Adaptation Gardening

I feel obsessed. No drug. No food. No lover has ever hooked me as tightly as I feel hooked right now.

The last time I felt like this occurred during the 4 months that I used for writing and publishing Landrace Gardening. I currently work on a second edition Adaptation Gardening. The familiar sensation fills my body and soul. Deep longing. Deep connection. Fire.

The first time, I didn't know what to do, or how to react. I lost weight. Risked my health. Forgot to eat. Ignored friends. This time, with a better understanding of myself and the process, I take breaks. I swim in the lake--so cold that it takes my breath away. I make time for friends. I garden. But always, in the background lies the hunger-- to write.

I have re-written each existing chapter into my preferred dialect. Fixed the messiness of mixed dialects in the original. Simplified. Tightened. Got rid of 27 mentions of how much I love carotenes. Dropped that ghastly story about the hill people.

I wrote 5 new chapters, all fiction based, and teaching things I have learned since publishing the original book. The fiction format allows for easy storytelling, and doesn't limit me to telling stories exactly as they occurred. I can add metaphor, emotion, analysis, antagonists. The wren can speak, and tell her story.

Long winded way of saying, "What would you like me to include in the second edition!!?!!"

Hi Joseph,

Your passion for Adaptation Gardening shines through, reading about your deep connection and creative process makes me eager to see the finished work. I remember how Landrace Gardening opened my eyes to the beauty of working with nature’s inherent diversity and I have since applied your concepts wherever possible. I am, however, going to miss hearing you rave about carotenes. It always put a smile on my face.

I wondered if you’ve thought about translating Adaptation Gardening into other languages so even more readers can benefit? I’d be thrilled to help you translate it into German and guide you through the publishing steps.

For the second edition I would love to hear more about your process when working with plants, where tasting is not as easy - for example radishes, beetroot or carrots. How do you taste them to select the tastiest ones without killing the plant?
I would also love a general "this is how my garden year looks", sharing more about your life.

Happy to hear from you!

Patrick: We finished a German translation. In the process of working with a publisher to get it printed.

Maybe my fans will abandon me for using AI to assist in writing the second edition. Oh well. At least I won't feel ashamed of the inconsistent grammar. The first edition contained prose written over a 15 year period, and my voice changed dramatically over that time. Heck, it changed dramatically during the 4 months I wrote the bulk of the original, and I didn't go back and fix it during editing, just edited the new stuff according to my new standards. This time, everything will conform to my preferred way of writing (e-prime).

Epigenetics! There's not a lot of understanding out there about how that first year or two a lot of the change going on is because of genes switched on or off that get passed in that state to future generations. When all your seed comes from a different climate, the state of those switches may not be in your favor for a generation or two.  Things that limp along the first year, but then are stars next year? That's likely due to epigenetics.

I hope you don't remove all the tasty carotene mentions. Nothing wrong with reminding people that it's great to pick for traits for personal enjoyment too. I've picked things based on scent, or color (snow peas are so much more fun to grow when the pods aren't green!) or how easy it is for me to work with the fruit.

I have no issue with people using AI to generate a starting point. But I believe it needs a careful human eye run over the results. It tends to generate a lot of filler that needs to be trimmed. And then there's the hallucinations.

I posted this already over in the comments of: https://permies.com/wiki/162247/Landrace-Gardening-Joseph-Lofthouse

I would like to see the community aspect brought together as one thought in a chapter even though it may be sprinkled in all over. Thank you.

This is great news! I was about to buy a copy of Landrace Gardening. But it's difficult over here in Europe. Now I guess I'll wait for the new edition!

Wonderful!
Does here do landrace/adaptation gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area? Or better yet, East Bay? Is there a community? I know that there are seed savers here and you can get their seeds at the Ecology Center in Berkeley. But is there a face to face group? Or garden tours?
Thank you,
Connie Hamp

Hi, Joseph.

I'm trying to get a few gardener friends interested to this practice, but it's always received with mistrust.

The most common objection is lack of space, since my friends have urban gardens with not so much space. It's hard to justify growing ten different gourds when you barely have space for two. The second most common objection is the fear of losing the already adapted heirloom variety they are already using. They don't want to mix it with foreign varieties and spoil it. Do you know how rural people is afraid of change? The same can be applied to most growers.
And this is from urban gardeners that grow from seed, because most of the gardeners I know, just buy the seedlings. They don't have proper nurseries or space in their appartments for growing from seed. I know how difficult it is without a proper space because I try to grow from seed in my (excessively exposed) terrace and, man, it's really hard.

