Going to Seed Offers Landrace Seeds in Canada
One of the easiest and most effective ways to adapt food crops to specific, local growing conditions is to start with a genetic mix and save seeds from the plants that thrive best in those conditions. This is the theory behind "landrace gardening", where growers breed mixes of plants rather than uniform varieties, and save seeds that capture a wide assortment of genetic traits rather than just those present in a conventional cultivar.
Going to Seed is a growing organization of landrace gardeners and seed savers who select seeds from many places and growers, combine them to create diverse mixtures, and re-grow those mixtures to reveal the traits that best suit each grower's local growing conditions.
"While many important projects are preserving the remaining traditional crop heirloom and ‘landrace’ populations around the world, Going to Seed is unique in focusing on supporting the journey of small food producers as they develop their own genetically diverse, adaptable crop populations that thrive wherever they are. These skills are useful for growers adapting our food system to their own local environments, as well as weather conditions that are changing every year."
~ Going to Seed's web site goingtoseed.org
This year Going to Seed is offering some of its unique seed collections for Canadian growers, for the first time. Among these offerings are:
- Beans
- Broccoli
- Corn
- Cucumber
- Muskmelon
- Squash (maxima or moschata)
- Watermelon
Going to Seed asks gardeners to "Grow these seeds without pampering them, and save seeds from the tastiest, earliest, and healthiest plants. Send some of those seeds back to the program, in order to help other growers access diverse, resilient seed, and earn early access to the next year's collection."
Learn more about this fascinating, and promising, way to think about what a crop variety can be, and how it can create greater food resilience in a rapidly changing world.
~ These ideas are explained fully in Joseph Lofthouse's book Landrace Gardening
~ Going to Seed offers online courses about Adaptation Gardening, and traditional food production practices
~ Seeds are now available in Canada!
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