Photos of Joseph Lofthouse's Garden

Hello, I would like to enter the drawing to win Joseph's book.  I also want to ask Joseph, have you tried planting things in a less orderly way, Masanobu Fukuoka style?  If so, I'd like to hear your thoughts on how it worked, or didn't, work. :)

Joseph, what can you tell me about the Purple Heritage Plum?  Is it free stone?  I love Stanleys because of the ease of putting up large amounts of food into storage, i.e. drying is easy, canning is easy etc.  But i have lost 3-4 trees over the years to sun scald.  I have transplanted some similar, seed grown varieties, from a neighbor and they have a silvery bark which i think will help reflect and not allow sun scald.  I am in Cache valley too so i am looking to how you have solved these problems.  Thanks.  And if you have any of your nut and fruit tree landraces available.

The thing about heritage trees, is that they are often older than the memory of anyone now living. They have survived the drought years, and many decades of cold frigid winters. And bugs. And neglect. And critters. And blights. Whatever. Offspring tend to strongly resemble their parents and grandparents. Therefore planting seeds from them often gives great new varieties of trees, that also have what it takes to survive local conditions.

Swapping propagules of nuts and trees tends to be highly seasonal.

On Friday, radio station KRCL in Salt Lake city broadcast an interview we did at my farm. My segment begins at 35:42.

https://krcl.org/blog/radioactive-summer-break-july-9-2021/

Recent photos from my garden.

I'm teaching at seed school and grain school in Mancos, Colorado on August 12th and 13th. Registration is still open. http://rockymountainseeds.org/

We are having a potluck dinner both nights to which the interested public is invited. We are screening a seed/food related movie each night.

I'd love to see you. I'm bringing a couple of  guitars in case anyone wants to jam.

Just read the whole thread! Very interesting to follow your garden. Have to add the book to my wishlist.

Is there a way of knowing when crossed offspring plants are sterile/male sterile? I'm trying to plan ahead for next year's garden (s) and hoping to separate the squash varieties quite a bit. I'd like to keep my own seed from the ones that do best (that I like best) and try planting some together to see what they produce. And they make terrific feed for the sheep in the fall to flush them for breeding, not to mention the rest of the critters, so no such thing as excess.
I have: lemon squash (summer), Connecticut field pumpkin, new England sugar pie pumpkin, acorn squash, butternut squash, Georgia candy roaster, jarradale squash.

Thanks for a wonderful thread!

Sterility among crosses is very rare, except in the case of inter-species crosses or laboratory modified lines.

In most cases, male sterility is obvious, because the flowers are missing anthers, or the male flowers shrivel up before shedding pollen.

I love this tomato plant. It's from the Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato project. Meets nearly all of the selection criteria for the project, except for flavor.

The tepary beans did well despite this year's drought.

Deep winter here. I let the tomatoes in the greenhouse freeze. Still surviving inside it are lettuce, spinach, bock choi, and mallow. I ate some of the mallow for breakfast on Christmas. What an amazing species!

The Chinese language version of my book, Landrace Gardening, just showed up at the Internet book seller sites, and I got author copies to share. The title of the book translates back into English as: "Gardening with Local Varieties: Guidelines for food security in permaculture using biodiversity and cross-pollination".

It's a race to see if the Hindi or Spanish translation will get completed next.

I'm attending the Utah Farm and Food Conference on Jan 13-15th. I'll be speaking, signing books, and bringing seeds for the seed swap. We'll be filming for my new video course about landrace gardening.

Here's a trailer for the course:

About 54 years ago, I helped my daddy plant these conifer trees.

I wonder, during all those years how many birds have fledged in them? How much oxygen, water, food,  and compost have they gifted into the ecosystem?

If that were the only thing I ever accomplished in my life, I think that it would be sufficient. That row of trees means more to me than anything I accomplished in school, or the chemistry lab.

I've been having a lot of fun making video stories based on the contents of my book. Here's the one we released today about muskmelons, my earliest attempt to breed a landrace variety specific to my farm.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Yesterday, I cleaned and winnowed seeds: Beans, corn, and sunflower. Next step is to cycle them through the freezer to kill insects. Germination testing after that.