In my personal case, I have no objection at all, but I simply can't irrigate crops. This is a big issue in a semi-arid warm mediterranean climate which feels like a desert from May to September. Seeds that claim to be apt for dryland farming in southern France, just can't make it in this heat. If I get no survivors, I can't make any selection.

I guess what I'd like to see in this book is a clear reference to:
1. What good I am getting by adopting Adaptation Gardening in my garden.
2. What is the bare minimum that I need for making it happen.
3. What I am giving up when I choose this technique instead of others.

(pss, pss, and maybe have it translated into spanish!)

I LOVE  what you wrote for the back cover.

And I loved your Landrace book.

I’m excited about the new edition.

Just a couple of observations about things that have occupied my friends and me lately:

Someone said something about community - it made me think of community gardens. All different people planting all different things using all different methods. Is this an opportunity or a challenge (or both) when what other people do affects one’s own plot by virtue of such close proximity? Having found myself living in town and wishing for more growing space I am pondering joining a community garden, if I can find one. They are amazingly scarce around here.  But if I do, I will be wondering about that.

And of course climate goes without saying.  But it’s feeling like it’s more complex than just changes in precipitation and temperature.  For example, last  week there was quite a discussion around the table amongst our weekly knitting group. People were noticing their gardens seem to need more water than the “new” normal has begun to require -  even when the temperatures are not much higher.  We came away wondering if the air moving through our valley from elsewhere (Willamette, about 20 miles south of Portland) is simply drier now, independently of what’s happening on the ground, so to speak? Drier air that is absorbing our water on the ground at a faster rate, holding temperature constant.  Or maybe it’s just breezier now?

And what is rapid weather change doing to the soil critters and pollinators and small animals on which we depend? Will some multiply like crazy while others retreat? Regardless of what  we plant or how we treat our soil? We’re  already changing our choices of plants, especially perennials of all sorts, in response to weather changes. But while we can ensure that we provide them with food and water and shelter, we really don’t have a clue whether there are other new things we might be thinking about in response to these rapid changes that we’re not already doing.

Just some new to us thoughts.  We knitters are all in observation mode now. And some of us are focusing on experimentation. Any advice for guiding us toward the known and unknown future would be most welcome.  

Note: just a little bit of a rant, a good time to stop reading if you’re in a hurry. It’s not aimed at your work, or anybody on permies that might be reading this, but rather a note regarding the relative dearth in “the literature” in general, which is why I’m always hopeful when a permie is doing the writing.

We are women in our 60s, though our experience is most definitely not limited to our age group. But I will talk abut me and my ilk (people I know).

Most of us have lived on acreage during our lives and a very few still do, but most of us now live in town.  We very much appreciate gardening/climate/saving the world in our backyard strategies that can actually be implemented in our backyards- usually a quarter acre or less, including house and garage and paved driveway and mandated setbacks. There are thousands upon thousands of acres “spent” on these types of households, but very little literature focused on how to improve our ecological footprints, help to feed ourselves, and foster natural diversity, in a systematic way (systematic is Key).   There’s a lot we can do, but there’s simply not much good guidance aimed at this demographic, regardless of age group. We do read material whose target audiences are those with more resources (land, mostly) and then work to figure out what we can generalize to our smaller scale, and more importantly, how to do it so that the impact is worthwhile. But it’s a slog.

In other words - lots of us on small lots are not dreaming of the award winning bug free flower garden and two perfect tomato plants surrounded by a chemically manicured lawn trimmed weekly by a nice man with loud gas powered tools and a backpack sprayer. But we do live amongst them. I do my best to lead by example. So, I’m always in the market for more examples. Of the systematic sort. As well as ways for me to do more with the efforts I expend.

Sorry. I know I’m preaching to the choir. But sometimes I just gotta let it out.

Joseph,

  I can’t wait to read the new edition.  Anything on epigenetics that you could drill down on would be appreciated.  Your first edition has changed the way I think about all my crops and my livestock. I am two years in on my selections for my context and trying to include all the appropriate genetics I can. Keep pushing brother, you are having an incredible influence on our world that will echo through the ages.  

