Heirloom Gardening

[sleepyfairy]

Heirloom plants are those that haven't been standardized by scientists or commercial growers, but that come from small communities and are bred manually and naturally, so they may not be uniform. They're usually defined as plant varieties that existed before the 1940's when people began looking for more uniform produce that can be farmed for a bigger yield at the expense of taste (which is why I think any supermarket vegetable advertised as "GMO free" is a misnomer, but that's a subject for another time).

A lot of heirloom strains are dying out because in a lot of places it's illegal to sell the seeds (particularly in Europe), which is a shame because even though they tend to be more varied in output they're often much more flavorful than the commercial varieties.

Does anyone here focus on heirloom vegetables? Over the last couple of years I've taken an interest in it and this year I procured a number of seeds from one of the local mennonite families. The girl said that she's glad more people have taken interest in heirloom growing in recent years. They're only labeled like "carrot" or "cabbage" so I'm really looking forward to seeing what I end up with! If so, what do you grow?

Comments

[3rdragon]

I do! I mostly get my seeds from Baker Creek or Southern Exposure, but we do have one tomato that I got from my landlord, whose father brought it over from Italy about a hundred years ago. Unfortunately I'm not a great seed saver because our yard is tiny and it's hard to keep seed separated for anything that cross-pollinates.

In tomatoes, I'm very partial to Brandywine and Green Zebra, but they aren't wilt-resistant and die mid-summer in our garden, so we're only planting one of each. One of our new audition tomatoes is a Mortgage Lifter that's supposedly wilt-resistant, and Ten Fingers of Naples, which might be.

We're trying a whole bunch of lettuces, machê and claytonia (miner's lettuce), Zucchini Rampicante, and a couple other C. moschatas.

We're also growing Marketmore 76 for cucumbers; Cossack Pineapple ground cherries; Tonda di Parigi carrots; onions: Walla Walla Sweet, New York Early, and the ones that aren't Red Winchester; and some other things I'm not remembering right now.

I'm Mennonite! But not the kind who farms (despite what my neighbors would have you believe).

[sleepyfairy]

I had to look up Baker Creek and they look great! I just bookmarked the page. I can't see whether they ship to Canada but I do hope so!

I want to grow brandywine tomatoes next year, but sadly I need some new grow grates for them, so it'll have to wait. I just moved my entire garden so I need to get it established before I try anything too new. We once had farm fresh brandywines from a side-road stall a couple years ago and they were amazing, so I've been wanting to look into that.

Which is your favorite lettuce to grow? :O

[3rdragon]

Be warned: Baker Creek is dangerous. So many seeds, so many colors . . .

We just got the lettuces last fall and didn't get them in the ground soon enough to get a fall crop, so I don't actually know. Baby Oakleaf (I think) was the only one that grew at all, and then most of that died when it got covered in snowmelt ice, so we are eagerly anticipating our first spring harvest. I'll keep you posted.

[sleepyfairy]

Excellent! Looking forward to the outcome! :D

[3rdragon]

Oh, and beans! How could I forget the beans? While not Heirloom Bean People, we do have a few. We grow Queen Anne cowpeas, Small Red beans, Scarlet Runner beans, and a couple of random farmer's market ones that we forgot the names of. I don't have a favorite of those yet because last year we made the mistake of trying to plant them among the zucchini, so they were pretty shadowed for the first half of the season, and then late fall was very warm and wet and a lot of our harvest molded on the vine instead of drying out. But the Scarlet Runner bean that went up a floor and a half to the second floor balcony was pretty impressive.

And Shronce's Black peanuts, which so far have produce very, very small harvests, but that we keep planting for the cool factor. (Weird-looking plants. And we grow our own PEANUTS!)