Do you leave them in the freezer for a certain length of time? Luckily I haven't had seeds get bug-y but would be very good to know :)

kadence blevins wrote:Do you leave them in the freezer for a certain length of time? Luckily I haven't had seeds get bug-y but would be very good to know :)

I leave them in the freezer a few days. Up to a few months, if I forget to take them out.

Today, I'm the featured guest on Christi Wilhelmi's Gardenerd podcast.

Christi Wilhelmi wrote:
This week on the Gardenerd Tip of the Week Podcast, we journey down an unconventional rabbit hole with Joseph Lofthouse. He spends his days developing landrace seeds on his 6th-generation family farm in northern Utah.

He’s also the author of Landrace Gardening: Food Security through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination. What’s a landrace you ask? Listen to find out. He opens our minds to resilient possibilities.

Link to podcast blog

Direct link to podcast

The snow melted last week.

Since then I have planted wheat, rye, barley, favas, lettuce, spinach, hazelnuts, apricots, mustard spice, orach, poppies, mullein, and whatever I forgot to mention.

I dug up the parsnips, sorted them, and replanted so that they can make seeds. Last year was a drought year, and I didn't thin or weed. Selecting for those that do best under those circumstances.

I'm speaking at the Baker Creek Tulip Festival, April 10th, Mansfield Missouri

https://www.rareseeds.com/heritage-days-festivals

The lettuce and spinach in the greenhouse have thrived.

About 6 years ago, this lettuce appeared in my garden as a hybrid between domestic lettuce, and wild lettuce. I have finally got it selected for non-bitter, and non-spiny. And it grows super vigorous, and is winter hardy, so that it can be planted in the fall, and get a huge head start in the spring.

Saved tomato and pepper seeds today. I expect to send the two varieties of tomatoes, and the peppers to Experimental Farm Network for distribution this winter.

The small cherry tomatoes are a 4 species hybrid (pimpinelifolium, lycopersicon, habrochaites, pennellii).

The orange tomato, is a three species hybrid (lycopersicon, habrochaites, pennellii),  a selection from the Q-series of the Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project. I call it Paradise Tomato.

The peppers are a sweet pepper grex that I've grown for two years. Selecting for quick germination, and great growth in cool weather.

Saved seeds, and made barbecue sauce from the peppers and tomatoes.

Paradise tomato has been selected for the long-keeping (colgar) trait. Meaning that rather than rotting after being picked, they slowly dehydrate. It's a great trait to have while making sauce, because the sauce is thick before even starting to cook down.

I made two gallons of wonderful salsa yesterday, made largely from your Q-series that I grew last year and then self-seeded in what was supposed to be this year's kohlrabi patch. They're the most productive tomatoes in my garden this year.

Made barbecue sauce from yellow cherry tomatoes.

Have you already been growing landraces or grexes and have extra seeds to share? Do you want to have access to seeds saved and shared by other landrace gardeners? If so, email LandraceGardening@gmail.com

For maximum diversity, seeds will be pooled and redistributed. As a bonus, you will get a coupon for free access to the online Landrace Gardening course we've been working on for a year.

Seed Distribution Platform

During the course of this year, it became apparent that the biggest way that we could help all of you was to facilitate the sharing of genetically diverse seeds. For beginning landrace gardeners, it can be expensive and time consuming to collect as many varieties as is ideal for the development of a new landrace. For established landrace gardeners, this can be a way to increase diversity of an existing established population, or an easy way to add another species or project to your garden.

For the first year, we will be focusing on popular crops that (for the most part) are the highly out-crossing species that are easy to grow and develop locally adapted landraces.

Having a way to collect, combine, and redistribute seeds from landrace gardeners everywhere has been Joseph’s goal for many years. We are all lucky that Anna Meiritz came along and shared the vision and capacity for making the plan, organizing the people, and building the system for making it happen this year! To say that we are excited to see how this develops over the coming years is an understatement.

