be down to freshness rather than any inherent properties.
Global heating is an underlying driver as well. My first 10 years of gardening in Bendigo coincided with the decade long Millennial Drought (we name out droughts in Australia, a bit like tropical cyclones), and the need for more drought-adapted lines seemed like a smart approach. Trouble is, no-one sells drought adapted lines of my favourite vegetables (or any vegetables for that matter).
I’m also getting a bit over the years of selection and growouts, so laziness is also a motivating factor. I can rule a line under some of these projects and consider them ‘finished’ and move on to other breeding projects.
Christopher W
I read Joseph’s landrace articles on Mother Earth News (before I even had space to garden) and it just clicked as obviously correct. So I’ve been waiting to move to land and get going for years; and now I’ve done it. Which probably doesn’t give you anything useful, but that’s my vector into this space.
Jori L
The thing that immediately sold me on trying landraces is thinking about finally getting spinach that doesn’t bolt. Spinach is something I really want, that I haven’t been able to master in this climate, and which seems easier to landrace even in small spaces. I’m growing in a community garden and most gardeners grow only one or two plants of any variety. It may not seem feasible or understandable how to achieve diversity in those conditions. I also second Gregg that giving up a harvest for a couple years would be a definite negative for the growers I know.
Perhaps this is where we highlight the community part in a community garden. Or growing “with” neighbors if you’re in a suburban area to achieve that diversity. Or focus on starting small with something people plant a lot of already.
In terms of long term goals I really want to reduce my inputs into the garden. I already don’t use fertilizer/chemical controls but I love using less water, having plants that can outgrow pests, and breeding for self seeding traits. Landrace gardening seems to be a great way to achieve this.
Matthew P
I wanted to chip-in because I think it is an interesting topic. My thoughts are maybe slightly naïve because this will be my first season experimenting with landraces (and I am a relatively new gardener with no background in sciences), but that is probably okay.
Compared to the dominant or commercial growing paradigms, landraces are quite counterintuitive and so I guess it makes sense that there are probably many established gardeners and growers who are set in their ways and don’t “get it” for whatever reason. Also many probably do not have the space/time luxury to think about anything beyond this immediate growing season.
For myself, there’s a number of interrelated factors that, like Christopher mentioned above, made landrace gardening “click” in a rather obvious way for me.
The obvious ones are:
—Cold adaptation
—Drought adaptation
—Selecting for flavour and vigour
—Reducing inputs
—Disease/Pests
—Local adaptation and longterm sustainability in general
The more subtle (but perhaps equally persuasive):
—Freedom from the cautious and pedantic rules-based regime of gardening (isolation distances, ideal inputs, optimum placement/timing/spacing/support, etc).
—The delights of non-uniformity (i.e. everything else in the world is increasingly standardised… a slightly unexpected vegetable offers a sense of relief).
—Cooking becomes more experimental or adventurous. Instead of blindly following recipes, I think one is forced to taste and improvise based on the size, colour, shape, or flavour profile of each individual vegetable. Carol Deppe writes something about breeding vegetables and cooking vegetables as being deeply intertwined.
—Learning about “landraces” has made understanding seed saving, heirlooms/hybrids, and plant breeding much more intuitive for myself. By looking at “the other side of the coin,” I think it’s easier for novices to understand many other aspects of gardening. Even if one never grows a landrace, I think it offers a useful perspective.
—Community growing of landraces seems more active, present, and participatory than solely the preservation of historical lines. Perhaps because I’m in Europe… but, if not for €€€, a primary motivation of plant breeders and seed savers seems to be historical/national—preserving the past (such that even historical landraces should be grown in isolation and preserved as is). Its fine and good in some ways (and problematic or nonsensical in others) but I guess I just like that landrace projects give an additional rationale that is local, collective, and forward-looking.
—Embarking on an open-ended project (and embracing failure) can be rewarding in itself.
