Posted on 02/07/2009 7:00:17 PM PST by franksolich
While reading the food section of the afternoon edition of the newspaper, I came across a comment about "heirloom" seeds--not their qualities or anything, but just a suggestion that one hoard a few in a general pantry.
Now, I was born and raised alongside the Platte River of Nebraska, farming country (and then as a teenager, the Sandhills of Nebraska, ranching country), and so matters agricultural and horticultural are not exactly alien things to me.
But on the Head of St. John the Baptist, I must say the first time I ever saw the term "heirloom seeds" was when I first started observing the primitives on Skins's island, in the cooking, do-it-yourself, frugal living, and rural forums.
Really.
I kid you not. I had never seen that term before in my life.
The way the primitives talked about their "heirloom seeds," one milght have reasonably supposed they were talking about a Louis XIV pot d'chambre or a Queen Anne chest of drawers.
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativecave.com ...
“Ping” for the DUmmie ALERT! ping list; it has nothing to do with the primitives on Skins’s island, but maybe some might find it interesting.
tomatofest.com
has great heirloom tomato seeds.
Hi Frank I never heard of heirloom seeds either. Ya learn something everyday on FR. Of course I have gotten to the age where I forget a lot too.
It is, but the perspective of the writer is bizarre to say the least. He writes like he needs a bowel movement.
“Heirloom” plants can be interesting, but if they were so wonderful, there’d have been no need for the hybrids we have today.
Author has no idea whatsoever of the value, need and — in some cases — superior taste of heirloom varieties. This is not a liberal, moonbat plot.
What they’re going on and on about is certain varieties and classics of plants/vegetables/fruits/grains essentially going extinct because the seed production world is always on the treadmill to produce the ‘latest and greatest’ varieties.
Some people with organic fixations go overboard, but it is a valid issue. There’s no reason to give up the varieties and selective breedings that have worked well in the past simply because no one took the time to produce them. A great example from the hay industry: oat hay is pretty good stuff for horses. Years ago, there used to be a variety of hay oat called “Swedish Select” — big, fat beautiful leaves, soft stems, which made for great hay. But the grain production on SS was poor - about 40% of what a common dual-purpose Cayuse oat variety is.
Nowadays, you can’t find Swedish Select oat seed - no matter what you’re willing to pay. Because the grain production was low, the seed production potential was low, so growers quit growing it. I know plenty of hay producers who are wishing that they’d kept back some of the crop to combine off the grain for seed for successive years - they assumed that they’d simply be able to keep getting the seed. Their assumptions turned out to be wrong, and now the variety might well be gone...
If you think you will be able to buy new seeds each year, the hybrids may be a better choice. If you think things are headed downhill, and you’ll need to gather seeds from this year’s garden to make one next year, you definitely want heirloom varieties.
““Heirloom” plants can be interesting, but if they were so wonderful, there’d have been no need for the hybrids we have today.”
One does not cancel the need for the other. There’s need for the hybrids, but there’s also need for a variety. If you narrow all our planted food down to nothing but a handful of hybrids, then you have a much higher chance losing those varieties, either through disease or terrorist attack.
Heirlooms also make for a much more interesting taste spectrum.
Hybrid veggies - especially tomatoes - were developed not always for taste, but for long shelf-life and minimal bruising during transport. Heirloom veggies and flowers are good additions to a garden.
I believe the benefit of using heirloom seeds is that the plants that grow from them will reliably produce seeds that will germinate and produce an identical plant. Hybrid seeds will produce plants just as nice, but they may not be reproducible via the seeds they generate. If one were into “hoarding” the seeds for survivalism, this might be an important characteristic to consider.
My understanding is that unlike hybridized varieties, heirloom seeds can remain viable for extended periods of time.
Mind you, the hybridizing that's gone into modern seeds have improved the plants in both yield & disease resistance, so there's no real logical reason to go with the heirlooms. However, keeping the old stocks alive increases the world's biodiversity, providing potential opportunities for hybrids in different directions than those that have already been tried & developed & that is a net positive.
When my great grandmother died in 96 I got several of her Hostas which are planted in the yard now. I also grow morning glories that originally came from her seed.
Here, there are quite a few home gardeners who use “heirloom seeds.” Tomato seeds used year after year to produce the same strain of tomato. My sister-in-law’s mother uses heirloom seeds from the ‘old country’ of Poland, and every year uses the seeds she produced to cultivate the following years crop. They even plant the seeds indoors on a certain feastday of a certain saint (whom I don’t remember the name of.)