To learn more and participate:

There is a new chapter at the beginning of the Landrace Gardening course. Sign in Here. It contains all the instructions, lists of crops, mailing info, where to ask questions, and much more.

This first year we have to focus on the US and Canada. But do not despair if you are located outside those areas, as we will be collecting information by country, and then will share that with other course participants in that country for direct seed swapping purposes. Information on that is located in the last lesson of the first chapter.

Because the window for sending in seeds starts today and only lasts for the month of October, we hope that you’ll review the information as soon as possible, and as you’re saving seed from your garden this fall, save extra for the landrace gardening community.

Cheers to more diversity, more seeds, and more delicious food!

Julia, Joseph, and Anna

PS. Thank you to our wonderful seed stewards for helping facilitate this project:

Christopher Weeks
Lowell McCampbell
Kim Wolf
Carolyn Brown
Debbie Ang
Anphlo Dubouloz
Joseph Zarr

ModernLandraces.com
LandraceGardening@gmail.com

Wait - are ALL dahlia tubers edible?  We grew them when I was a kid, pretty flowers, never ate them.  Now my family culture is to only grow useful/edibles... if dahlia are edible, they might earn a place in our garden.  

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
Julia: Dahlia tubers are bland and crispy. The closest approximation I can think of would be water chestnuts. They take on the flavor of whatever food they are cooked with. We typically add them in moderation to soups, stir-fries, or roasts.  They stay crunchy when cooked, so I don't like them sautéed by themselves, or as hash-browns. They don't mash well. They burn when deep-fried, so I don't like them as chips. I think that they might make an excellent fermented vegetable if grated. This year I want to try some as pickles.

And, since we are on the topic of dahlias, this is one of the more productive clones, and one of my favorite colored.

Some dahlia tubers are more edible than others. Texture is similar to water-chestnut. Some of them can be resinous (like sunflower). Yield was up to 6 pounds per plant.

But none are toxic, correct?  I may look for some dahlia tubers to try growing.  I've never tried sunflower roots, but my wife and kids like canned water chestnut in a few dishes that she makes, so I think they may be open to eating them.  

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
Some dahlia tubers are more edible than others. Texture is similar to water-chestnut. Some of them can be resinous (like sunflower). Yield was up to 6 pounds per plant.

I dug sunroot tubers a couple of days ago. They are available for purchase in usa.
https://permies.com/t/40/51274/Sunroots-Sale-Genetically-diverse-Prolifically#1632768

Also dug and transplanted Mullein, and hazelnuts.

Now that my fields are covered with snow, I clean seeds.

I found a fava bean with green cotyledons. Usually they are pale yellow.

I cleaned and sorted beans.

I recently traveled to Blue Hill in Manhattan and Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Had lovely meals there with chef Dan Barber.

Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture hosted a think-tank conference featuring a few leaders in the seed renaissance movement. I put on my finest shaman robe for the occasion. So fun, suggesting to Stone Barns Center  that they might try letting life live, when the current way of things is to micro-manage everything about the plants and ecosystem.

I'm eating sweet and sugary bok choi from an unheated greenhouse. The stems froze often, and have a granular texture.

I select this variety to thrive overwinter in an unheated greenhouse.

Today's podcast appearance features an interview with the amazing Ben Cohen.

https://www.smallhousefarm.com/seedsandweedspodcast/ep-2-five-questions-with-joseph-lofthouse/

It's also on youtube.
https://youtu.be/eWqUxo2Xx8A

It's also on all the platforms: Spotify, Apple, Google etc

I appeared in the Grow Your Grass Off podcast.

For the past 15 years, I worked to develop a network to create, preserve, and share genetically-diverse landrace varieties. The huge project exceeded my abilities. After publishing my book, a group of collaborators joined me in the endeavor.

The collaborators help me to refine my ideas. They challenge me to be consistent in how I talk about landraces, and the associated political and social issues.  They invite me to apply the principles of landrace gardening to all of my growing and social interactions.  They take care of technical, financial, social, and administrative tasks that immobilize me. Their neurodiversity and compassion help us work through difficult issues with grace and goodwill.

