Ok, I’m trying to learn something new. My friend Lamont grew an heirloom tomato this spring. I have avoided heirlooms because I thought they were more susceptible to disease, so I waited and watched to see how Lamont did with them in his Tucson garden. Nothing… no news about blight, tomato septosporia, leaf spot, nothing. Then, he gave me one to taste… yummy. Now, I’m researching growing information and varieties for myself and find the disease thing to be quite debatable. Good.
So, let’s talk tomatoes. Heirlooms.
To understand heirlooms, I needed to understand hybrids. Hybrids are the result of crossing two different parent types…and this is tedious and difficult to do, because tomatoes are self-pollinating. Meaning the flower contains both male and female parts and as the flower opens, they pollinate themselves. To produce a hybrid you have to trim away the male part of the flower (before the pollen becomes viable), leaving only the female part. Then you take the male part of the other parent plant and hand pollinate the female part of the plant you just…um… “circumcised”. Now you know why hybrid seed is more expensive. Somebody wants to be paid to do this stuff. Celebrity is a hybrid tomatoe variety I found at our local Home Depot.
Anyhoo, once a hybrid has been stabilized, meaning it produces the same plant and fruit from year to year, it’s called open pollinated. This is where heirlooms come in….heirlooms are open pollinated varieties that have been around for more than 50 years…according to most experts. Some of those experts say much longer and no commercial production must be included in that definition. Whatever people…
Heirlooms generally have more flavor than hybrids–and that answers the question why most tomato growers eventually fall in love with heirlooms. They, the heirlooms, (as well as the gardeners), are very diverse in size, texture, color, shape and flavor. So, how do I choose? I don’t know how you’re gonna do it, but I’m gonna taste every heirloom I come across and grow one or two I hear about. A few I’ve read about include: 1. Cherokee Purple–purple colored, extremely sweet and meaty flesh. 2. Kellog’s Breakfast–golden yellow, dense and richly flavored. 3. Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter–large, red, marbled flesh with balanced flavor. (You gotta read the story behind this one. Charlie was pretty smart and had money problems.) 4. Brandywine–red with green shoulders, intensly flavored. Definitely a favorite with lots of gardeners.
Most heirlooms are indeterminate. They just keep on growing until they die. I like that…good strong work ethic. A thing to be admired. And, get this, the more foliage they produce the better the flavor because the leaves manufacture sugars and acids that end up in the fruit. Nice to know, since I like to leave the leaves on my plants as protection from the sun… Also, heirlooms are generally thinner skinned and softer than hybrids so they are more susceptible to cracking and bruising. That makes them unpleasing to commercial growers. I’m ok with that. They usually need staking and tying like crazy, and don’t yield as much as hybrids, but that is partly why their flavor is more intensely concentrated. Some varieties, like Brandywine tend to have imperfect flowers so they don’t self-pollinate as readily as others. Now, I’m more than ok with that, in fact, I’m intrigued. I think I can do this.
Think I’m gonna find some Brandywine for my first foray into heirlooms, or maybe a totally green fleshed variety like Evergreen (which has a hint of citrus).
I visited the new Farmers Market yesterday and found an Arkansas Traveler which is an heirloom small red, indeterminate tomato plant, I’d say 6-8 weeks old. I planted it today in a pot that is probably 8-10 gallon size and shaded it, just for a couple of days until it is nicely established in its new home. Was hoping to find a place in the ground to put it, but while the sun shines on all my garden now, it will move in a couple months to it’s winter sky, leaving me with mostly shade, so pot it will have to be. This is my first heirloom, but I’m still looking for a Brandywine….it seems nobody has tomato starts right now. In a couple of weeks they’ll be everywhere….I hope. Just a bit hot still during the day, but the nighttime temperatures are becoming more “friendly”.
The Arkansas Traveler will travel no more. It died a sudden and peaceful death. Don’t know if it wasn’t hardened off, (since I acquired it at the farmers market), or if it is still just too hot for baby tomatoes…..Sad, but I still have two heirloom varieties I’m growing from seed. Heard from some midwestern gardeners that tomato blight is rampant in the rain-soaked areas of the midwest and some northern states. They say it is so bad that even the growers for plant markets won’t have as many tomato plants to offer, and even if they did, you should be very particular which ones you are willing to purchase and take home since this blight can last for years in the soil, once it is established. Another reason to practice crop rotation.
I’ve got some Estevia starts that need new homes. That’s a red slicing heirloom tomato that I’m growing from seed. They were started on August 5th, so they are still young, but old enough to begin hardening off. They should be ready to go into the ground by September 1, if I keep them on schedule.
Got all my Estevia tomato starts planted now. As well as 3 yellow tomatoes. Total of 8 planted. It was my first home-grown seedlings. Not as hard as I thought. I’m taking the last 2 over to my Mom and sister on Saturday. Think I’ll do that again in the Spring, so save some room if you’d like some, since it makes sense to me to plant more than I want for myself….(in case they don’t all live).