Addressing L. Anderson's rant and maybe some things for Joseph.

I think you're miles ahead to start your seed saving/epigenetic progression  with things you know are pretty bulletproof in your area, or most areas, or were specifically bred for your area.

An example of something local to me would be the Homestead 24 tomato.

This was bred as a field tomato that could take the heat in south Florida and it only gets better as you save the seed year to year.
It also gets points for low maintenance as it's semi-determinate so doesn't go wild like indeterminates and has very few suckers to keep up with.

Other tomatoes in the already tough as nails category here would be the Coyote, Matt's Wild Cherry and Everglades (Florida native) currant tomatoes. Awesome taste on all of these, particularly Coyote.

At least here in FL there are starting to be good sources for locally well adjusted seeds and plants to start out with.
Working Food here in Gainesville and Cody Cove Farm are a couple of great examples of that.

As far as us older folks growing food in small spaces one thing I would suggest is sort-of-hydroponics.

I don't get any permie points here, because plastic is required and it's not self regenerating, but this makes a lot of food in a small space.

The veggies are grown in containers in cheap plastic kiddy pools. 10 bucks from amazon or the like.
They grow in the standard nursery pots or grow bags.
I can mix my own potting soil from pine bark ( fir bark out west ) fines and compost for economy. Start at 50/50 and increase/decrease pine bark depending on how much drainage you need.

The pools have a drain hole about 3" up from the bottom.
These and most other plastic can be cut with a hole saw run backward using a wood block as a backup on the other side of the plastic.
They last 2 - 3 years if you're careful with them. the sun gets them (brittle) eventually.

I use either my home mixed fertilizer or Tomato Tone every 15 days and either works well.

The rest is weeding and watering as needed.

You can weed them with a hand held propane torch if you catch the weed when they're small. Just scorching them finishes them, no need to burn them down.

I also have plastic lined trenches that work a similar way, and a dutch bucket greenhouse, but those are stories for another time.

Even working in a small space in a small way with something like the modified hydro idea here, and saving seed... you're still advancing the genetics to your benefit.

Wonderful let me know when the book comes out I will most certainly buy it and perhaps I'll be able to find translators who can translate it into Japanese

Benjamin Dinkel wrote:This is great news! I was about to buy a copy of Landrace Gardening. But it's difficult over here in Europe. Now I guess I'll wait for the new edition!

Because the book is printed locally, it certainly wasn't a problem for me previously in the UK. That was one of the things that impressed me when I bought Landrace Gardening....

I'm getting much better seed germination this year from my saved seeds - hoping for a good harvest!

Joseph,   Congrats in advance on the new edition coming out and a desire to refine and expand its contents.

Linked here is a brief article that, even as it is also advertising a probiotic product, touches on some interesting notions in 'adapted plants and the people who eat them' ;-) ....  https://biotiquest.com/blogs/blog/a-deeper-dive-on-local-and-seasonal-eating-food-as-information?srsltid=AfmBOoqLDrF_X8w2Hp3tdxEIGzfSwpOHVfnpasuxlUBCkhTB54KutRPs

As we live in localized communities/biomes, we naturally ingress the adapted microbes around us providing the foundation of our individual gut and surface microbiomes.  Not proven, but when we eat food that is locally produced and harboring a local microbiome, we end up sharing a microbiome with the plants adapted for the area....and  by extension the microbiome adapted for the area. This would be in contrast or potentially in conflict with a gut microbiome that is constantly 'fed' with microbes from food produced sometimes thousands of miles away and in a vastly different biome.  I have not been able to track down any hard studies on the health benefits of eating locally adapted plants other than the usual factors of fresher food with possibly greater knowledge and local control over production methods and inputs.  It might be interesting to explore the link between crop plants adapted for a locale, how that adaptation may change the microbiome of the plant and how that in turn interacts with the external/internal microbial flora in the people consuming the plants.  How that may play into overall human health would be quite interesting.

Good luck with the new release!

I wish you all the best for the new edition.

“Landrace Gardening” opened my mind to the possibilities of seed saving, and that I could do this in a joyful way without a bunch of plastic netting and impossible isolation distances.

My 15 year old says “I think it would be good if there were more sections on different kinds of vegetables”, he wants to know more about every vegetable that you grow, beyond the ones you focus on in the first book, but otherwise he loves the original edition and very excited about plant breeding because of it.