—Joseph’s “whatever” sensibility ¯_ (ツ)_/¯ that pops into some of the videos…
Mark R
I just wanted to start saving my own seeds. That was around 10 - 12 years ago and as a first step I read Suzane Ashworth’s “Seed to Seed”. I was at the time, still a bit stuck on all the romanticized stuff about heirlooms. I was very discouraged at first because of all the rules about isolation distances and population size. I have a small garden and it seemed that between avoiding cross contamination and inbreeding depression that seed saving in a small garden just wasn’t possible.
Then, it finally occurred to me that the much-feared cross contamination in itself would eliminate inbreeding depression. For example, if two good “heirloom” watermelons crossed, the offspring would still be good watermelons, just minus the heirloom romance and since you can’t eat romance, why should I care?
Researching along those lines eventually took me to Joseph’s landrace articles at Mother Earth News. Turns out, not only was I not crazy, but by creating the opportunity for selection and local adaptation the cross contamination does a whole lot more than just eliminating inbreeding.
A small garden does present some problems in seed saving, but they are not insurmountable. Adopting landrace practices eliminated most of them quite nicely.
Holly M
I have been heirloom seed saving for a few years now, and saved multiple varieties of many things, esp ones like tomatoes and peppers, etc. every year, for so long. I loved having variety to suit my desires/needs of taste and function. But I always wondered at how the ‘old timers’ actually did it - I knew they didn’t keep seeds of 20 different tomatoes and peppers each year. I actively wondered and contemplated how they did it, because I have found in my homesteading journey that as we get closer to the old ways of doing things, we get closer to ourselves. But ultimately, I figured it was something lost to time.
But when I heard about landrace gardening, it was just like a ‘click’ - it was the missing puzzle piece that immediately fell into place. There was my answer about how they did it long ago. I mean, I can still have phenotypic differences, while at the same time selecting for environmental and other pressures unique to my area? Increase genetic diversity and resiliency, and also select for further taste and function specialization? Done. Done and done.
It took so much pressure immediately off of saving seeds, ones that you never know when they will start exhibiting inbreeding depression. I had actually started a community seed saving project - where each year I gave my saved seeds to members of the community and they sent me pictures as they grew, to get data on a scale for my seed saving techniques that I needed. So another thing I loved about landrace gardening is how it also had ‘community’ as necessary and at its heart. The more ‘self-reliant’ I become, the more I realize how much we all absolutely depend on each other for true sustainability. Landrace gardening brings all these pieces of the puzzle to me, and makes seed keeping less of an intellectual endeavor for the individual, but more of a spiritual endeavor for and within a community. I love that paradigm shift.
Lauren Ritz
My parents had a variety of zucchini that we’d always grown, and believe me it was a nasty shock to learn that not all zucchini is still soft when it has mature seeds in it. No wonder people hate that stuff.
I think I’ve been a landrace grower (without the title) since I was a kid. I just couldn’t help planting things, from pennies to whole eggs. Heirlooms were the only way to grow, right? But why? Their explanations (mostly along the lines of “plants are different and don’t get inbred”) made no sense.
It wasn’t what I planted that changed first, though. I needed plants that could survive in bad soil, with little water. I started growing in the cold, growing in drought conditions, growing in straight garden soil, deliberately stressing my seedlings. That led to other forms of extreme antisocial behavior : ) and eventually to abandoning the heirloom paradigm entirely.
Gregg M
The real ah-ha! moment for me was an old thread on the Tomatoville forum I think. Some old timer mentioned that their family didn’t grow any specific heirloom tomato, they just grew ‘tomatoes’. They would tear down the vines at the end of the season, stomp the remaining fruits into the ground, and next spring just thin the recruiting seedlings to their required density.
One model for dispersed community based development might be an adaptation of the Cross-Hemisphere dwarf tomato initiative, where seeds were grown out and selected every 6 months and posted to growers in the other hemisphere to grow out and re-select - 2 generations every year. while Au-USA transfer is now off the cards, perhaps some continental-wide transfer of germplasm might be possible between areas with alternate growing seasons? Halves the initial development time and might overcome the beginners’ resistance to year-long harvest sacrifice, at the cost of sacrificing some local adaptation.
