Joseph Lofthouse

I planted about 378 tomatoes. Four wild species. Domestic tomatoes, and crosses between them.

I love using little disks, made from terra-cotta clay. We dry them in the oven before use.

My upcoming book Adaptation Gardening contains an entire story-chapter about dealing with slugs, because I encountered the same concern over and over while visiting gardens in Europe. Some gardeners fought slugs constantly—with traps, copper, pellets, fences, scissors, and endless vigilance. Others seemed to have very few slug problems at all.

What interested me most wasn’t a product or trick. It was the ecology of the garden itself.

The gardeners with the fewest slug problems tended to grow in messy, biologically rich systems—dead hedges, logs, fungi, beetles, birds, frogs, centipedes, groundcovers, no-till, mixed plantings, and plenty of habitat for predators. In those gardens, slugs still existed, but they rarely became overwhelming.

I’ve started using more of that approach on my own farm—less “war against pests,” more “invite a larger community into the garden.”

Not an overnight answer, unfortunately. More of a long-term shift in relationship with the garden ecosystem.

I grow them neglected in my bedroom. They might never flower for me.

I planted some a few years ago.

Timed the tomatoes perfectly—6 weeks old for transplanting outside next week.

One year old grape cuttings.

I move my garden towards perennials, trees, and bushes, because of reduced weed pressure compared to annual gardens.

If you want to weed, I recommend doing it often—taking out tender weeds early rather than waiting till they grow larger.

Thanks for the grow report.  I sent you farmer favorites from last year. Your germination rates roughly match what other growers report. [Lesson for next year—test germination before sharing].

Use your best judgment on whether to replant. I'd love if you did.

Grains!? What a huge topic.

The grain called corn produces huge yields with minimal labor. A simple, hand cranked, hundred year old sheller can process hundreds of pounds per hour.

The grain rye grows wild in my community without irrigation, without weeding, without planting. It self-grows as a feral food. Harvest goes quickly.

A 13 foot long row of wheat provides 5 pounds of grain for me, which could feed me bread for a week. It takes me an hour to harvest and clean with simple tools like a stick, tarp, and a couple of buckets. So in 50 hour week, I could harvest and clean enough wheat to feed myself for a year.

I grow oats, but haven't fallen in love with productivity or processing.

Barley seems hard for me.

I can't grow rice.

I might could grow sorghum, millet, amaranth, or kinwa grains, but I didn't grow up with them as part of my social indoctrination.



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The intentional communities I respect the most create clear pathways both for joining and for leaving. They protect members, both temporary and long-term, and compensate them fairly when life gets in the way. That matters just as much as the original vision.

Many durable communities use some form of share structure where people gradually acquire equity—through money invested upfront, incremental payments, labor contributions, infrastructure building, or some combination of those. Sweat equity matters deeply in land-based projects, because years of labor can transform raw land into a functioning ecosystem and home.

The strongest models include a buyout mechanism if someone leaves. The community buys back the shares according to a pre-agreed formula. That protects individuals from losing years of labor or investment if circumstances change. It also protects the community from rogue shareholders, absentee owners, divorces, inheritances, personality conflicts, or ideological schisms destabilizing the whole project.

I trust communities more when they openly design for failure modes instead of pretending harmony will last forever. Humans survive because we build systems that expect storms, injuries, disagreements, burnout, death, breakups, economic downturns, and changing priorities. Redundancy, exit routes, and conflict procedures do not weaken a community. They allow it to survive reality.

A transitional phase makes practical sense. A lease, trial residency, tiny house arrangement, temporary stewardship agreement, or incremental buy-in allows everyone to test compatibility before land titles and finances become deeply entangled. Emotional enthusiasm routinely outruns structural clarity. Good contracts slow people down enough to see each other clearly.

I also respect models that balance collective responsibility with meaningful personal autonomy. Shared kitchens, tools, water systems, governance, orchards, workshops, or agricultural infrastructure can coexist with privately stewarded homes, gardens, businesses, and creative spaces. People cooperate better when they retain meaningful sovereignty over part of their lives.

To me, resilient community design resembles ecological design. Diverse systems survive disturbance better than rigid systems. Healthy structures expect turnover, adaptation, and succession from the beginning. The goal does not center on building a system that never changes. The goal centers on building a system that can survive change without tearing itself apart.