Heirloom Vegetables

There are many definitions of what heirloom plants are. The term 'heirloom' is generally reserved for plants grown from seeds saved by private gardeners through many generations.

Heirlooms have generated a lot of interest from
resourceful gardeners recently because people are tired of the bland tasting tomatoes and other vegetable selection in the grocery stores.

Seeds of heirloom varieties generally have one or more desirable qualities such as superior taste, texture, color, flavor, growth vigor, or superior cooking qualities.

Another reason why heirloom vegetables are favored by consumers is the trend towards buying locally from small family farmers in our own localities rather than buying produce shipped from thousands of miles away.

In order to produce great quantities of vegetables on a large scale, these vegetables have been bred and
selected for qualities that matter most to big time growers and producers. They are interested in the ease of harvesting esp. by machines, and transport durability.

Therefore, breeding selection for machine-adapted plants has been focused on creating  tomatoes with tough and thick skins that do not bruise easily. They are also bred to ripen at the same time for machine harvesting; and then the produce is shipped before they are fully ripen.

At their final destination, they are exposed to ethylene gas to induce ripening before being sold to the consumer.

To maximize production and promote consumer appeal, during growth these vegetables have been sprayed with pesticides against bugs and diseases to minimize surface blemishes.

This explains why tomatoes from your local grocer are
tasteless and lack good texture.

It is hard to describe the superior flavor and texture of
your own garden-grown tomato that is grown without
pesticide sprays and chemical fertilizers.

It is definitely worth your time and effort to grow your
own.

One real advantage of propagating and maintaining
heirloom plants is keeping for posterity the diversity of
valuable genetic material.  This genetic material can be lost forever if not maintained and kept.

Heirloom vegetables are usually open-pollinated which
means that pollination occurs naturally; assisted by
insects, birds, wind or by other natural means.

Some vegetables are self-pollinated which means that
they can pollinate themselves with the pollen in the same flower. Some flowers are already self- pollinated even before the flower opens.

To maintain seeds through the generations that are true to original type, a single variety of wind or insect-pollinated plant should only be planted during the season.

You need to do this because pollen of one variety of
vegetable can cross-pollinate to a different variety of the same kind of vegetable. Growing only a single variety of  plant during the growth season ensures that the same characteristics as the original parent plant are maintained.

One big drawback of heirloom seeds is usually their lack of resistance to diseases unlike the commercially available F1 hybrid seeds.

Some self-pollinating vegetables are:

beans, eggplant, lettuce, peanuts, peppers, peas, and
tomatoes. They are usually self-pollinated, but sometimes bees and other insects cross one variety with another, if similar varieties are planted too close by. So plant different varieties at least 10 feet apart.

Vegetables that are wind-pollinated or insect pollinated are  beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, melons, squash, onions, pumpkin, radish, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips.
With these vegetables, you should only plant one variety during the growing season. 

A more time consuming way is to enclose each individual flower
in a little bag before flowering and then hand-pollinate
the flowers. This way you can grow several varieties
at the same time.
 

Another method is to stagger the growing of different varieties so that the different varieties do not flower at the same time.
 

Differences between Heirloom and Commercial
Varieties

The differences between heirloom and commercial varieties are obvious.

Commercially bred varieties are pulpy and bland tasting. They have been bred for uniformity in all characteristics.

Heirlooms come in all shapes, sizes, color and other qualities.

Industry demands ease of machine harvesting for mass production. So shape, transport and storage qualities, are most important with taste genes ranked low in importance. Physical shape and tough skin are characteristics  important in mass production because machine harvesting requires that the fruit be of uniform shape and withstand rough handling.
Square or angular-shaped tomatoes are bred specifically to facilitate machine harvesting.

Many commercial varieties are hybrids with disease resistance genes for Fusarium spp. or Verticillium spp. wilt disease  bred in. This is one good thing about these varieties.

Hybrid seeds will not breed true to type. If you grow seeds taken from a hybrid plant, all the plants grown from these seeds will be different from the plant where it was originaly from.

Heirloom seeds on the other hand are highly variable in characteristics, and usually do not carry disease resistance genes.

Heirloom seeds and seeds from historic plants are readily available at several seed nurseries and at several heritage gardens around the country.

                                  

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