Heritage/Heirloom Varieties

[alan refail]

I wonder what forum members' experiences are of so-called heritage/heirloom varieties.

As I understand it, these are old varieties, by definition open-pollinated, which have special qualities.

I have grown a great number of heritage/heirloom varieties over the years, mostly from HDRA Heritage Seed Library, but some from commercial seed merchants.

Just a few of my experiences:

French Beans: Many good varieties from HSL, the best being Ryder's Top of the Pole - a very quick climber making long pods of meaty beans which stay stringless for longer than most. At maturity produces large white beans for shelling and freezing.
Many others from HSL disappointing and soon stringy.
The Prince: an old dwarf bean, available from most commercial seedsmen; quick and grows well late in the season.

Tomatoes: Most of the larger fruited heritage/heirloom have proved tasty but more prone to disease than modern varieties. Little can beat F1 Sungold.

Potatoes: Most of the oldest varieties I have grown have been very good, except such "rarities" as Congo and Highland Burgundy Red.

Courgettes and squashes: old Italian varieties of courgette (Lungo Bianco, Nero di Milano etc) have been excellent. Of pumpkins there is nothing to beat F1 Crown Prince.

I could go on (and on!), but what are your thoughts?

[Geoff]

I thought you would have had a reply by now.
Old varieties get discarded for a reason, what that reason is greatly affects the validity of reintroducing them. So first try to think why a variety has fallen out of favour :
Doesn't travel well - could well still be worth growing for local use
Not good looking - could be worth growing if the flavour is great
(Same could apply to variability in shape or colour)
Prone to disease - why struggle when there is no need to
Low yielding - why bother if it has no redeeming characteristics
Not as good as it was - the trueness of a variety can be compromised so it is not as good as it used to be

You can probably think of others but generally I think varieties are superseded for good reason and there is little point in going back.

[Nature's Babe]

I love the old fashioned tall peas, victoriana springs to mind, very productive, lovely flavour and keeps cropping if you keep picking. I like heritage varieties for several reasons, I can save seed which is cheaper than buying new every year. With tomatoes, yes there may be slight variations but if you are careful saving seed from the tastiest most productive plants one can improve a strain, also it adapts to local soil and conditions if grown every year and heritage seeds have given me no cause for concern with disease they are all flourishing. There is a wider variety of taste colour size and shape in the different heritage veg and one can choose what pleases. I even save lettuce seed and am amazed at the quantities they produce. I don't save carrots as these can cross with wild relatives My gripe with modern varieties are they are developed mostly for big commercial concerns and they seem more concerned with perfect looks, that they travel well, and all seem to crop together to make it easy for commercial harvesting; as a home grower my priorities are taste, tenderness, staggered crops not glut then nothing, and variety. I have used some modern varieties, sweetcorn for example and just go for what I like from both with an open mind, without discounting either.

[alan refail]

Although a long-standing member of the Heritage Seed Library - I have grown more old varieties than I can shake a pea-stick at - I remain very wary of the use of the words "heirloom" and "heritage". It may just be a result of my natural cynicism, but they seem to be used as though they invest the plants with some sort of automatic or mysterious superiority over "modern" or "new" varieties. It smacks too much of the use of fashionable buzz-words in advertising - currently "green", "eco-friendly", "sustainable" seem to be well up the list. But there I go - cynicism again!

Varieties have been lost for a number of reasons:

a) because they are of poor quality, disease-prone etc. These deserve to be consigned to horticultural history

b) because they fall out of fashion for one reason and another. If they are good varieties they deserve a chance to be reassessed and grown

c) because they have been deleted from seed companies lists due to the high cost of maintaining them (registration fees, low sales volume etc). The best of these deserve to be maintained

[PLUMPUDDING]

I always grow seeds saved from my favourite "heritage" plants, but don't exclude trying new F1 types if they sound good.

My favourite tomatoes are Cornu des Andes and Double Rich for flavour - great both for cooking and salads. Kenilworth King George is the best flavoured salad tomato I've grown, and I'm growing on a sweet cherry tomato which is from a selection of seeds produced from the f1 Sungold. This is the fourth year, but the seedlings are still quite variable for fruit shape and flavour. Black Plum is my favourite "black" tomato with a lovely rich slightly smokey flavour.

Robinson is a lovely tall pea, very productive and keeps its sweetness even when large. Cordoba is a very productive dwarf french bean masses of small slim stringless beans for months on end, and my favourite climbing french beans are Mr. Fearn's purple flowered, Cosse Violette and District Nurse, they are all very productive and stringless, and the District Nurse beans are delicious dried in stews too if you let them dry.

As for potatoes, if you like pink mash Highland Burgundy Red is a novelty and produces medium sized potatoes. They've done very well this year but I find it is worth trying all varieties of potatoes that you grow at different times after storing as the flavour changes, some improve and some aren't so good. These get sweeter which I like. Salad Blue makes tasty navy blue mash, or they are good cold sliced with salads (it isn't a salad potato as such though) as the blue colour really stands out if you cool them in their skins.

Fortyfold has a very good nutty taste and they produce huge numbers of smallish potatoes, and if you can get some Orion they make the smoothest good tasting mash of all, and I'm not just saying that because Alan Romans says so. I also grow Desiree, Charlotte and Marfona which have also done very well this year. There are a few others I've tried which are OK, but not outstanding. They all keep growing well from seed potatoes I select before storing, but if they lose vigour I'll get some new seed and start again. Oh and despite what people say about the flavour I like Sarpo Axona. They aren't a bit watery and are very tasty with butter or a bit of Mayonaise as jacket potatoes, and they keep until summer in store without sprouting.

