Heirloom tomatoes should be on your seed list and in your garden plan this year. In the past decade the interest in heirloom seeds – plant varieties that were once grown from seed collected each year and no longer commercially grown – has continued to increase.
Unlike hybrids, the seeds from heirlooms can be collected and planted. The seeds of heirlooms will produce a plant like the parent plant. When you plant seeds from hybrids, you get something very different – usually one of the plants used in the cross to make the hybrid.
I've always grown one, maybe two, heirloom tomato varieties, but this year I dove in "whole hog" and plan to plant six different varieties or about 100 plants. Because the Italians quickly adopted tomatoes after their discovery in the New World in South America, many think tomatoes originated in Italy. If you haven't explored heirloom tomatoes, you will be astonished at the number of varieties out there.
Gardeners plant heirlooms for various reasons; some are ultraistic, like to extend the gene pool since commercial hybrids tend to narrow the number of varieties available. Some are gown because gardeners want to see if they can grow something rare. I grow them to experience the new flavors not listed in the typical hobby gardener seed catalogues.
Hybrids that you see in catalogues, and the hybrids planted by commercial growers, are the result of promotion and the need to pick and ship tomatoes great distances and they still be fresh in the market. The trade off has been flavor. Advertisers have stressed the "continuity of size" for display purposes. To machine pick a tomato that can be shipped from California to New York sacrifices taste for shelf life. Anyone who has visited a farmers market will already know that heirloom tomatoes will not always be uniform, but that the taste can be superior.
Unfortunately, the desire to have uniformity in size has resulted in seed providers to offer hybrids and sacrifice variety. Hybrids produce more consistent yields, but heirlooms can out yield hybrids in some years.
With heirlooms you have a wide variety of seeds from which to choose and after you collect the seed and replant them, over time you will develop plants that are acclimated to your climate.
As you explore the varieties, you will find some will produce in as little as 50 days and others, like Siberian varieties, will set fruit even when the temperature drops into the 30s.
I'd suggest you grow three or four varieties, collect the seed each year and add a few more until you find the three or four you want to grow regularly.
For more info:
http://store.tomatofest.com/category_s/31.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment