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

[cyprinella]

I'm doing a lot of upper south selected plants from Southern Exposure Seed exchange this year. Their farm is like 90 miles from my house so I figure it's more likely to do well than something farmed in another region. I love heirloom catalogs for this kind of focus!