For those interested in exploring the community aspect, David Holmgren (co-originator of Permaculture) has published ‘Retrosuburbia’ - a fantastic resource on rethinking how suburban communities might evolve.
david b
That makes me think of all the times my volunteer’s from the compost pile beat my garden tomatoes. And I never did anything to help them just stole their fruit to eat. lol
Have always been open to try things they say cant be done. I am about to finally finish my ag degree and I was lucky way back when I started it in the 90s my Dr.s were very different. I had one that would go find grasses growing in the freeway to grow and breed he ended up with a very drought resistant grass. I can remember him saying if it can live there imagine if I give a chance to live in a field. I have grown a variety of tomatoes (delicious) for years saving seed. Yes I was chasing a dream of a world record tomato in weight lol. But have become tired of starting plants in January indoors to transplant in march to beat the heat of summer. I am switching to determinant variety’s and breeding for early fruit set. I love the landrace idea because it is actually what my teachers talked about years ago. We have bred out the toughness to some diseases for other benefits.
Susan W
I heard Joseph speak on a permies.com podcast and was amazed at how quickly you can get a locally adapted landrace. And how easy it is. Since then I have read his posts on the forum and here I am!
I’d come across Joseph Lofthouse’s gardening methods some years back on the Homegrown Goodness forum. It wasn’t until recently however, after a number of difficult gardening years, that I became convinced that genetically diverse, locally adapted crops were the way to go.
This is what shifted my mindset.
Ten years ago, I read Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed (excellent book), and it talked about cross-pollination and isolation distances, and I became incredibly overwhelmed and gave up on the idea of ever being able to save my own seeds.
Last year, I saved seeds from my spaghetti squashes that had probably cross-pollinated with my zucchinis, because I really wanted to see what a cross of the two would be like. It was pure curiosity on my part. I also figured children resemble their parents, so why on Earth wouldn’t that be true for plants, as well as humans? Surely if I liked both squashes, and I liked them both very much, I’d be okay with their children.
In early May of 2022, I planted the seeds. By late June, I could see what kinds of squashes were forming, and I found it fascinating and exciting. I wasn’t planning to save seeds from them; I just wanted to see what I’d get. But I kept on finding new things I liked about them . . .
Meanwhile, all my direct-seeded tomato plants died in a late frost, and so did all of my very expensive transplants. I replanted. It happened again. I replanted. It happened again. THREE TIMES! The last of the late frosts was a MONTH past our average last frost date! I was so disappointed! I went looking for cold-hardy tomato varieties, and started researching what I could grow that wouldn’t die if a late frost happened to hit it.
One of the things I discovered was a thread by Joseph Lofthouse talking about breeding cold-hardy tomatoes. I found it fascinating. But I assumed he was just “some random guy on the Internet,” and didn’t dig any deeper. I just went looking for the recommended cold-hardy varieties, and started stockpiling them in my seed box to try growing next year.
Soon after that, I read Carol Deppe’s Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, and I got incredibly excited. I don’t like being told how to do things. I don’t like being given a specific prescribed method and told it’s the only right way. When I cook, I throw things together to see what happens. That’s how I want to treat my garden, too. What Carol Deppe gave me was the confidence to “just try things,” and the tools to develop methods for myself.
By midsummer this year, I read about landraces, and I found the idea interesting, and was starting to ponder the possibilities.
Around the same time, I read Amy Goldman’s The Melon (very good book), and there were over a dozen melon varieties that sounded delicious that I really wanted to try, but my yard isn’t big enough to do huge isolation distances, and covering flowers and carefully hand-pollinating them to make sure they didn’t cross sounded like a pain. So maybe I should just not save seeds from the melons I grew? That would be so annoying, though, because I’d have to buy new seeds of everything, and the seeds would be right there in my fruits, ready to taking.
After a few months of pondering it, I had this revelatory moment: What if my goal was not to grow specific varieties every year, but a landrace? The whole reason I wanted a variety of different melons was that I wanted nuances in different shapes and textures and flavors and so forth. What if cross-pollination would be okay? I was liking my spaghetti zucchinis a lot, after all!
That was when I discovered Joseph Lofthouse’s website, and specifically his muskmelon landrace. I got really excited. He’d already done what I was thinking of doing! And it worked! That meant I could do it, too!
Soon after that, I discovered the Open Source Plant Breeding forum, and started to gobble up everything there obsessively. Soon after that, I discovered this community, and I read Joseph’s book.
By now, only a few months later, I am completely convinced that landraces are the way to go. In fact, I find the idea of fussing about keeping things inbred to be extremely silly. Why put forth more effort to get less healthy plants? That’s insane! I can live with a wildly variable population. That is, in fact, way more fun anyway. I like being surprised! I like doing random experiments to satisfy my curiosity! That’s how I write (I have 53 published books), that’s how I cook (I dislike recipes); in fact, that’s how I do almost everything.
Not only is it better on a creative level, it’s also better on a philosophical level. I decided many years ago that I am only interested in win-win situations. I won’t participate in zero sum games. I want to create, and support, systems in which everyone wins.
It seems to me that landrace gardening is working WITH the plants, and trying to keep inbred varieties is working AGAINST them. When you work against something else, you get a zero sum game – either you lose, or they do. If you look instead for “yes, and” – ways in which both sides can get what they want, or the vast majority of what they want, and can live with the compromises – everyone is happier.
So why not let the plants do whatever they want, and only intervene when it goes in a direction I actively dislike? Why not act more like a mentor or guide, and less like a policeman or prison guard?
What if gardening can be a democracy, rather than a dictatorship? What if every species in the garden can get a say about how they want to live?
Yes, I’m still in charge. I have a responsibility to make the final decision on life or death. With life, I decide what to plant where, at what time, in which ways. With death, I decide what to pull out, cut down, or otherwise kill. But the more I can delegate to the ecosystem, the more mutual trust we can develop for each other, and it can become a truly win-win situation.
I think the best thing of all would be my not NEEDING to intervene at all, because the ecosystem can be trusted to provide everything I care about, and to care for itself, as well. The ultimate goal of a teacher is to have a student that can be fully autonomous, and need no more interventions to get everything right. If my goal as a gardener is to be a teacher, I should give the ecosystem freedom to explore, primarily acting to give it new ideas (species), and intervene only when needed.
I don’t have to control everything. It’s far better if I don’t. I should let the plants be co-creators. We’ll all be much happier.
I got really into regenerative agriculture a few years back, after watching Kiss the Ground. I read about Masanobu Fukuoka though I wasn’t able to read One-Straw Revolution for a few years. My wife had had a garden before then, but I started doing things like throwing mustard, quinoa, and whole barley (all just from the store, not dedicated seed) out on the ground to see what happened. I planted mung beans and black chickpeas from the store. When our crops struggled with blight I ignored conventional advice and saved seed and left the soil alone, except for experimenting with liquid decoctions of ginger and triphala to try and balance the soil. Most of that blighted seed did great the next year.
I don’t want to overstate the case, but Kiss the Ground made the same case as Fukuoka - - the case that almost everything about modern farming is wrong. I read about permaculture and explored indigenous agriculture to the extent I was able. I was able to read a small amount of Vrikshayurveda and to encounter its foundational idea, an idea which profoundly impacted how I think about growing.
So when I encountered landrace gardening in The Third Plate earlier this year, I was already prepared if not primed to think of varietal purity “well hey, maybe this is wrong too.”
Becoming familiar with some of Joseph’s ideas helped tremendously - - Why would I work so hard to try to solve a problem that diverse genetics can solve for me?
Basically I think landrace gardening is completely complementary to regenerative agriculture - - or the version of it I like to practice. I sometimes think of it as ahimsa agriculture, but it might actually just be Fukuoka’s natural farming. I’m inviting an ongoing dissolution of the boundaries between our “farm” and nature and the reestablishment of dialogue and mutual benefit. And I’m comforted by Joseph’s comment that nature does 80% of the selection for you 
I’m not sure if that much has changed. Atleast mindset is similar to when I started and I have worked my way into landracing. Some of the first tomatoes I grew were variety “siperian” so I had some idea of local adaptiveness as Finnish summers are similar to Siperian summers. First 7 years I didn’t put as much effort to gardening, it was mostly out of interest of seeing things grow, but areas were much smaller than now. That was the trial and error (lots of error) that taught me to garden and “read” plants so I could grow more and put more effort into breeding. Most of what I had grown and wanted to grow didn’t grow well in my climate so breeding for local adaptiveness was what I was going towards whether I knew it or not. When I expanded my gardening 3 years ago “accidents” started happening (some of which I didn’t know until this year) because I just don’t have the patience to make sure that plants dont cross. For some plants it’s easier, but melons and moschata squash took advantage of my lax attitude. Once I got first crosses it was so exciting that I did some of my own, also in those that dont cross as easily as melons or squash. At this point I had read about Josephs landracing, but wasn’t willing to completely “let go” (although melons, watermelons and squash didn’t ask permission). Was still thinking more traditional breeding and growing good varieties that do kinda ok in our climate. Melons and watermelons were already going their own way and the final nail in the coffin was when I noticed this year that my moschata had been naughty at some point. 3 years ago I grew 3 different moschata from transplant; waltham, green striped cushaw and marvel (which I didn’t remember being moshcata as it didn’t look one). One waltham made several fruits, green striped cushaw barely one and marvel couple, but later which might be that it was futher away surrounded by maxima. Next year I grew marvel with transplant from seeds I bought because at that time I didn’t want to grow hybrid (still didn’t understand it was moschata), but waltham grew with direct seed because I thought it was pure. It was almost disaster as only one got growing well(ish). Start was cool, then some bugs damaged some seedlings and rest of the summer was very hot and dry, but way shorter than usual (ended 18.8). So it didn’t have time to fully develop and I had only one fruit that had 7 viable seeds. This year I was more carefull and grew small transplants from those 7 seeds plus some from previous year. 2 of those 7 seeds grew much faster from the start and started fruiting earlier than others. Both of them had fruits that started dark green same as marvel and were bigger than waltham, but shapes were closer to waltham. That was my eureka moment. Those 2 were the only plants that had dark green fruit from marvel and they beat in speed 14 other transplants that I planted (an some that i culled). So something going on there. I also had one plant from those 7 seeds that had similar fruit to green striped cushaw, but that wasn’t faster/slower or others. Some added genes in any case. Also this year did some random pollination with canadian crookneck. Now I have hundreds, if not thousands of moschata seeds so next year I direct seed lots and see what happens. Next year plan is to go more full force with landracing other crops too, although I do plan to assist to have higher amount of crossing.
That’s awesome. It’s fun that we both had a eureka moment because of squash! 
For me, landrace was the difference between gardening and not gardening. Before, i had a shady, clay yard in new york. I thought that i couldnt garden in those conditions, and nothing would grow for me. Then i bought a second property in vermont, and wouldnt be able to garden because i wouldnt be there often enough to water and weed. But landrace gsrdening means that i can garden in both of those conditions with lots of success as long as i am patient for a year or two. Landrace is an answer to every question or concern as far as i can tell. And while i havent actually grown a full season yet, its already made a huge difference in my mentality and i am much more confident and willing to take risks
Yeah, well put.
I keep thinking that if I’d known all this stuff fifteen years ago, I wouldn’t have given up on gardening after four years of failure in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. I had a tiny back yard in full shade, so it was exceptionally challenging as a place to grow things, but if I had understood that what I was looking for was tiny crops that did fine in full shade, I bet I could have grown a lot of things attuned to those conditions – lettuce, for instance, quite a few herbs, and probably garlic.
