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A little rambly since it's written spur of the moment and not edited
Landrace Gardening in Fort St James: the new way, the old way, and the local way
(baby apple picture)
This is a picture of year 1 of my ten-year apple project. Yes, I’m breeding my own apples! Yes, I’m planning something that won’t bear fruit (pun intended) for a decade! How did I get to this point?
When I moved to Fort St James from the coast I couldn’t grow any of my favourite tomatoes. I’d always grown fancy tomatoes and I wasn’t going to let the short, cool summers here stopped me. No one bred interesting, colourful, fancy-tasting tomatoes for the north. Covering my whole garden with greenhouse was far too expensive so I had to get creative. Literally, creative.
Lucky for me I discovered landrace gardening, otherwise known as evolutionary plant breeding or, to our ancestors, just good seed saving and growing technique. Modern landrace gardening is a powerful technology based in creating a pool of genetic diversity, then co-selecting along with your local conditions to create truly customized, locally-adapted species that will grow well in your own garden, under your own preferred cultivation methods.
(squash diversity picture)
The steps are easy:
1. Save your seeds! If a plant is successful enough to set seed in your garden it will probably do well there. If you grow your own saved seed every year, every year your plants will become more adapted to your garden.
2. Celebrate diversity, encourage cross-pollination! Traditionally when we save seeds we get rid of the unusual ones. This time the unusual ones are what we want! The broader your genetic base (the more different varieties you start with) and the more they cross, the more chances your garden creates for you to find a winning combination of taste and hardiness. If you select for cross-pollinating flowers that pollinators seem to love you’re helping yourself out in the future and helping the ecosystem.
3. Encourage selection by the local ecosystem! Yes, many of us baby our transplants, starting our peppers in February. Yes, it’s hard to let plants die. But if you don’t put out frost cloth, as long as not all the plants die, the ones that survive will be better able to survive the cold. If you water a little less and half your plants die, the ones that survive to set seed are more likely to be drought resistant. If you don’t battle the bugs, next year your surviving plants should be just a little more resistant. I’m harvesting tomatoes from my fields without any coverings.
4. Select for characteristics you value! This is your garden, you can grow what you want. I not only like multi-coloured tomatoes, I also don’t like to stake my tomatoes. I let them grow on the ground and only harvest those held up away from the dirt. Over time my plants oblige. I’ve heard of people adapting cold-night 4-lb aromatic cantaloupes and thick, high-eared raccoon resistant corn. Keep seeds only from the best-tasting and the plants will soon suit your palate. Keep seeds from fruits and plants that are beautiful, just because.
5. Share your seeds! Share your seeds with your neighbours so you can both increase your level of diversity and adaptation! Share your seeds because you’re proud of what you’re doing. Share your seeds to help people who can’t access food in these hard times get healthy food for themselves. Share your seeds because plants make lots of seeds and it will help you clear off your shelves!
(baby potato or fava picture)
This is my third year landrace gardening. I have several dry corns for winter, a group of outdoor colourful tomatoes, lovely frost-hardy fava beans, and a beautiful, variable squash that grow from direct-seeding in the Fort.
This year I’m starting projects too: potatoes from actual seeds, working on my idea of a perfect lettuce, and refining a fruit-salad tasting tomatillo. I’m also growing apples. A breeder in California, Steven Edholm, has had success selecting his own apples from carefully chosen parents. In landrace style I’m following his lead: planting 270 diverse seedling apples into a hedgerow this year. Aside from making sure they’re watered and not eaten by voles I’ll leave them for 7-10 years. At that point they’ll start fruiting. It’s likely some of them will survive our winters that long and will taste good. Then I’ll have a northern apple truly suited to me, perhaps as my own retirement present!
(corn diversity picture)
If you’re interested in learning more about landrace gardening we’re starting a garden club in Fort St James (facebook: Fort St James Gardeners will find us) and there’s an international community with free courses and forums at goingtoseed.org. Plus I’m always happy to chat about gardening and share seeds!