I feel honored to announce that a non-profit organization, Going To Seed,  has been organized to continue this work.

Courses
Our video and text-based courses cover the importance of genetic diversity, cross-pollination and breeding basics, seed selection and saving.

Community
The community provides a place for your knowledge to be ​cross-pollinated, evolved, and applied. Gain insights, share ideas, troubleshoot your issues, and receive feedback.

Seeds
Genetically diverse seed mixes, curated by our members, help you get started breeding your own locally adapted crops.

Join our mailing list
We're just getting started, and there are lots of exciting things coming from Going to Seed. Sign up to receive updates about new programs, courses, and seed availability.

https://goingtoseed.org/

I really like this non-profit.

Haven't joined the community there yet.

I do have the question of, will all the seeds be sent out in good faith that people won't just try and abuse it for free seed - would people get flagged for that sort of thing? Like having seeds sent to two different addresses close by or something.

Seems like a souring thing to say, but I would rather not see this happen.


Also have a general question of how does the seed sensing work, just join the community and then reach out to someone?


For the seed stewards, they also may end up with a lot of pricey shipping and whatnot if this becomes more popular. I'm hoping more stewards pop up at some point and everyone isn't getting hosed with packaging things up or doing whatever.  

I'm not sure if this could be mitigated by having different stewards for certain regions or whatever else, maybe multiple stewards for crops? Different Zone / Climate and whatnot can have a different cucumber steward. Every year, they could grow out some amounts of seed sent to them - make lines for their Zone - Climate from that stock. And continuously get sent some seed from other crop stewards doing the same thing for their climate - intermix things like that?

Seems like a far off goal or idea, but the whole thing has got me thinking. Not currently in a position to steward anything either. I suppose if the popularity of the site goes up, as will the number of potential stewards so that's all down the road.


I really love the idea here. I've seen the independent small groups sending seed from their different regions and places back and forth, but this adds a bigger potential pool of seed from varying places.


For things like Interspecific hybrids or potential of having them in whatever seed I send over - would I be better off mentioning this and seeing if anyone is even interested in receiving these seeds - or would the steward be allowed to to just say that the seeds may have inedible, potentially sterile plants due to certain things crossing?

I have C. hystrix for example, some other wild Cucumis species. I also have wild C. melo accessions - some are from jungles - etc. I'm also planning on growing Armenian cucumbers next to my C. melo plants and letting them cross. Also odder C. melo varieties like the Hithadhoo Maldives one that is mostly a green slime / gel inside of it.

I have a decent amount of cucumber and melon varieties, planning on starting a grex this year. I'll probably end up with more seeds than what I need.

The cucumbers, will probably be pretty variable in the first generation - but Hystrix might have a slight chance of crossing with any given fruit / plant. It's my understanding that sending out an F1 seed mix is probably one of the more important / cool things to do when sending seeds out to you guys.

The melons might have small ping-pong, sourish hybrids mixed in as well - plus other things.

I'm aware that people might not like having their landraces or things contaminated by my bad tasting wild traits in these.


I also plan on growing out 4 different bush runner beans - I'm not sure if they are promiscuous like their parents. They all have red flowers I suppose. I'll also probably grow some right next to other bush beans and some next to vining runner bean types, just to see if I get crosses.

I'm fairly sure that some people might be interested in bush types and that I should probably note that there's bush types being sent over in one of the two bags or whatever I send over. Or seeing if they'd even want bush runners.


Assuming it's just a matter of messaging stewards and telling them all of this, letting them decide if they want the seeds - the hassle.


Final question would be, are stewards allowed to grow what I send to them for distribution? I would assume "yes", and I would very much like it if that's the case for things like beans. Or should I send enough seed for them and to distribute?


I do plan on sending out sees of things eventually. Probably towards the end of the year.

Probably sunflowers, greens - that sort of thing. And tomato seed.


