Joseph Lofthouse

author & steward
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since Dec 16, 2014
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Biography

Joseph Lofthouse grew up on the farm and in the community that was settled by his ggg-grandmother and her son. He still farms there. Growing conditions are high-altitude brilliantly-sunlit desert mountain valley in Northern Utah with irrigation, clayish-silty high-pH soil, super low humidity, short-season, and intense radiant cooling at night. Joseph learned traditional agricultural and seed saving techniques from his grandfather and father. Joseph is a sustenance market farmer and landrace seed-developer. He grows seed for about 95 species. Joseph is enamored with landrace growing and is working to convert every species that he grows into adaptivar landraces. He writes the Landrace Gardening Blog for Mother Earth News.
Farming Philosophy
Promiscuous Pollination and ongoing segregation are encouraged in all varieties. Joseph's style of landrace gardening can best be summed up as throwing a bunch of varieties into a field, allowing them to promiscuously cross pollinate, and then through a combination of survival-of-the-fittest and farmer-directed selection saving seeds year after year to arrive at a locally-adapted genetically-diverse population that thrives because it is closely tied to the land, the weather, the pests, the farmer's habits and tastes, and community desires.
Joseph lives under a vow of poverty and grows using subsistence level conditions without using cides or fertilizers. He prefers to select for genetics that can thrive under existing conditions. He figures that it is easier to change the genetics of a population of plants than it is to modify the soil, weather, bugs, etc. For example, because Joseph's weeding is marginal, plants have to germinate quickly, and burst out of the soil with robust growth in order to compete with the weeds.
Biodiversity
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Cache Valley, zone 4b, Irrigated, 9" rain in badlands.
Apples and Likes
Apples
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In last 30 days
12
Forums and Threads

Recent posts by Joseph Lofthouse

Choose one of the states with food freedom laws.

In Utah, we can sell food direct-to-consumer, without any licenses, inspections, or regulations. (Milk and some types of meat don't qualify.)




This week, German joined the family of translations of Landrace Gardening.

I sure feel grateful to the community and translators that made this possible.

20 hours ago
The sugar in apples (and carrots) ferments to alcohol, which ferments via mother into vinegar.

5 days ago
Yes, the seeds fall right through my screen, but the screen holds the seeds in place, so that the shoe can abrade the hull.

I really like planting grains in rows, just wide enough apart that I can weed them easily with my wheel hoe. For self-seeding rye, I run a cultivator through the field to make rows 30" apart and about 4" wide.
I recommend growing a different variety of wheat for next year.

If you really want to grow wheat with tightly adhering hulls, you might try more vigorous threshing methods. One time, I dumped wheat kernels onto a 1/2" screen, sitting on a table top. Then used a rubber-soled shoe to thresh. This avoided damaging the kernels, but got aggressive enough to remove the husks.
I have about 90 frost free days per year. The beans experience blazing hot sunny days. Chilly radiant cooled nights. Super low humidity. We might have a thunderstorm once or twice a summer. Otherwise, no rain falls, and I irrigate regularly during the growing season.

I likewise select for the semi-vining trait. Perhaps more accurately, the beans self-select for the semi-vining trait, because they out-compete the weeds better.
3 weeks ago
Here's another naturally occurring hybrid.
4 weeks ago
These all descended from one seed. This represents the entire harvest of the F2 generation, grown in 2019. Many of these varieties still grow in my landrace.
4 weeks ago
Here's the 2019 sort.
4 weeks ago
Here's the sorting from 2018.
4 weeks ago