That’s a good question, but I can’t really answer it. Reading over not just this but a lot of other threads I’m often confused about who and what is under discussion. Are we talking about:
*people who have never gardened before?
*people who have gardened but never saved seeds?
*people who have saved some seed but are afraid varieties will get mixed up?
*home gardeners or farmers?
*market farmers or big scale farmers?
*saving the world?
*growing some vegetables?
What and who else, and who is (we)?
Wow fascinating! My gut feeling is theres an answer that answers all of those sub questions?
Something like how do humans strengthen their relationship with plants? … i’m not sure but i am going to think on it
And maybe how that question would then inform the use of pamphlets or seed libraries would be to make all forms of gardening more accessible to people and encouraging people that gardening is for them no matter where or how they live. And i think that way, pamphlets might not be about landrace gardening, they would be more along the lines of “you too can garden” or “not all gardens look like grandmas garden” and landrace would be one of the philosophies that would make that possible for the most people.
That’s a great illustration! I bet a lot of parents see this in raising their children, too. It’s very common for one parent to be “nicer” and one to be “stricter,” even when they’re equally loving and their approaches are equally healthy for the children. My husband and I often have different approaches to how we raise our children, and I’ve learned that he’s just as good of a parent as I am – probably better! It’s okay to have different styles and types of relationships. That happens with personality. In fact, it’s supposed to happen.
We all learn best (and I think “we” includes plants, too!) when there are many different personalities we learn from.
I love this idea. And it would also be a great blog post, and I’d like to include something like this in my next presentation. But I would struggle to write something like this. Would you want to take a stab at it? Or let me know how I can help.
1 Like
My mother tried to introduce the idea of landrace saving at her retirement home where there is a big community garden. She took what I wrote and made it much more basic. Some gardeners are very interested but it can easily be overwhelming. I found the same thing with a couple of the local libraries that are considering starting a seed library. I think landrace seed saving projects would have a warmer reception in existing seed libraries where the basics of seed saving education have already been covered.
It seems to me that the best thing to do to help gardeners around the world, would be to make the whole thing much much simpler and set up individual pages by crop with:
-1 or 2 sentences defining landrace
-1 or 2 sentences on how to pick seeds and plant, say carrots, to begin a landrace project
-1 or 2 sentences on how to harvest seed from carrots
-a more detailed (optional: for plant geeks) section with links on:
-male sterility
-planting distance
-etc,
If it were super simple and each crop had it’s own page, these links (as downloadable PDF’s) could be sent around the country to existing seed libraries with a suggestion that each town develop their own “Smalltownname Squash”, say. Then the following year they could introduce a new crop etc…once that idea has been introduced gardeners can pursue it further on their own.
Sure, I can write up something and see what you think!
1 Like
As someone who is just starting gardening landrace is so exciting to me! My parents gardened when I was a kid and so did my grandma, but I get so overwhelmed with you need this fertilizer and this soil and this ph level and all these other things… I’m so excited to put my landrace watermelons in the ground and just kind of let them go. I’m going to till the soil once and do minimal watering and that’s it to them to try to pick seeds out of the hardiest ones.
My observations are
- There are gardeners who don’t like to take risks in their variety selection, and there are gardeners who enjoy trying new things. I, personally, for years have tried a couple new tomato varieties alongside my favorites every year. About every 4 years I find something I really like that goes into the “workhorse” category. I’ve also found some that I really like but aren’t great in my climate, but I’ve got them flagged for if I were ever to move. I know other people who only grow one variety and are stressed by the idea of growing anything else, even if it comes highly recommended by a neighbor.
- Many seasoned gardeners are, for any number of reasons, hesitant to change their methods. My mom isn’t the only person who insists that she must rototill her garden every year. Some people are insistent that tomatoes must be pruned. Among seed savers, there is often a strong habit towards purity. Some of these methods have some backing in the literature, at least in some conditions, others don’t. But they all “stick” as the one right way.
- Continuing the theme of the right way, many new gardeners feel like they have to get it “right” and are a bit fearful of doing something wrong and ending up with a catastrophe. There’s something cultural at play, plus some serious marketing of tools and potions and methods. Building a landrace, intentionally letting some plants die, and letting crossbreeding go wild all go against this.
Here’s the most recent version of this resource booklet with some of the language from here incorporated (thank you!):
Resourse Booklet for local communities
On Monday Anna M and I were in the SF Bay Area doing a presentation and workshop to a group of 40ish gardeners in an urban area. It was framed as a community /collaborative seed saving project. They were surprisingly receptive to the information excited to get started. This is the third presentation I’ve done in a local community, so I feel like I can make some generalizations at this point.
-
Plenty of people showed up (more than were expected)-- Is this is because of the language in the poster?-- ie it’s a project we do together, not a presentation that you have to suffer through.
-
Most people in the audiences were excited about participating in the collaborative seed saving, they didn’t leave after part 1.
-
Hardly anybody signed up for the course after being excited about the topic in the workshop (1 out of 40ish). A few people went to the website afterwards and bought seeds.
Point three has been the most interesting to me. People who would never go online or search out this information, and haven’t yet saved seeds, are really excited to get started with landrace gardening when it’s a community project, and they have almost zero interest in going beyond that (reading the book, courses, online community etc.)
