greenstorm (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greenstorm) wrote2022-02-27 03:13 pm
greenstorm) wrote2022-02-27 03:13 pm
Landrace, Evolutionary Gardening, "Biotic learning", Biomomicry, Whatever
What's calming? Writing about the principles of landrace gardening.
The principle is, it's more likely that a plant will be able to determine if it can survive there its own self than that I can predict what will grow well based on generalized descriptions from unlike soils/climates/water regimes/altitudes/biotic communities/growing styles/etc. Give something three years of trying to grow and by the end of it you will know whether it will grow well there.
More excitingly let genes mix. They won't be shackled to the rest of the genetics in that one variety. Over time the genes that aren't suitable will drop out of the mix and ones that are will combine in new ways. Each plant will have a larger and larger percentage of genes that work well on your site, for you, in your situation.
There needs to be some survival and some mortality for this to work. Genes need to be propagated at different frequencies. If you carefully save every seed from every plant, and keep every plant alive, there will be no change in frequency of surviving genes and thus no selection. Obviously if no seeds survive to make the next generation there will also be no propagation of genes.
For a gardener this means that things will often look bad or die. A garden grown this way is a garden that, on walkthrough, displays visible failures. Maybe some of the food tastes bad before it's removed from the gene pool. Maybe locusts or aphids descend and eat 80% of the crop.
Up to a point more failure of individual plants means more success for the project. When only 10% of the plants are dying out you're not getting tremendously strong selection; that's when you can step in and remove something that sprawls over the pathway or is too upright or doesn't look pretty or is bitter without erasing the whole project.
I think this is a different paradigm? We like nourishing the little plants, taking great care of them, feeling pride and love when they thrive. It can feel like a loss if they die, because of course it is. Those genes might well be propagated elsewhere but the individuals are what we get attached to. It is a different feeling to pivot from caretaking the individual to a fierce curiosity as to what the next generation will be, and to caretaking this balance between genes and hyperlocal spot of land.
In any case it's a much humbler and more intimate interaction with natural processes. Instead of doing all the intellectual and physical work to keep nature out and thereby create a perfect specimen myself, I am partnering with a cloud of resources and processes that function all around me whether I'm there or not and will grow something whether I am there or not. My goal becomes half guide, steering the process of selection to include my own needs layered on to those of the specific spot of land; but also half student, leaping along from development to development and trying to decipher what just happened and why. The process is in some ways more violent - there's more death, after all - but also less hubristic and narcissistic. We cease warring with nature when we cease warring with death. I suppose that makes sense.
So basically my garden will now always have things dying and failing. That's how new things are born and how new life comes forward. My garden will also likely always have things held static, preserved out of sentimentality or utility or just lack of energy to change them. Balance, right?
This doesn't feel complicated or hard to me, even though it kind of is complicated. Lots of sources and varieties and uncertainty as to particular outcomes is part of this process. I am created to love this kind of thing and to resist one-to-three-cultivars-that-get-planted-every-year-forever.
Is it hard for you to think about? Would it feel wrong?
The principle is, it's more likely that a plant will be able to determine if it can survive there its own self than that I can predict what will grow well based on generalized descriptions from unlike soils/climates/water regimes/altitudes/biotic communities/growing styles/etc. Give something three years of trying to grow and by the end of it you will know whether it will grow well there.
More excitingly let genes mix. They won't be shackled to the rest of the genetics in that one variety. Over time the genes that aren't suitable will drop out of the mix and ones that are will combine in new ways. Each plant will have a larger and larger percentage of genes that work well on your site, for you, in your situation.
There needs to be some survival and some mortality for this to work. Genes need to be propagated at different frequencies. If you carefully save every seed from every plant, and keep every plant alive, there will be no change in frequency of surviving genes and thus no selection. Obviously if no seeds survive to make the next generation there will also be no propagation of genes.
For a gardener this means that things will often look bad or die. A garden grown this way is a garden that, on walkthrough, displays visible failures. Maybe some of the food tastes bad before it's removed from the gene pool. Maybe locusts or aphids descend and eat 80% of the crop.
Up to a point more failure of individual plants means more success for the project. When only 10% of the plants are dying out you're not getting tremendously strong selection; that's when you can step in and remove something that sprawls over the pathway or is too upright or doesn't look pretty or is bitter without erasing the whole project.
I think this is a different paradigm? We like nourishing the little plants, taking great care of them, feeling pride and love when they thrive. It can feel like a loss if they die, because of course it is. Those genes might well be propagated elsewhere but the individuals are what we get attached to. It is a different feeling to pivot from caretaking the individual to a fierce curiosity as to what the next generation will be, and to caretaking this balance between genes and hyperlocal spot of land.
