I was inspired by the posts here I read about landrace gardening. I heard about the concept years ago and I've been saving seeds and replanting them for several years now. This year I've decided to intentionally develop several lines of landrace crops, namely maize, moschata squash and pole beans. My growing area is rather small and shady, so these will be limiting factors, but my soil is great and we usually have sufficient rainfall. Japanese beetles arrived in the area about three years ago and squash bugs are terrible, so I'll be letting resistance to these self select.
On a whim I planted some of my Montana Morado Maize seed very early this year on St Patty's day when I planted my potatoes. I had planted some peas and favas the weekend before. Pushing the season in order to develop varieties that I can get two crops a year from would be awesome. I've seen that there are very early selections of Painted Mountain, and since Montana Morado is from the same lineage, I think I might not be totally crazy.
My main project will be a longer season, more productive landrace corn variety, selected toward very dark outer layers and a dark yellow endosperm. My initial seed selections have been made and are sitting in jars awaiting warmer weather.