I've not noticed any being particularly prone to disease and I've not found any of the new ones, except Sungold, to have anywhere near as good a flavour. If you just save the best seed from the best, most vigorous plants and look after it properly there shouldn't be any problems.

[Colin_M]

I think the only ones I've grown that fall into this category are:
- Telegraph Peas (from RealSeeds.co.uk)
- Crown Prince (I agree with your rating)
I assume that Marina di Chioggia would also qualify (as a traditional variety) and I got my seeds from Seeds of Italy.

Each of the above has grown without any real problems and produced results which were delicious and made me want to grow them again.

Having said that, F1 Sungold tomatoes are something I'd never grow tired of (even if I can't save the seeds), so maybe it's horses for courses?

[Mike Vogel]

I've just joined the HSL and I hope that what I'll be able to grow are old varieties which for one reason or another are not commercially desirable.

The reason normally cited for the rarity of these varieties is that commercial growers need varieties which can be relied on to ripen uniformly, attractively and at the same time. They can then make a bulk harvest and sell on, using the ground immediately for the next crop. Varieties which ripen at different rates do not free up the field quickly enough; those that don't look nice or appear peculiar don't sell. The other category comprises varieties which, though delicious, have proven susceptible to disease.

[Johnboy]

Hi Mike,
I would suggest that to a degree you are correct about commercial strains used today but only to a degree.
Most of the seeds in the Heritage Collections are those that used to be in the home gardener catalogues and lost favour.
The seeds of yesteryear that were of real importance are still here today eg, Scarlet Emperor Runner Bean, Hollow Crown Parsnip, Half Long Parsnip and even Canadian Wonder Dwarf Beans and several varieties of Pea were all about in the latter part of the 1800's and there are many more.
I agree that with open pollinated varieties you can save your own seed but this is not always the best thing to do.
I wonder just how many seed savers there are on this forum who save any Brassicas seeds or Carrots or Parsnip.
This year Mike, who has an allotment on my plot, has saved Half Long Parsnip seed. This Parsnip, which is a very broad, about 4" across at the top and only at most 6" long but the taste is something to be believed (seeds available)
I have been growing the very tall Pea very kindly sent to me by Clive
which is called Radio which is not on sale and doesn't appear in any catalogue. The tallest this year is about half an inch off 9ft. Picking from step ladders earlier on this week! (and fell off!) superb taste and what a crop! I should have some spare seed as I am growing some as designated seed because last year I committed a blear and picked the whole lot out by mistake.
Certainly there are a few Heritage Seeds that are worth growing but many of them deserve to be where they are in the bin really.
JB.

[Geoff]

Having cleaned up my Strawberries by cutting off the old foliage and weeding my natural inclination was to give them a bit of a feed and mulch but I decided to check my library first. I got distracted by looking at recommended varieties and thought it would be interesting in this thread.
1. "RHS Growing Fruit" Reprinted 2010 but lineage seems to go back to 1980.
Honeoye, Elvira, Tamella, Royal Sovereign, Cambridge Favourite, Elsanta, Hapil, Cambridge Late Pine, Pegasus, Symphony, Rhapsody.
2. "RHS Fruit Garden Displayed" 1974 edition but first published 1951
Cambridge Prizewinner, Gorella, Cambridge Rival, Grandee, Cambridge Vigour, Royal Sovereign, Gigana, Cambridge Favourite, Redgauntlet, Talisman, Montrose, Elisata, Cambridge Late Pine.
3. "Fruit Cultivation for Amateurs" 1951
Royal Sovereign, Sir Joseph Paxton, Bradley Cross, Early Cambridge, Madame Lefebvre, Oberschlesien, Huxley, Climax, Perle de Prague, Cheddar Early, Tardive de Leopold, Western Queen.
4. "An Encyclopedia of Gardening by WP Wright" 1913
Royal Sovereign, Sir Joseph Paxton, Reward, Bedford Champion (bred by OH I believe), Givon's Late Prolific, Trafalgar, Grove End Scarlet, Vicomtesse Hericart de Thury.

So which of these are worth resurrecting as heritage varieties? Anybody grown anything other than the obvious ones from these lists?

Incidentally the consensus was don't feed now.
1. potash January, sulphate of ammonia April if plants weak.
2. potash after cleanup, i.e. now.
3. sulphate of ammonia, potash, superphosphate (i.e. general) early spring.
4. well dressed annually (I think it means manure and guess Spring), liquid manure in summer, potash and superphosphate in February.

[Primrose]

Over the years I've been given small quantities of seed & tried growing various Heritage tomatoes whose names I can't now remember. Perhaps I've was unlucky with them but my main complaint was the poor yields. Some of the bigger varieties only had one or two tomatoes per truss although the flavour was fine. If you have a large amount of growing space and are a amateur grower, I guess yield is not necessarily an issue, but when you can only grow a certain number of plants, this does rather concentrate the mind on getting a good ratio of flavour to yield.
For that reason, with most other vegetables I've tended to stick to the tried and tested varieties which have worked for me in the past, although I'm always happy to sow a small amount of Heritage seed if I can get hold of it easily and it looks an interesting variety.