Adaptive Agriculture With Joseph Lofthouse & Oxton Organics Tour

Yesterday was such an inspiring day! 

I was lucky enough to get tickets to go to a day with Joseph Lofthouse, who has written the book Landrace Gardening -  Food security through biodiversity and promiscuous pollination. Although he has since used the term "adaptive agriculture" as one that maybe better catches what he is trying to achieve with it. 

 I read his book last year and was inspired by it. I love saving seeds and have done it on a semi serious scale now for the last decade, I probably give away 2,000 packets of seeds a year, through my talks, my sales and at seed swaps. I love sharing them, and I love what I get back in return. 

His methods are different to what I've been taught. With his, you sow a wide range of varieties, so if this was squash you'd select a range of the type you want to grow, from the same family, say Maxima. You'd sow your mix (a grex), which could contain for example - Hubbard, Candy Rooster, Turk Turban, Pink Banana, to name a few. 

Let these grow and see what thrives and what doesn't. Then save your seed from the plants you like. The next year grow them from your saved seeds, and go through your selection process again - you may select for taste (the big growers certainly don't) or size or bug resistance. Save the seeds again, the third year do the same, and keep going, year after year, and you'll end up with a selection of seeds that grow a diverse crop, that are adapted to your growing conditions. 

After the inspiring talk we then got the chance to see some of this in action as Jane, who runs Oxton Organics, walked us around her market garden. It was so interesting to see some of their diverse crops. 

The kale in particular was incredible to see, all sown from seeds they'd saved, the range of colours was great, and to see a few more commercial kales grown nearby that hadn't faired so well with the bugs. As well as this they were in the third year of their squash growing, and they had such a great range of fruits. 

Jane was a great speaker and so into what she was doing there, when anyone speaks with passion it's hard not to be inspired. 

It was great to have a subject I'm so interested in be the focus of a day like this, filled with like minded people who are all into it. It was also great to network and speak to people with such similar interests, I'm hoping to stay in contact with a few and hopefully share seeds in the future. 

A really great day. Thanks to the Gaia Foundation's Seed Sovereignty who organised it.