In January 2023, a couple dozen community members attended a talk on Landrace Gardening by Julia Dakin in our library’s community room. After the presentation, there was a discussion about working towards creating some diverse, resilient crop varieties adapted to the unique climate and pressures found in Covelo/ Round Valley.
If you missed the presentation, a Landrace is a locally adapted, genetically diverse, promiscuously-pollinating, community-selected variety.
To create a Landrace, start with local varieties of heirloom and open-pollinated varieties and allow crosses. Don’t coddle your plants (no pesticides or treatments) and allow natural selection to create a variety that fully adapts to our climate, our soils, our pests, and our diseases. Save seeds from the survivors (especially any that thrive and fruit early) and repeat.
You may also want to explore Going to Seed. Here, you can sign up for the free Landrace Gardening course, join in community discussions about landrace gardening, and access free seed mixes with which we can jumpstart our own landrace seed collections: Landrace Seeds
Katie and Noah, Joe, Brandon, Blaire, Sherrie, and Pat have offered to be Seed Stewards. Their job will be to collect what seeds they can from the crop(s) they grow, mix that with donations from other growers in the area, and package it up for dispersing at a seed swap next January.
If you aren’t a Seed Steward, we still want you to participate! Anyone in the community can contribute seed – and we hope all of you will! Grow the crop you are going to save seed from without isolating or coddling it.
Exception: exclude seeds from those from these potentially undesirable crosses: sweet corn with flour corn, and sweet peppers with hot peppers.
If you are going to donate Kale seed, do not use any hybrid or F1 brassicas in your garden, and don’t use any purchased brassica transplants. This includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collards, kale, kohlrabi, turnip, and rutabaga. Saving seed from commercial brassica hybrids can introduce cytoplasmic male sterility into our seed lines.
Before Halloween, clean, dry, and package up your contribution in a Ziploc bag (include our standard donation form so we know what it is and where it came from) and drop it off to the tub under the seed library’s seed catalog. Stewards will collect, mix, and package the seed for our seed swap early next year. Contributors to the Round Valley Landrace program will have access to these first-year landrace seeds before the public.
Resources if you want to start the season with already genetically diverse seed:
You can also use the search terms: landrace or grex on the site of your favorite seed company. Because Joseph Lofthouse lives in a short season, hot-summer day, cool-night region, the seeds for the crops he has bred may do well here; using his name in the search might give results.
Questions you may have the answers to:
How do we communicate/support each other during this program?
How do we get questions answered as they come up?
Send ideas and comments to roundvalleyseeds@gmail.com.
All the crops chosen by the community last Saturday are judged by Joseph Lofthouse as “Very Easy” or “Easy” to develop Landraces from, except for artichoke which isn’t touched upon in his book, Landrace Gardening.
Information taken from page 128 of Landrace Gardening, 2021
*Kale, like other brassicas, are self-incompatible when it comes to pollination. Freelance hybrids are easy to create by planting exactly one of each variety to be crossed.
**Commercial hybrids are often made using cytoplasmic male sterility, so avoid using commercial F1 hybrids when developing a landrace to avoid introducing this trait. (Because your plants won’t produce seeds that will work.) In looking at Joseph’s chart this trait seems common in commercial hybrid seed for the brassicas, lettuce, root crops, and sunflower.
Information on saving seeds for the project: Corn –Zea mays Seeds accepted: Flour and Sweet corn accepted. Please label collections with those types. Please ensure that sweet corn seed is not mixed or cross-pollinated with flour types. Seed Saving Instructions: Follow dry process and seed drying guidelines. Make sure seeds are thoroughly dried. This can be tested by hitting a seed with a hammer which should cause the seed to shatter.
Cucumbers –Cucumis sativus Seeds accepted: All cucumber varieties, mixed or pure. (Except Armenian Cucumber, which is a type of melon.) Seed Saving Instructions: Allow the chosen fruit to remain on the plant until it becomes large and yellow. Further maturation is recommended (3 weeks) until the cucumber softens (but don’t allow it to decompose). Remove the seeds from the cavities of the cucumbers and allow to ferment 1-3 days. Add water, agitate, pour off floating skins and any seeds that didn’t sink. Repeat several times until the water is clear, then pour into a strainer. Follow seed drying guidelines.
Kale – Brassica oleracea and napus Seeds accepted: Any open-pollinated kale or collard. NO F1 hybrids which can introduce male sterility genes. Because this species includes many crops including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, etc., please do not allow any F1 hybrid brassicas in your garden to flower this year. Seed Saving Instructions: Follow dry process guidelines. Be sure to fully dry seeds and freeze to kill pests.
Melons – Cucumis melo and Citrullus lanatus Seeds accepted: Muskmelon (Cucumis melo), watermelon (Citrullus lanatus). Please label collections with species. Include brief notes on direct seed vs. transplant, planting times, days to maturity, and inputs, if any. Seed Saving Instructions: Follow wet process and seed drying guidelines. Viable Cucumis melo seeds will sink. Watermelon seeds should sit in juices/water for 2-3 days, then rinse and strain – seeds will not sink.