As I understand it heirloom seeds produce plants that produce seeds that will produce more plants. You can't get seeds off from hybrids and so you're forced to keep buying seeds. Think y2k, teowawki and other situations that would make buying seeds difficult.
When I was a kid, we had a patch of scallions like those tomatoes. I don’t know who first planted them. But you NEVER had to do a darn thing to make them grow. Infact, you had to keep killing them or they would take over the entire yard. I remember mowing the patch down to a manageable size every week along with the grass.
And sometimes, we even ate a few of them. They were extra hot, but good.
Some of the wiser agricultural extension services in the country actually subsidize and encourage swapping of heirloom seeds. If your county extension service does not, they may be able to refer you to grower's associations which do.
Tomatoes do fairly well here in SW Pennsylvania and I've swapped heirloom seeds with other hobby growers. For some reason, they are one of the few plants which the verminous rabbits which infest our neighborhood do not bother.
Oh, indeed it is. (if just for the entertainment value of watching you squirm, it is) tee-hee
just kidding, really
I wouldn’t have clicked if I didn’t like gardening!!
mrs
There are also “heirloom breeds” of livestock and poultry. I always thought it would be interesting to raise some of these old-fashioned breeds, just to keep them going for a few more generations.
There are also “heirloom breeds” of livestock and poultry. I always thought it would be interesting to raise some of these old-fashioned breeds, just to keep them going for a few more generations.
<<Learn something new everyday!
There are also “heirloom breeds” of livestock and poultry. I always thought it would be interesting to raise some of these old-fashioned breeds, just to keep them going for a few more generations.
<<Learn something new everyday!
Hubby has PhD in agronomy, so I appreciate the value of various hybrids that are disease resistant, early season/boutiful producers, etc. and plant them in my garden.
That said, I also plant from heirloom seeds as they do offer seeds for future seasons and distinct tastes that the hybrids don’t. Sometimes the heirloom plants just germinate from seed on their own in my garden.
I think there is place for both, tho heirloom seeds could be used in event of seed shortages, etc.
I’ve been told by the elderly Italians in my neighborhood that I grow better tomatoes than they do. I plant several rows, a variety in each. all else the same, I am convinced 12+ hours of sunlight per day is the secret. All my tomatoes taste the same; just like you sprinkled sugar on top of them.
If the commercial growers and the seed suppliers had their choice, I believe all tomatoes (does that “E” preclude me from being VP?) would be cubes when ripe.
““Heirloom” plants can be interesting, but if they were so wonderful, there’d have been no need for the hybrids we have today.”
Ahhhh. An opportunity to enlighten.
Heirloom plants have one thing that hybrids lack - a diverse gene pool.
Did you know, for instance, that the soy beans in production today all stem from just 6 varieties? If you eliminate the rest of the entire gene pool diversity of
thousands of varieties of plants, what do you do when an
unexpected virus, or pest comes along in the future?
The short answer is to watch your production plummet to near
zero.
Each heirloom has genetic diversity and carries attributes
we well may need some day.
Not to mention superior taste.
For supermarkets, tomatoes that ripen all at once are great.
Except they suck.
Heirloom seeds are generally open pollinated (vs. hybrid) varieties that are at least 50 to 75 years old depending on your definition.
I grow almost exclusively heirlooms. There’s no comparison to hybrids. Hybrids yield better and earlier, but don’t compare in taste.
Some links:
www.rareseeds.com
http://www.gourmetseed.com
http://www.comstockferre.com
http://www.johnnyseeds.com
http://www.landrethseeds.com
http://www.fedcoseeds.com
a more comprehensive list:
http://www.halcyon.com/tmend/links.htm
http://www.rareseeds.com. My bad.
When I was a kid we had a patch of scallions...
I would almost bet you had what we called winter onions. They were mild enough in the spring but became hotter as summer progressed. Ours reproduced by producing small sets on the top of the stalk, then when the stalk matured and bent over, that set would settle on the ground and grow into a new plant. Then the mother plant died down and early in the fall you would have a repeat of the young onion, which again was tender and not hot.
I grow heirloom tomatoes every year, the flavor is fantastic. They’re more susceptible to blossom end rot and they crack more, but more than surpass hybrids in taste.
Besides, we don’t really want a world where all seeds and all crops are controlled and engineered by ADM and Monsanto, do we?!
Ed
Granny, I thought you might enjoy this thread.
If I remember correctly there are only 2 corporations providing seeds. The hybrids developed for commercial growers have commercially important characteristics but next generation seed development is not one of them — an important point if we have to grow our own food. Another point is homogeneity and the danger of weather, disease destroying the entire crop. I believe that was the problem with the Irish potato famine. In SA where potatoes were discovered there were about 600 varieties. In Ireland there was only one.