In any case it's a much humbler and more intimate interaction with natural processes. Instead of doing all the intellectual and physical work to keep nature out and thereby create a perfect specimen myself, I am partnering with a cloud of resources and processes that function all around me whether I'm there or not and will grow something whether I am there or not. My goal becomes half guide, steering the process of selection to include my own needs layered on to those of the specific spot of land; but also half student, leaping along from development to development and trying to decipher what just happened and why. The process is in some ways more violent - there's more death, after all - but also less hubristic and narcissistic. We cease warring with nature when we cease warring with death. I suppose that makes sense.
So basically my garden will now always have things dying and failing. That's how new things are born and how new life comes forward. My garden will also likely always have things held static, preserved out of sentimentality or utility or just lack of energy to change them. Balance, right?
This doesn't feel complicated or hard to me, even though it kind of is complicated. Lots of sources and varieties and uncertainty as to particular outcomes is part of this process. I am created to love this kind of thing and to resist one-to-three-cultivars-that-get-planted-every-year-forever.
Is it hard for you to think about? Would it feel wrong?
no subject
- 6 citrus and citrus-related trees
- A bay laurel
- A pineapple plant
- A kalanchoe
- And a whole bunch of dead things that got killed off by spider mites over the course of the winter (mostly basil and scallions that I'd hoped to have fresh)
Different species so it's not about breeding, but... yeah, there's the half-dead garden for you, and some selection happening. (I'm not going to try overwintering basil again. The one time it worked it was only because I bought predatory mites.)
no subject
I am totally envious of your citrus. What is citrus-related?
My mom has a bay laurel planted outside her marina and they hack off something like 4' of hedge every year to maintain the neighbour's site line. I'm always astonished at how good they smell and how well they overwinter outdoors. Does it not do for you there? Your climate escapes me, I tend to think of that part of the US as "warm, grows anything that bugs/disease doesn't eat" based on almost no actual info.
Is it a pineapple from the top of a pineapple, or a fancy bought one?
no subject
Citrus-related are the curry leaf trees! (Murraya koenigii, which are in the Rutaceae along with citrus.) They have a really distinctive smell to the leaves, which are used in Indian cooking. Compound leaves, but otherwise some visual similarities to citrus. Funny little fruits that look like wonderful purple berries but have zero sweetness and taste medicinal instead. I bought one small tree from Logee's and now I have a couple of them. :-)
None of my citrus are fruiting yet, but maybe if I pamper them this summer they'll start flowering. I keep starting new ones, too. (Just found some seeds in a blood orange, which I'd like to cross with something. Long term project, even if I manage to learn grafting...)
I think in the Boston area we're juuust on the edge of where bay laurel could overwinter. We're USDA zone 6b, -18 to -20°C extreme. And I think that's about the lowest it will tolerate. With more climate instability, I'm guessing we'll see colder snaps as well. But... I should totally take a cutting and see if I can get one to overwinter as in in-ground perennial. It would be awesome if I could.
Pineapple is from a pineapple top. :-) I planted one, but the meristem/center had already died, resulting in a funny "hollow" plant. It put out about 6 or 7 pups from the outer soil line before dying after maybe a year. I gave some away and kept a couple. They seem pretty robust and I guess like it dry, but I'm not sure. I don't think I'm going to give them what they need to flower and fruit, so I should probably give them away to someone who wants to try for that. (They also take up a *lot* of horizontal space with their long, spindly leaves.)
no subject
Oh, yes, that is pretty cold for it. How are your microclimates? Against a building? They strike me as something that comes back from the roots.
I love citrus so much from afar. No idea whether I'd enjoy actually growing them. If I move, yuzu will be hardy there!
no subject
I think there are some sheltered areas where the bay laurel would get some protection, including in my neighbor's back yard.
no subject
Hmm. How likely is it your neighbour would give you continued access? Or can you put it on the fenceline so it overhangs and you need to trim it yearly. :>
no subject
I think the bigger issue for me is that I don't know how long she'll live there—she wants to move at some point—and I'm concerned that the new owner might just raze everything. I'm OK with planting perennials as long as I don't get too attached to them, but I have to avoid making investments in that property. (One possible future is that we buy it, but who knows!) But I guess if the bay laurel would be an experiment anyhow, that would be fine.
I like the way you think re: the fenceline. :-D
no subject
That's such a lovely arrangement. I love knowing that there are folks who get along well enough, and navigate conflict easily enough, that they can evolve relationships like this.