Landrace Gardening

Food reliability matters more than ever. Joseph Lofthouse taught landrace gardening at conferences hosted by the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance, National Heirloom Expo, Organic Seed Alliance, Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA-NY), and Utah Farm & Food Conference. He serves as World Tomato Society ambassador. "Landrace Gardening is brilliant. It's a love story! And 2 parts gardening handbook. There are so many revelations I don't know where to begin? AMAZING. In every way this is a book for the ages. Bravo Joseph." Dan Barber, Blue Hill At Stone Barns, and Row 7 Seed Company. "There is magic in the way Joseph Lofthouse marries his no-stress approach to gardening with such deep love and passion. This book is as much a gardening manual as it is a re-framing of our relationship with each other and the world. Landrace Gardening gives us a roadmap to the kind of joyful food security that we need for healing many of the most important wounds of our time." Jason Padvorac"Joseph Lofthouse has a focus upon something that all gardeners should know: Landrace varieties are the way to sustainability. The best part is that everything in his book is adaptable for any gardener. No high level knowledge of botany or chemistry is required. The versatility and diversity of growing landrace plants speaks for themselves." Jere Gettle- Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. "The western sustainable agriculture movement has long needed its own version of the 'One Straw Revolution'. Joseph Lofthouse provides just that. With revolutionary gusto based on heretical thought and age old human gnosis. In Landrace Gardening, Food Security... Lofthouse steps firmly into the role of Iconoclast and elder seed shaman." Alan Bishop, Alchemist at Spirits Of French Lick

How to grow food when you can't buy seeds, fertilizers, or pesticides. Bringing dynamic back into vegetable gardening, seed saving, and breeding of plants and animals. A joyful and accessible approach to growing tasty, productive, and resiliently diverse food. Advocating a return to traditional regenerative horticulture methods of gardening and farming, while minimizing the use of industrialized methods. Focusing on communities, and local varieties of crops and animals. Biodiversity and cross pollination allow selection for crops that thrive under ever changing conditions, lessening the need for costly inputs, like poisons, fertilizer, materials, and labor. Less labor means more time for friends, family, music, dancing, and joy. The book includes detailed suggestions for developing a more reliable food system using local crop varieties. The techniques taught in this book can bring self-reliance and sustainable food security to small scale back yard beginner gardens, large scale farms, and permaculture food forests. A chapter discusses pollination and the benefits of encouraging cross-pollination. Chapters deal with breeding tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, and grains. Includes tips on growing many other vegetable varieties. The appendix includes a summary of which vegetables and grains work easiest with landrace gardening. One chapter extends the principles of local gardening to breeding chickens, honeybees, mushrooms, and trees. Reviews "The best part is that everything in this book is adaptable for any gardener." Jere Gettle, founder Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co., North America's largest heirloom seed company. "Landrace Gardening is brilliant." Dan Barber, James Beard Foundation top chef in America in 2009. Row 7 Seed Company "Under the same condition he was once gifted a guitar, Joseph offers us Abundance for as long as we keep learning to play within it." Heron Breen, Fedco Seeds, Organic Seed Alliance board member "Landrace Gardening gives us a roadmap to the kind of joyful food security that we need for healing many of the most important wounds of our time." Jason Padvorac. Padvorac Farm "The western sustainable agriculture movement has long needed its own version of the 'One Straw Revolution'. Joseph Lofthouse provides just that. " Alan Bishop, Alchemist at Spirits Of French Lick "Awesome to see this process beginning to work in just one year." Josh Jamison, HEART Village

"[Book title] is the definitive guide to plant breeding and seed saving for the serious home gardener and the small-scale farmer or commercial grower. Discover: how to breed for a wide range of different traits (flavor, size, shape, or color; cold or heat tolerance; pest and disease resistance; and regional adaptation); how to save seed and maintain varieties; how to conduct your own variety trials and other farm- or garden-based research; how to breed for performance under organic or sustainable growing methods."--Back cover.

The Tao of Vegetable Gardening explores the practical methods as well as the deeper essence of gardening. In her latest book, groundbreaking garden writer Carol Deppe (The Resilient Gardener, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties) focuses on some of the most popular home garden vegetables--tomatoes, green beans, peas, and leafy greens--and through them illustrates the key principles and practices that gardeners need to know to successfully plant and grow just about any food crop. Deppe's work has long been inspired and informed by the philosophy and wisdom of Tao Te Ching, the 2,500-year-old work attributed to Chinese sage Lao Tzu and the most translated book in the world after the Bible. The Tao of Vegetable Gardening is organized into chapters that echo fundamental Taoist concepts: Balance, Flexibility, Honoring the Essential Nature (your own and that of your plants), Effortless Effort, Non-Doing, and even Non-Knowing. Yet the book also offers a wealth of specific and valuable garden advice on topics as diverse as: - The Eat-All Greens Garden, a labor- and space-efficient way to provide all the greens a family can eat, freeze, and dry--all on a tiny piece of land suitable for small-scale and urban gardeners. - The growing problem of late blight and the future of heirloom tomatoes--and what gardeners can do to avoid problems, and even create new resistant varieties. - Establishing a Do-It-Yourself Seed Bank, including information on preparing seeds for long-term storage and how to "dehybridize" hybrids. - Twenty-four good places to not plant a tree, and thirty-seven good reasons for not planting various vegetables. Designed for gardeners of all levels, from beginners to experienced growers, The Tao of Vegetable Gardening provides a unique frame of reference: a window to the world of nature, in the garden and in ourselves.

Explains how to use a system of layered mulch materials, including newspaper, leaves, and grass clippings, to provide a nutrient-rich base for healthy gardens and robust flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits

National policies to support the conservation and use of landraces in production systems for sustainable agriculture.

"Landrace Gardening is brilliant. It's a love story! And 2 parts gardening handbook. There are so many revelations I don't know where to begin? AMAZING. In every way this is a book for the ages. Bravo Joseph." Dan Barber, Blue Hill At Stone Barns, and Row 7 Seed Company. "There is magic in the way Joseph Lofthouse marries his no-stress approach to gardening with such deep love and passion. This book is as much a gardening manual as it is a re-framing of our relationship with each other and the world. Landrace Gardening gives us a roadmap to the kind of joyful food security that we need for healing many of the most important wounds of our time." Jason Padvorac"Joseph Lofthouse has a focus upon something that all gardeners should know: Landrace varieties are the way to sustainability. The best part is that everything in his book is adaptable for any gardener. No high level knowledge of botany or chemistry is required. The versatility and diversity of growing landrace plants speaks for themselves." Jere Gettle- Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. "The western sustainable agriculture movement has long needed its own version of the 'One Straw Revolution'. Joseph Lofthouse provides just that. With revolutionary gusto based on heretical thought and age old human gnosis. In Landrace Gardening, Food Security... Lofthouse steps firmly into the role of Iconoclast and elder seed shaman." Alan Bishop, Alchemist at Spirits Of French Lick "Awesome to see this process beginning to work in just one year." Josh Jamison, HEART Village"Severe weather patterns impact our crops and gardens, but Joseph's book shows us, in simple terms, how to breed resilience into our favorite food plants. In these pages, he explains the steps for becoming your own seed breeder and highlights the easiest crops to begin with. His brilliant breeding work, briefly but vividly captured here, inspires us to try our hand at it, and to have loving patience for what will unfold." Merlla McLaughlin, editor