Heirloom seed / garden ping. My wife ordered some heirloom tomatoe seedlings on the net last year. They were a real bust. I’d like to get some actual seeds, not seedlings.
You can’t go wrong with Seed Savers. I worked for them for the happiest 7 years of my work life, and I was just e-mailing back and forth with Diane last night. :)
I’m placing a Seed Savers order today for:
430 - Golden Sunray (and awesome slicing yellow tomato)
1234 - Purple Russion (Dark paste-type)
1453 - Powers (yellow paste)
18 - Black Plum (dark purple paste-type)
439 - Federle - wonderful red paste-type
(Other recommendations are ‘Opalka’ paste, and ‘Cherokee Purple;’ a purple slicer that stays green at the shoulders and has a wonderful, earthy, smoky flavor. Love it!)
I’ll also do a few regular red slicing types from my current company, Jung’s (the Goliath series are good) and I’m growing out ‘Chocolate Cherry,’ ‘Sunsugar’ and ‘Viva Italia.’ I’m growing out a few from Burpee, too; ‘Tangerine Mama’ and ‘Razzmataz.’
I can get all the tomatoes I want from work, but there are some favorites from other companies that I try not to be without.
Sworn to fun, loyal to none!
But the above paste varieties are terrific for salsa and sauces; I’ve grown them with great success for many years. My garden was a test plot for Seed Savers back in the day, so I’ve grown out just about all of their seeds, except the very newest, ‘old’ discoveries.
I’m seeing a jump in seed sales at Jung’s; had a terrific seed sales day yesterday. People are taking this seriously, and I predict my veggie and herb seedlings will fly out of here when I open the garden yard in mid-April.
http://www.seedsavers.org
http://www.jungseed.com
I called several nurseries last year, and found some at one that is about 20 miles from my home. I knew I'd be heading that way the following weekend, so I stopped in to get some. They had sold out the first Saturday.
I picked up some Burpee Celebrity seeds and have them just starting to come up. We had better luck with home grown plants than we had with nursery seedlings last year.
I try to grow flowers each year and am attracted to “heirloom” varieties because they seem sturdy. They may not be the prettiest or micro-tailored to some climate, but they often meet my criteria of low maintenance. They survive my tendancy to kill plants.
I’m talking hollyhocks, four-o’clocks, etc.
‘Celebrity’ is a great variety. My FIL sold those tomatoes at Market for many, many years.
He still grows it, but he looks forward to the ‘weird’ tomato plants I give him each season, LOL!
Husband and his brothers are having a “Tomate-Off” this year. Most pounds of tomatoes from ONE plant. That should prove interesting. *SMIRK*
I love the zerbra and purple heirloom’s with olive oil and fresh basil....Mmmmmmmm can’t wait for my local farmer’s batch.
Vegetables that grow well elsewhere do poorly at my place (high altitude, strong sun, low humidity and water, short growing season), so I have tried a number of heirloom items with success.
Antique own root roses seem to be more successful under these conditions as well.
Ditto...’two thumbs up, way up’ for Seed Savers!
The popularity of heirloom roses has been on the rise for about fifteen years now, but it’s only been in the last year or so I’ve noticed cooking programs and forums discussing the virtues of heirloom veggies.
I haven’t tried any of the heirloom vegetables, but I will soon. Just as hybridization of roses took away most of the fragrance away for the sake of consistent visual perfection, I can believe that the hybridization of vegetables may have resulted in the sacrifice of flavor.
I had not heard of heirloom meat and poultry before. Hopefully Bobby Flay or Emeril will use it soon. That seems to get new things into the supermarkets faster than anything.
It’s my understanding that heirloom varieties produce seeds that perpetuate for generations, unlike some hybrids that cannot produce good seed.
I once grew a grapefruit tree from a hybrid seed, and that tree produced no fruit.
I couldn’t tell ya. Don’t remember that well. but it doesn’t seem possible to me. They grew so dense that there was no available space between bulbs. It SEEMED like they were reproducing underground, and just splitting off new roots.
Does “paste” varieties mean those tomatoes are best suited for sauces? (I apologize if this is a stupid question!)
I grew my first ever tomatoes last year, and they turned out quite well for my “maiden voyage.”
I bookmarked the Seed Savers site. I think I’ll copy some of what you’re ordering and try a few more like the Purple Cherokee. :)
You said it better than I. I was sort of astounded that some folks just assumed saving “heirlooms” was some sort of liberal movement. Instead, it’s simply common sense.
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