Landrace Gardening in Fort St James: the new way, the old way, and the local way
(baby apple picture)
This is a picture of year 1 of my ten-year apple project. Yes, I’m breeding my own apples! Yes, I’m planning something that won’t bear fruit (pun intended) for a decade! How did I get to this point?
When I moved to Fort St James from the coast I couldn’t grow any of my favourite tomatoes. I’d always grown fancy tomatoes and I wasn’t going to let the short, cool summers here stopped me. No one bred interesting, colourful, fancy-tasting tomatoes for the north. Covering my whole garden with greenhouse was far too expensive so I had to get creative. Literally, creative.
Lucky for me I discovered landrace gardening, otherwise known as evolutionary plant breeding or, to our ancestors, just good seed saving and growing technique. Modern landrace gardening is a powerful technology based in creating a pool of genetic diversity, then co-selecting along with your local conditions to create truly customized, locally-adapted species that will grow well in your own garden, under your own preferred cultivation methods.
(squash diversity picture)
The steps are easy:
1. Save your seeds! If a plant is successful enough to set seed in your garden it will probably do well there. If you grow your own saved seed every year, every year your plants will become more adapted to your garden.
2. Celebrate diversity, encourage cross-pollination! Traditionally when we save seeds we get rid of the unusual ones. This time the unusual ones are what we want! The broader your genetic base (the more different varieties you start with) and the more they cross, the more chances your garden creates for you to find a winning combination of taste and hardiness. If you select for cross-pollinating flowers that pollinators seem to love you’re helping yourself out in the future and helping the ecosystem.
3. Encourage selection by the local ecosystem! Yes, many of us baby our transplants, starting our peppers in February. Yes, it’s hard to let plants die. But if you don’t put out frost cloth, as long as not all the plants die, the ones that survive will be better able to survive the cold. If you water a little less and half your plants die, the ones that survive to set seed are more likely to be drought resistant. If you don’t battle the bugs, next year your surviving plants should be just a little more resistant. I’m harvesting tomatoes from my fields without any coverings.
4. Select for characteristics you value! This is your garden, you can grow what you want. I not only like multi-coloured tomatoes, I also don’t like to stake my tomatoes. I let them grow on the ground and only harvest those held up away from the dirt. Over time my plants oblige. I’ve heard of people adapting cold-night 4-lb aromatic cantaloupes and thick, high-eared raccoon resistant corn. Keep seeds only from the best-tasting and the plants will soon suit your palate. Keep seeds from fruits and plants that are beautiful, just because.
5. Share your seeds! Share your seeds with your neighbours so you can both increase your level of diversity and adaptation! Share your seeds because you’re proud of what you’re doing. Share your seeds to help people who can’t access food in these hard times get healthy food for themselves. Share your seeds because plants make lots of seeds and it will help you clear off your shelves!
(baby potato or fava picture)
This is my third year landrace gardening. I have several dry corns for winter, a group of outdoor colourful tomatoes, lovely frost-hardy fava beans, and a beautiful, variable squash that grow from direct-seeding in the Fort.
This year I’m starting projects too: potatoes from actual seeds, working on my idea of a perfect lettuce, and refining a fruit-salad tasting tomatillo. I’m also growing apples. A breeder in California, Steven Edholm, has had success selecting his own apples from carefully chosen parents. In landrace style I’m following his lead: planting 270 diverse seedling apples into a hedgerow this year. Aside from making sure they’re watered and not eaten by voles I’ll leave them for 7-10 years. At that point they’ll start fruiting. It’s likely some of them will survive our winters that long and will taste good. Then I’ll have a northern apple truly suited to me, perhaps as my own retirement present!
(corn diversity picture)
If you’re interested in learning more about landrace gardening we’re starting a garden club in Fort St James (facebook: Fort St James Gardeners will find us) and there’s an international community with free courses and forums at goingtoseed.org. Plus I’m always happy to chat about gardening and share seeds!