Not only that, my first melon plant (and the only one I attempted under those conditions) grew me six fruits. Four were unripe inside, and two were almost ripe, so I gave up on melons after that, because none of them tasted good. But knowing what I know now, I could have saved the seeds from the ones that were almost ripe and replanted them, and they probably would have gotten better and better every year. I mean, an almost ripe melon in full shade? That’s really not bad for a first year! But I didn’t realize that, so I didn’t save seeds or try again.
I had previously done tons and tons of research, and I remembered most of it because it mattered to me, so when we moved to a new house with a nice back yard in full sun, I was super excited to try gardening again.
In summer of 2021, I was relieved and excited to see plants growing just fine for me. The more they grew, the more excited I got, and I started doing loads of research again. That was when, among other things, I discovered landrace gardening.
If I had known about it, and known that you can adapt crops to your conditions after just a few years of trying and saving seeds from the ones that are closest to success every year . . .
. . . if I had only known back then . . .
. . . I could’ve been gardening all this time.
For me it was mainly just slowly coming to the realization that everything about modern farming is ass backwards. Joseph deserves a lot of credit as well, since we were on a forum together many years ago (Tomatoville) and he often commented on how ridiculous it was to spend so much time and money to grow a garden.
Even then I was no till, saved my own seeds, and selected the best plants, but the improvements weren’t that apparent beyond germination. Something was still missing. Then when I saw how successful Joseph had been in his efforts, it inspired me to go all in.
Joseph you really do deserve recognition for your breeding efforts and your unique way of looking at things. You’re a unique soul and I wish you the best.
In the 90’s it was Alan Kapuler he reached out from the pages of Seeds of Change’s then independent catalogue. It was the long article in Garden City Seed’s catalogue about Dave Christensen’s Painted Mountain Corn. It was Gary Paul Nabhan and Native Seed Search. It was Peter’s Seeds and Research. It was Carol Deppe and the first edition of Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties I finally got a hold of in the local used book store. It was the article in the local paper when John Navazio came to Garden City Seeds and bred Montana Jack, Bitterroot Buttercup and maybe this Mandarin Mini tomato. Somewhere in there I got a B.A. in Biology with a botany emphasis. Then did about 20 field seasons of field work. When my son was born six years ago that torch was carried well by Joseph Lofthouse with his little seed store and seeking germplasm I alighted there with a roll of silver dimes from ebay and a winter’s long conversation about direct seeding tomatoes on Permies.com. The rest is about a gazillion little posts on open source seeds plant breeding forum that I consider to be open notebook citizen science. There is also a well known pathway or pathways which I have followed. Organic gardening which can lead to greater ecological awareness which can lead to research and ecological knowledge leads to native plant gardening and eventually seed saving and seed saving plus knowledge of genetics even the basic knowledges we have had of genetics for millennia lead to plant breeding. Reading Gary Paul Nabhan + Joseph Lofthouse its easy to understand how a domesticated plant population can be maintained with greater genetic diversity. My Cucurbita maxima squash population started in the late 90’s when Rio Lucia Calabaza from Gary’s Native Seed Search organization did really well for me. I loved its diversity. Someone left a giant pumpkin in my mom’s library a little too long- it may have contributed some genes. At first I was a little unclear about what squashes were pepo’s which maximas and which moschatas and I also grew “Lakota” another Maxima. Then I discovered Hidatsa squash from Baker Creek- similar to Arikara and then the packet of Maxima squash from Joseph showed up right as Rio Lucio x Hidatsa had a banner year. Now I have far too many packets of Maxima squash seed to sort through- some of them may be getting too old. So my squash are still changing and it has been about 23 years since their first ancestors came to me- though notably not 23 years of grow outs- sometimes many years of field work in places I had no garden in between. Longer for some of my sweet and flour corns. Remarkably corn and squash seeds can live a long time. In the last six years though it has been tomatoes! Tomato seeds can also live a long time- 14 years! Some of my other crops would have been changing longer if their seeds lived longer or if I had frozen them!
I have been an avid seed saver in my northern climate for many years. But it can be discouraging as many things just don’t get far enough in our short season to produce quality stock. For years I’ve been trying to learn about how to adapt plants to my location with very little progress due to my location.