Peppers – Capsicum annuum Seeds accepted: All Capsicum annuum. Please separate and label sweet vs. hot and note any special characteristics of the varieties you’re including. Be sure that you have isolated sweet peppers from hot peppers, either by a space of 20 feet or more, or by mechanical means during pollination. Seed Saving Instructions: Allow the chosen fruit to remain on the plant until it becomes completely ripe and begins to wrinkle. Remove the seeds from the peppers, remove any that are damaged or discolored. Follow dry process and seed drying guidelines. Dry seeds will be quite brittle and will not dent when you bite them.
Processing and drying seeds Dry Process Allow the pods to dry on the plant (preferably) and harvest them individually. Another option (especially if a frost or heavy rain is imminent) is to pull out the whole plant with its seed pods, and hang the plant to dry. As the plant dies, the seeds continue to mature and gain strength. Thresh seeds by putting the pods in a burlap sack or pillowcase and stomp on it so that the pods crack open. Be careful not to damage the seed coats of beans, as any damage will reduce germination significantly. Separate seeds from chaff by screening and/or winnowing.
Wet Process Cut open the fruit or vegetable and remove the seeds. Wash the seeds. Place the seeds with pulp in a large bowl or bucket. Add twice as much water as the seed/pulp mix and stir vigorously. Good, viable seeds are more dense and will sink to the bottom; poor quality seeds tend to float. Pour off the floating seeds and debris and add more water. Repeat the process until only clean seeds are left. Then pour them into a strainer and wash under running water. Dry the seeds. Wipe the bottom of the strainer to remove as much moisture as possible. Thinly spread the seeds onto a glass or ceramic dish, cookie sheet, or window screen. Do not dry on paper as the seeds may stick. It is important to dry seeds as quickly as possible, because warm, wet seeds will start to germinate or become moldy. Stir the seeds several times a day to aerate.
Fermentation Process Remove the seeds and mix them with enough water to cover by about an inch. It is fine if the seeds and water are mixed with some of the flesh of the fruit or vegetable. Allow the seeds to ferment for 1-4 days. When a layer of white or gray mold has formed on top of the water—this mold breaks down inhibitors to germination such as the gel sac around tomato seeds—the fermentation is complete. Add more water, swish it around, and pour off the mold and pulp. The viable seeds should sink to the bottom (bad seeds will float). Set seeds on a plate or screen to dry thoroughly.
Seed drying (applies to all three processes) All seeds should be thoroughly dried, as quickly as possible. Spread seed in a single layer, and dry at a temperature below 95 degrees F/ 35 degrees C, out of direct sunlight. A dehydrator is great, if the temperature can be set to 90 degrees or lower.
Round Valley Landraces Project
In January 2023, a couple dozen community members attended a talk on Landrace Gardening by Julia Dakin in our library’s community room. After the presentation, there was a discussion about working towards creating some diverse, resilient crop varieties adapted to the unique climate and pressures found in Covelo/ Round Valley.
If you missed the presentation, a Landrace is a locally adapted, genetically diverse, promiscuously-pollinating, community-selected variety.
To create a Landrace, start with local varieties of heirloom and open-pollinated varieties and allow crosses. Don’t coddle your plants (no pesticides or treatments) and allow natural selection to create a variety that fully adapts to our climate, our soils, our pests, and our diseases. Save seeds from the survivors (especially any that thrive and fruit early) and repeat.
Here is a link to the presentation: Grow and Save Resilient, Regionally Adapted Seed. And here is a link to a succinct resource guide to Landrace Gardening: Cultivating Diversity.
You may also want to explore Going to Seed. Here, you can sign up for the free Landrace Gardening course, join in community discussions about landrace gardening, and access free seed mixes with which we can jumpstart our own landrace seed collections: Landrace Seeds
Katie and Noah, Joe, Brandon, Blaire, Sherrie, and Pat have offered to be Seed Stewards. Their job will be to collect what seeds they can from the crop(s) they grow, mix that with donations from other growers in the area, and package it up for dispersing at a seed swap next January.
If you aren’t a Seed Steward, we still want you to participate! Anyone in the community can contribute seed – and we hope all of you will! Grow the crop you are going to save seed from without isolating or coddling it.
Exception: exclude seeds from those from these potentially undesirable crosses: sweet corn with flour corn, and sweet peppers with hot peppers.
If you are going to donate Kale seed, do not use any hybrid or F1 brassicas in your garden, and don’t use any purchased brassica transplants. This includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collards, kale, kohlrabi, turnip, and rutabaga. Saving seed from commercial brassica hybrids can introduce cytoplasmic male sterility into our seed lines.
Before Halloween, clean, dry, and package up your contribution in a Ziploc bag (include our standard donation form so we know what it is and where it came from) and drop it off to the tub under the seed library’s seed catalog. Stewards will collect, mix, and package the seed for our seed swap early next year. Contributors to the Round Valley Landrace program will have access to these first-year landrace seeds before the public.
Resources if you want to start the season with already genetically diverse seed:
Questions you may have the answers to:
Send ideas and comments to roundvalleyseeds@gmail.com.