Problem with this model as it is now is that it’s not scaleable. The in-person part feels important (including presenter). And having diverse seeds available for them to get started with also felt important. Or is it scaleable? Love to hear ideas.
That is a great idea to do that! To me, i think i would count that as a super successful event from what you have described. I think if all 40 people joined this online community, and that trend continued with every event you did, this community would quickly become unwieldy and lose some of the effectiveness. It would be hard to keep up with all the different conversations and have good participation from so many contributors. Plus, i think people will vary on if they want to connect across the world, but i think the more who participate in their local community seed saving projects the better. And i think one or two people from a community can serve as a go between between wider knowledge or cross ecosystem sharing, and the localized community efforts. I think the two approaches can complement each other and it strikes me that this hands on, local outreach might be much more effective and important than the online community.
In fact, i think people not wanting to read the book is actually quite in line with josephs philosophy. As the desire to do it yourself, and experiment and do what you think you need based on your own common sense, is the same sentiment that joseph says about how our ancestors were illiterate and did not yet understand dna or microbes, but bred the best plants.
As far as scalability, i think its only scalable if you have a pyramid structure and allow other people to start holding their own sessions however they wany to do it. But it might not need to be scalable, as wider understanding of these philosophies will spread and there will probably be a grassroots rise in seed saving and local adaptation…
The only marketing I’ve found works for my books is to do things I want to do anyway, and mention my books to anyone who seems like they may be interested. I bring it up only when it seems like it may be relevant or welcome, and I otherwise just try to be helpful whenever opportunities arise.
I’m trying to figure out how to scale that-which-works up without taking more of my time. An excellent newsletter which a casual reader can subscribe to and follow for years has worked. My newsletter program broke and would cost too much to fix, however, so I’ve put it on the back burner and am just updating Patreon for now. When I find a better newsletter program, I plan to go back to doing it.
I honestly may ditch publishing my books to retailers altogether in the future (except for the paperbacks), and just make the e-books completely free to download on my website. I’m seriously thinking about it. I would prefer for my readers to get everything of value that I can offer for free and then choose, voluntarily, to give something back in return. I think that’s a superior system.
I was told once that if you invite 10 people to a party, one will show up. I don’t do parties, but it seems to run true in other things. You talk to 100 people, 1 acts immediately, 4 talk about it, but of the remaining 95, 10 are thinking and planning.
On the other end, one is loudly against whatever it is, 4 scowl and exchange glances, and 10 just sit there thinking you’re stupid.
But you’ve planted seeds, and those seeds may or may not germinate later.
Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. Just be nice to everybody and extend the invitation, let them decide what they want to do about it, and keep on doing the same thing. Your analogy of planting seeds is very apt.
We’re in phase 2 of applying for a grant to fund an expansion of the 4 pilot ‘community seed projects’ that are going on in CA and OR this year. The next phase is a lot of writing! So if you want to help do some grant writing, editing, or be part of the ‘team’ or an ‘advisor’ (need people for both on the application and so far is flexible as to what those roles mean), let me know. It’s due on the 14th, I’m getting started tomorrow.
Hi Julia,
I’d be glad to help out. If you have, say, a list of what is needed I could tell you where I might fit in the best.
Lots of questions:
Who is the hoped for funder of the grant? Government, business, non-profit?
Is it a competitive grant, with others applying for the same pot of money?
Sounds like it requires a narrative. What are parameters of that?
Is community support required? For example, letters of support from business or community leaders?
Does it require matching funds from other sources?
What are the funders expectations of follow up, reports on progress and so on?
Is a detailed budget justification by line item required?
Thank you. I got quite organized about this. Testing my new template for projects that require document sharing and communication. Here is the page with all the background, and what to do for anyone who wants to join the team. Either the grant team, or how it unfolds, since there’s more interest in this than other projects I’ve worked on so I plan to get it funded regardless …
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_xX1hHzDZRre_-lqKfuqtmFVz8ioTt7F4ZMwU-b1c0Q/edit?usp=sharing
Lots of questions:
Who is the hoped for funder of the grant? Government, business, non-profit?
This particular grant is private, it’s the JMK Innovation Prize. But regardless if this gets funded, I’m going to use the language and everything else that comes out of this to apply for other funding.
Is it a competitive grant, with others applying for the same pot of money?
Yes it’s really competitive. But my first letter of intent surprisingly made it into the top 10 %. It’s so competitive that I wouldn’t spend the time, especially this time of year, but I need the external pressure to come up with a proper plan to actually make it happen.
Sounds like it requires a narrative. What are parameters of that?
Sounds like you want to write something!! My link above has all the questions and details.
Is community support required? For example, letters of support from business or community leaders?
No, but that probably wouldn’t hurt, if you’re offering.
Does it require matching funds from other sources?
No, but matching grants always good. We recently got a grant to support farmers, but I’m not officially announcing that 
However, this grant is large and long term. Now that I feel like there’s an idea that people like, I’m hoping we can pursue other funding and proceed next year with the plan no matter what.
What are the funders expectations of follow up, reports on progress and so on?
It’s general funding for an organization, no requirements.
Is a detailed budget justification by line item required?
No, but a general budget overview and narrative is required.