Out of concern for my areas food insecurity situation I started a seed library. I was automatically labeled an expert by local organizations whom I inadvertently became involved with. People began asking me lots of seed questions. Despite years of investigation into seed saving I could not completely answer all of them. Especially when it came to hybrid seed questions.
Motivated to rise to the challenge and provide accurate answers to my community I began to read deeper, I started powering through scientific journals. That were always focused on the concept of hybrid vigor. That was when I realized that crossing was how new varieties were made and that crossing produces more adaptable and vigorous plants. I was pretty annoyed for a multitude of reasons.
1.) For over a decade I have grown nothing but heirloom and op seeds. I think this fact alone explains a lot of garden failure right there especially because of the latitude I am growing in.
2.)Scientific journals seemed to completely contradict what us regular people have been advised to do. I felt completely mislead and prevented from understanding even though I had been looking for this info. for years.
3.) I realized that seed saving and plant breeding were the same thing and that if I intentionally made crosses my plants could adapt to my location.
I found Josephs book almost immediately after I came to these conclusions. Finding his book confirmed what I thought I knew and gave me solid information beyond the puzzle building I had been doing which filling me with elation! For me, Landrace gardening is not really a change. It is more of an evolution, something I have been seeking out for a long time.
While I still have so much more to learn this has been a major jump in my understanding of plants, their lifecycles and how they live! Really looking forward to getting my hands all in this and coming up with some new Alaskan Landraces!
When I heard about landrace gardening from David the Good YouTube video, I immediately bought landrace gardening and read it within a couple days of discovering it.
I felt like I heard the truth for the very first time. It was like Morpheus offered me the blue and red pill in the matrix. There is so much BS is gardening info. So glad to see the truth.
God Bless
That is so awesome! I know how you feel. I felt that light bulb go on in my brain, too.
I’m a curious AuDHD monkey who likes to tinker and figure out and customize everything. I don’t know that my gardening is dramatically changing all that much, but landracing/developing my own resilient varieties is my latest outlet for nerdy obsessing
My interest in plants and ecosystems has led me into deep dive obsessive special interests in various tightly related fields. I’ve found myself often alarmed but lightly amused by how stridently opposite rules and advice are offered by similar groups.
Careful with your pollinator garden brag-photo framing, don’t let the native plant peeps catch a peek of that comfrey or seabuckthorn the permaculturists sold you on, they’ll have your head. If the fruit tree people catch wind that the native plant people got you started growing pawpaw and blueberries from seed, they might have a stroke.
I have saved a few seeds here and there for years, but never particularly seriously. Every year the pretty pictures and beautiful descriptions in all the seed catalogues convince me to try new things. My seed collection is ridiculous and difficult to keep track of. And many of the shiny pretty purchased varieties turn out to be underwhelming.
Then, last year an unusually damp and cool late summer caused a wicked wave of late blight. All tomatoes in my garden and the neighbours plots died…all that is, but two ruffled purple tomato plants I had in the absolute worst, shadiest, lowest lying corner of the garden that just TANKED the wreckage and produced another month of delicious tomatoes. I saved seeds from those two plants. And started researching tomato breeding…
I probably wont get very far with tomatoes anytime soon, but I’m excited about the potential in more outcrossing species selected for my own taste and conditions. And I’ve simplified my seed storage 
(Laugh.) Yeah. With species that are usually cloned in particular, it seems particularly silly to argue over whether to grow them from seed or clone them. I figure the obvious answer is both!
Fertile clones (common with fruit trees) are an exceptionally good way to collect parents you want to save seeds from.
Sterile clones (common with seedless perennial fruits and root crops) lack that advantage, but it doesn’t have to be an either/or. If it’s hard to find fertile clones, I’ll happily grow sterile ones while I’m hunting for fertile ones. If the sterile ones are delicious and grow well already, I probably won’t consider them obsolete once I get fertile ones, either – I’ll probably keep growing both. Why not?