All the crops chosen by the community last Saturday are judged by Joseph Lofthouse as “Very Easy” or “Easy” to develop Landraces from, except for artichoke which isn’t touched upon in his book, Landrace Gardening.
*Kale, like other brassicas, are self-incompatible when it comes to pollination. Freelance hybrids are easy to create by planting exactly one of each variety to be crossed.
**Commercial hybrids are often made using cytoplasmic male sterility, so avoid using commercial F1 hybrids when developing a landrace to avoid introducing this trait. (Because your plants won’t produce seeds that will work.) In looking at Joseph’s chart this trait seems common in commercial hybrid seed for the brassicas, lettuce, root crops, and sunflower.
Information on saving seeds for the project:
Corn – Zea mays
Seeds accepted: Flour and Sweet corn accepted. Please label collections with those types. Please ensure that sweet corn seed is not mixed or cross-pollinated with flour types.
Seed Saving Instructions: Follow dry process and seed drying guidelines. Make sure seeds are thoroughly dried. This can be tested by hitting a seed with a hammer which should cause the seed to shatter.
Cucumbers – Cucumis sativus
Seeds accepted: All cucumber varieties, mixed or pure. (Except Armenian Cucumber, which is a type of melon.)
Seed Saving Instructions: Allow the chosen fruit to remain on the plant until it becomes large and yellow. Further maturation is recommended (3 weeks) until the cucumber softens (but don’t allow it to decompose). Remove the seeds from the cavities of the cucumbers and allow to ferment 1-3 days. Add water, agitate, pour off floating skins and any seeds that didn’t sink. Repeat several times until the water is clear, then pour into a strainer. Follow seed drying guidelines.
Kale – Brassica oleracea and napus
Seeds accepted: Any open-pollinated kale or collard. NO F1 hybrids which can introduce male sterility genes. Because this species includes many crops including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, etc., please do not allow any F1 hybrid brassicas in your garden to flower this year. Seed Saving Instructions: Follow dry process guidelines. Be sure to fully dry seeds and freeze to kill pests.
Melons – Cucumis melo and Citrullus lanatus
Seeds accepted: Muskmelon (Cucumis melo), watermelon (Citrullus lanatus). Please label collections with species. Include brief notes on direct seed vs. transplant, planting times, days to maturity, and inputs, if any.
Seed Saving Instructions: Follow wet process and seed drying guidelines. Viable Cucumis melo seeds will sink. Watermelon seeds should sit in juices/water for 2-3 days, then rinse and strain – seeds will not sink.
Peppers – Capsicum annuum
Seeds accepted: All Capsicum annuum. Please separate and label sweet vs. hot and note any special characteristics of the varieties you’re including. Be sure that you have isolated sweet peppers from hot peppers, either by a space of 20 feet or more, or by mechanical means during pollination.
Seed Saving Instructions: Allow the chosen fruit to remain on the plant until it becomes completely ripe and begins to wrinkle. Remove the seeds from the peppers, remove any that are damaged or discolored. Follow dry process and seed drying guidelines. Dry seeds will be quite brittle and will not dent when you bite them.
Processing and drying seeds
Dry Process
Allow the pods to dry on the plant (preferably) and harvest them individually.
Another option (especially if a frost or heavy rain is imminent) is to pull out the whole plant with its seed pods, and hang the plant to dry. As the plant dies, the seeds continue to mature and gain strength.
Thresh seeds by putting the pods in a burlap sack or pillowcase and stomp on it so that the pods crack open. Be careful not to damage the seed coats of beans, as any damage will reduce germination significantly.
Separate seeds from chaff by screening and/or winnowing.
Wet Process
Cut open the fruit or vegetable and remove the seeds.
Wash the seeds. Place the seeds with pulp in a large bowl or bucket. Add twice as much water as the seed/pulp mix and stir vigorously. Good, viable seeds are more dense and will sink to the bottom; poor quality seeds tend to float. Pour off the floating seeds and debris and add more water. Repeat the process until only clean seeds are left. Then pour them into a strainer and wash under running water.
Dry the seeds. Wipe the bottom of the strainer to remove as much moisture as possible. Thinly spread the seeds onto a glass or ceramic dish, cookie sheet, or window screen. Do not dry on paper as the seeds may stick. It is important to dry seeds as quickly as possible, because warm, wet seeds will start to germinate or become moldy. Stir the seeds several times a day to aerate.
Fermentation Process
Remove the seeds and mix them with enough water to cover by about an inch. It is fine if the seeds and water are mixed with some of the flesh of the fruit or vegetable.
Allow the seeds to ferment for 1-4 days.
When a layer of white or gray mold has formed on top of the water—this mold breaks down inhibitors to germination such as the gel sac around tomato seeds—the fermentation is complete. Add more water, swish it around, and pour off the mold and pulp. The viable seeds should sink to the bottom (bad seeds will float).
Set seeds on a plate or screen to dry thoroughly.
Seed drying (applies to all three processes)
All seeds should be thoroughly dried, as quickly as possible. Spread seed in a single layer, and dry at a temperature below 95 degrees F/ 35 degrees C, out of direct sunlight. A dehydrator is great, if the temperature can be set to 90 degrees or lower.