Trialing Staple Annuals in Canada

Hello northerner permies! I'm taking the opportunity this year to trial some northern adapted varieties of staple crops. I have two sites going this year - one is being managed in Lethbridge and one in the countryside outside of Edmonton. My main focus is on heat tolerant short season crops, preferably with drought tolerance. To put it lightly, this climate is very hard on plants. After the long harsh winter passes the summer usually gets very hot and dry very fast. Rain is unpredictable in both locations, but the Lethbridge site is more arid most years.

I'm hoping to keep this well updated with results on both locations. As a northerner sitting on some of the hardest clay soil you'll ever encounter, any success will be well worth celebrating.

This year I am focusing on annuals, I'm planning to experiment with some unusual perennials next year a bit more. I just have a few buckthorn and yellowhorn seeds i'm hoping will germinate and see success in future years.

The plants of particular note this year are:

Sorghum, Ba Ye Qi

Winter Squash, Little Gem Red Kuri

Amaranth, Copperhead

Amaranth, Sunset Goldilocks

Cowpea, Grey Speckled Palapye

Okra, Clemson Spineless

Okra, Dwarf Long Pod

Bean, Borlotti Drying (80 day variety)


At the Lethbridge site I am also trialing 2 sunchoke varieties, celeriac, red orache and fava beans.

Okra is being partially trialed as a potential oilseed &/or seed crop for high protein flour. I'm looking to breed a landrace with thin, smooth pods, thin shelled seeds, preferably of a consistent size that can easily be milled or pressed. I'm a big believer in okra as a food security crop.

Cowpeas are a big deal for me as well. Runner beans just drop their pods in our summer heat, I trialed them last year and got about 2 dozen beans total from a pack of 15 seeds. The bonus of cowpeas is that the greens are supposed to be edible as well. Hopefully they're not disappointing.

Kuri squash is my favourite squash variety I've encountered and it seems like a promising option in the short growing season. If I get mature seeds, I'm hoping to select for thinner shelled seeds, its the only thing about this variety I'm not fond of.

Amaranth is my favourite grain/pseudograin. See my thread on amaranth nixtaml for an enormous blurb on it.

Sorghum, great grain crop and very versatile. I have a maize allergy and celiac so sorghum is hopefully going to fill the void where corn normally would for the average permie.



With no further ado, here are the sites and the start of a big year for me!

My first site is the Edmonton rural location. I'm going to be trialing a minimal till system I've been developing to try to work with our very dense soil. First, a little background. This site has been pretty much untouched by people for a very long time. The last major intervention I'm aware of is that the location used to be home to 2 horses back in the 90s, and the land has been essentially wild since then. My approach to trying to get some productive plants is to do a narrow, relatively deep trench into the soil after cutting back the grass. I'm doing almost everything by hand as well, to keep the impact as low as possible. I'm only using a weed trimmer as the only powered equipment.

The trench in question is to act like a small water catchment, the terrain is so close to perfectly flat that swales are out of the question. Any rain that falls will be captured in this trench which is covered with loose soil and mulch. I'm trying to avoid manually watering it as much as possible, since it is quite far away from my current property. I want to get several lines going in the next week or two, get some things like orache and other above ground veggies rolling as well. I have only seen one no-till farm in the area (a haskap farm) and I'm mirroring his practices on a small scale.






And this is my handiwork. Earthworks are a LOT of work by hand, makes you appreciate the input that gasoline and electricity provide so effortlessly.




I got rushed at the end and didn't get any pictures of how I planted everything, I'll try to get some when I plant the second trench.
Everything is planted now and I'll post some updates when things are growing!


Lethbridge site is an urban tilled garden but gives a really good opportunity to try some crop varieties. I'll have pictures of that one in a future update.

I'm really interested in how things go for you, especially at your Lethbridge site. Looks like our summers are about as dry, but a bit hotter. We get waaaay more precipitation over the winter, though - 75 to almost 100 mm each month in November, December, and January, the wettest and snowiest months of the winter, so I'm trying to put as much organic matter into the soil as possible to hold on to that moisture. Our winters are much warmer, but we have the same problem in the spring: too cold, too cold, then suddenly blazing hot. We basically live in a gravel pit, so I can't relate to your clay soil, though.

Will you be watering the Lethbridge site? I don't water here, and I find that by the time it's warm enough for amaranth, it's too hot and dry and any seeds that do manage to germinate fry in the heat soon after. I hope yours does better. I also never found a way I like to winnow the seeds without losing an unacceptable amount.

Orache does really well, and reseeds itself, even sometimes where the mulch is deep enough I wouldn't expect it to. It also grows in what's pretty much just dry dust by July.

I've had some tepary beans and cowpeas sitting around for a couple years that I finally managed to get in the ground this year, so I'll see how those do. Runner beans stand no chance here and regular beans, P. vulgaris, produce very poorly, when they survive at all.

I hope your red kuri do well, but even if they don't, just save seeds from whatever you get and the next year they'll do way better. The first year I was here I carted in lots of water for my squash, the next year none at all and they were very unhappy, the third year they were fine, and now I have monster squash that take over the garden even after two months of no rain and in two weeks of 40°+. I incorporated genes from galeux d'eysines because they grow so vigorously and put down roots at every node.

Because the maxima squash have such tough seed hulls, I'm going in the direction of just growing a second crop of naked seeded pumpkins. I was hoping to select for cold soil tolerance in the seeds I saved from last year, but it got warm so early this year that they all sprouted happily. Looks like I might be selecting for heat and drought tolerance instead, if the summer carries on this way.

I'm interested in hearing how sorghum does for you. I've been exploring pearl millet and trying to get it to produce reliably in a shorter season, but I've had my eye on sorghum to try, too.