I might ask this in the community there as well. Probably a better place to do so, just haven't gotten around to making an account yet. Probably won't request seeds this year as I'm maxed out on growing space. Probably done spending money on seed for a good while, so I'll also probably make a donation that'll hopefully at least cover shipping or help the non-profit expand or grow in some way. Not a big donation, but I'm sure others will be donating if they haven't done so already.

Mother Gaia is distributed, generous, and abundant. We intend for the organization to function in a similar manner.

We have already done a trial run of the Landrace Seed Share. People that contributed seeds got first choice for what they wanted to receive in return. Then people actively participating in the community got to request seeds. After the contributors and community were taken care of, then we opened up seed distribution to the general public. People pay for postage when requesting seeds, and may make a donation if they like.

Forum policies are designed to minimize mooching. For example, the seed sharing forums are private, and it's a blunder in etiquette to ask someone to send you seeds from a project that they write about, (unless they volunteer).

The seed sharing network is distributed to minimize work by any particular steward. The network is big enough that seed stewards were inviting local members of the community over for packaging parties. Steward's shipping costs may be covered by the project, though many stewards choose to cover the costs themselves. Eventually, we expect to offer regional or specialty seeds.

Stewards have autonomy to include or reject any seeds that might be sent in. Seeds were sent into the pilot project that horrified me. I fully support the steward's decision to include them in the distributed seed packets. The best thing about this community, is that it challenges me to be consistent with my ideals, and to grow my heart to include phenotypes that I don't favor.

The stewards were conservative this time around, not including relatives that were wild enough to re-introduce bad tastes, poisons, or thorns into our beloved domesticated varieties. I will encourage similar caution next time. My varieties have been tainted enough times by wild relatives, that I don't want to inflict it upon others. There might be a steward one day that specializes in inter-species or wild types.

Thank you for the detailed response.

Happy to know the organization is running well.


I think the only steward I saw that was offering any sort of potential hybrid, was one that mentioned they don't mind occasional Brassica outcrosses.

Kinda wish my Brassica - Raphanus hybrids seed wouldn't have went mouldy. Assuming those might have been welcome to send over.

They were the only ones that kept going moldy despite me cleaning, separating them continuously. Got them around to an F2 since the seeds were also mostly sterile.



But yeah, not planning on sending any potentially contaminated interspecifics unless some steward peaks an interest in them then.

If I have any questions, I'll probably message them directly. Kinda figured people wouldn't appreciate their populations having spiny, bitter, semi fertile hybrids in them.

That project is probably going to take quite some time to get the genes that I want and to use things as bridges. Plus, then shoving out any not so tasty genes.


Also won't be sending any pea sized tomatoes or wilds. I don't think people are looking for those sorts of things.


But again, thanks for the detailed response.

I might have some Malva interspecifics in a year or two. Assuming those would get tossed into a grab bag if I send them over.

I'm speaking 3 times next weekend. All are free, just need to register ahead of time.

Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty UK & Ireland Programme
February 11th at
9 AM Mountain Time

Landrace gardening teaches that plants are stronger, tastier, and more reliable if impure parents are cross-pollinating and undergoing survival of the fittest selection. An heirloom is a variety that was developed long ago, on a far away farm, and has undergone 50 years of inbreeding. Landraces are locally-adapted to current conditions, and have enough genetic diversity to change with the ecosystem.
Get Tickets

Seed Library Summit
February 11th, Saturday
10:30 AM Pacific Time

Landrace Gardening: Finding Peace with Genetic Diversity

Explore the tension between curating heirloom varieties and offering locally adapting modern landraces. Learn some of the benefits and techniques of expanding the genetic diversity of varieties you share in your community. A landrace is a food crop with lots of genetic diversity which contributes to its ability to survive new pests, diseases, or changes in cultural practices or in the environment.
Get Tickets

Going To Seed
The monthly zoom meeting
Landrace Gardening Community
February 12th, Noon Mountain Time

William DeMille, our guest speaker, educates about soil health. I hope that he'll contribute some thoughts about how weeds fit into that philosophy. I had a lovely time exploring William's walipini this week. The get together is free to members of the forum or video course.
Going To Seed

I eat a few leaves per day from this small self-contained hydroponic unit.