I'm also interested in okra. I planted it one year, but the earwigs ate the seedlings, and haven't got back to it. Why did you settle on okra for an oilseed crop, rather than a brassica, which would be easier to grow in your climate?

Lethbridge site is being managed as basically just an organic garden. Its being looked after by family while I'm up north. It will be watered very frequently, but still a useful yardstick to gauge the best possible yield.

The years I've grown amaranth successfully I get a decent yield. This year I'm trying northern adapted varieties so I'm cautiously optimistic. Amaranth is the only thing that has sprouted so far in my edmonton site - but its been really difficult germinating conditions this year.

I'm hoping to get something out of my Borlotti beans, but not expecting much to be honest. I'd love to try out a proper hot weather cultivar like Anasazi. Tepary beans look interesting too but boy thats a lot of breeding work to get them shorter season - lima beans too.

As for okra as my oilseed of choice, that's definitely a biome issue. The only pest I have ever had an issue with in my 20 years of gardening is those dang cabbage butterflies. Any brassica out here gets demolished by those things. The only brassicae I have ever seen actually survive the onslaught is very tough Kale and Collards, and very short season radishes. I don't really trust the erucic acid content of brassica seeds either. A shame because baby turnips might actually be my favourite veggie hands down. I'd love to grow Camelina, but that's another trial for another year. I'm trying out shiso in the herb garden to get those omega3s - (I wonder if chickens or quail would like those). Down the road I would love to try other oilseeds too and sesame is on the list. But, circling back again --

Okra looks to be a really promising option for the climate and season. I love that the plant is useful in every stage from leaves to young pods and flowers to the mature seed. I imported some okra flour and okra oil from Oliver Farms and was really impressed by them. The oil is pleasant and really finely flavoured. The flour made amazing flatbreads, muffins and crusted roasted veggies beautifully. Its really high protein as well, with a similar amino acid profile to a legume. I could easily see it as a sustainable staple protein to supplement greens, amaranth, sorghum, potatoes, legumes and berries. As far as production goes, the seeds are safe in their little pods and have a hard shell. I'm fairly certain the seeds should be rather safe from insect damage in storage. I had considered trying to do a 3 sisters type guilding with okra replacing the corn. I also genuinely just love fresh okra.

The Ba Yi Qi sorghum from adaptive seeds is alleged to be a 90 day grain. Really hoping it lives up to that, and that its easy to winnow.

I'm really off root crops after last year. I spent so many hours washing carrots off with this solid clay soil.... only potatoes feel worth it. If the celeriac grows well it will be the only other root crop I can justify. Just uses so much water it feels so wasteful.

The okra flour flour sounds really interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

It sounds like my cabbage moths aren't as bad as yours, but they can be pretty destructive. I think this is only my third year growing deitrich's wild broccoli raab (from experimental farm network), but so far it seems to attract waaaay fewer cabbage moths than any other brassicas I grow. It's also a feral turnip, so quite a few of the plants have bulbous roots. It might be an easy thing to select for. If you want to try some out and see how it does with your monster moths, PM me. I'll have no end of seed in a month or two. I'll send you some from the bulbous-rooted plants.

I've had my eye on Ba Yi Qi sorghum for a while. Annapolis Seeds is where I've seen it. This year, I noticed a new variety on their site called Gaolian Voskovidnyj. They say it's a couple weeks earlier than Ba Yi Qi, so you might want to check that one out, too, for next year.

Jan White wrote:The okra flour flour sounds really interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

It sounds like my cabbage moths aren't as bad as yours, but they can be pretty destructive. I think this is only my third year growing deitrich's wild broccoli raab (from experimental farm network), but so far it seems to attract waaaay fewer cabbage moths than any other brassicas I grow. It's also a feral turnip, so quite a few of the plants have bulbous roots. It might be an easy thing to select for. If you want to try some out and see how it does with your monster moths, PM me. I'll have no end of seed in a month or two. I'll send you some from the bulbous-rooted plants.

I've had my eye on Ba Yi Qi sorghum for a while. Annapolis Seeds is where I've seen it. This year, I noticed a new variety on their site called Gaolian Voskovidnyj. They say it's a couple weeks earlier than Ba Yi Qi, so you might want to check that one out, too, for next year.

I'll definitely be looking at that particular sorghum variety. A brief overview seems to indicate it has lower yields than other sorghum varieties, smaller seeded and has the "waxy" characteristics. I think the best thing to do is try to cross it with my Ba Yi Qi I hope to save from this year and aim for a better yield and maybe aim for an 85 day maturity period.

as for the okra flour:

https://oliverfarm.com/store/okra-flour-gluten-free

cannot recommend this stuff enough, its like halfway between coconut flour and almond flour as far as baking goes, but with a flavour all its own. I need to order more, my son keeps asking for okra pancakes... Hopefully I'll have some locally grown stuff by the end of the season.

I'm taking a deep look into oilseeds for next year as well, I'm trying some yellowhorn this year, no idea how viable it is or even what it tastes like but I'm always looking for perennials. My current contenders are Camelina, Benne (heirloom sesame), Okra.

I'd even be interested in a short season grape for a grapeseed oil. I recently saw a wine company in California selling varietal cold-pressed grapeseed oils and it got me thinking about it. I'll have to see if anyone is actually selling grape plants here that aren't seedless.

Also, probably weirdly, I'd be really interested in trying to breed watermelons for their seed production. Watermelon seeds are probably one of the most underutilized foods around. It just happens to conflict with just growing watermelon for the sake of having fresh watermelon. Definitely on my to try list.

Any northern permies have any oilseed successes?