Heirloom Vegetable Workshop

Saturday, 21-Jan-2012, Dexter

Presenter: Tom Roberts, Snakeroot Organic Farm in Pittsfield. www.snakeroot.net

Sponsor: Dexter-Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) dexterareatransition@gmail.com

WHAT ARE HEIRLOOM VEGETABLES?

You can think of heirlooms as the antiques of the vegetable trade. Exactly what is and what is not an heirloom can be almost as difficult to define as what is and is not an antique. Generally heirlooms do have a few things in common: they are open pollinated (that is, they are not hybrids), they have been saved by some group of people for generations because of some of their good qualities, and they come in a bewildering array of choices. Like an antique, a real heirloom should have a minimum of a 50-100 year history because people who love it have been saving it at least that long. Heirlooms have been saved for all sorts of different qualities . . . if you were saving seeds from your garden plants, what qualities would you be selecting for? Probably some combination of flavor, color, size, earliness, lateness, hardiness, lack of stringiness, resistance to drought and disease, yield, storage ability, and other such qualities.

Hybrids (F1) vs. Open Pollinated (OP): Whenever you see “F1” next to a variety name, this means that variety is a hybrid. A hybrid is a human-done crossing of two varieties of the same species, using the same pollination techniques the plant normally uses, except now we determine which two particular parent varieties are crossed. This is done by hand with a Q-tip, and is very labor-intensive. The offspring, the “first filial” or F1, is a new variety with predictable qualities. The second generation (“F2”) will display huge variations and is why saving seeds from hybrids is usually not done. Not until the seventh generation (“F7”) will the variety again become stable.

Open pollinated means we let nature take its course, and the plant reproduces without human interference. With some plants this produces wild new varieties; these are the “out-crossers” whose flowers tend to share pollen, and hence genes, with flowers of plants of the same species. Other plants will produce flowers that tend to self pollinate (“the “selfers”), and thus the parent's genetic makeup is preserved unchanged into the next generation.

“Open pollinated” doesn't necessarily mean “heirloom”, but most heirlooms are open pollinated.

Some heirloom vegetables may have many more qualities that irk the gardener than the more recent introductions do. Some heirlooms have not been significantly improved over their history, while other have been vastly improved and considerably diversified.

WHY GROW HEIRLOOMS?

Compared to hybrids, heirlooms provide an amazingly wide variety of choices, each of which has been preserved for generations by amateur seed savers because it provided certain qualities they treasured. Since seed saving and variety selection is a world-wide phenomenon, heirlooms often present us with the widest range of genetic variation within each vegetable.

Since heirlooms are self-pollinated, they do not require costly hybridization procedures, and hence their cost of production is among the lowest for that type of veggie. This low cost also means they are less attractive for the big seed companies to keep them in their catalogs, since less money can be made on them. Often growers like myself will buy them once, and if we like them we simply save our own seed, never to buy them again. Fortunately there is a new breeds of seed companies and seed saving organizations that are looking to preserve the genetic heritage represented by heirlooms rather than looking to make the most money by producing seeds that growers must re-purchase every growing season. Therefore heirlooms are far more widely available today than they have ever been.

Growing each heirloom variety also connects us with the long history of the people who developed that variety. Even though their actual identity may be long lost to history, their work lives on in that heirloom. Our admiration of and gratitude for that work is displayed whenever we plant the seeds resulting from their labors.

RECOMMENDED VARIETIES

Two factors have increased the availability of heirloom varieties in the past 30 years. One is a general increase in the public's appreciation of the wider variety of shapes, sizes, colors, textures and flavors that heirloom varieties provide. The other is an avalanche of new trade between heirloom seed savers in the former Soviet Bloc and those in the West. And of course these two phenomena grow with each another through mutual feedback loops.

Tomatoes: are selfers, so 95%+ of saved seed will be true to variety. Everyone must try Brandywine, the original, pink one. Maybe a paste tomato like Hogheart, or a cherry tomato like Black Cherry. Read over the catalog descriptions because what heirloom you wind up liking best all depends on what color, shape, size, and flavor that YOU want to bring in from your garden next summer. Stick with under 90-100 days, for Sept ripening.

Lettuces include many fascinating varieties besides the common iceberg. Lettuces are crossers, which results in a bewildering array of varieties and traits, including butterheads (Bibbs), romaines, icebergs, loose leafs, summer crisps, and oakleafs, all of which are available in red and green and everything in between. Forellenschluss, Slobolt, Red Salad Bowl, Winter Density, Red Iceberg and Outredgeous are among our favorites.

Garlic The Rocamboles, or stiff-neck varieties have the strongest and most complex flavors. They are most similar to the original wild garlics from central Asia. Good varieties to plant are Red German (a purple skinned type, 6-8 cloves per bulb), and German Extra Hardy (white porcelain type, 4 cloves per bulb). Garlic never produces true seed, so we need to plant pieces (cloves) of edible garlic to get more garlic (bulbs). An October planting will yield far bigger bulbs at August harvest than will a spring planting.

Lupines are in the bean family, so they produce their seeds in pods. Lupines are crossers, so saved seed will produce new and often interesting blossom colors. Seed needs to go through a wet and frozen cycle in order to germinate, so plant in late fall or very early spring for best germination. Russell Strain is the multi-colored lupine we grow, but single color lupines of all types are available.

Butternut squash is the tan, bell shaped squash. These are unrelated to (that is, a different species than) most other common winter squashes grown in this latitude, so the fact that squashes are crossers means little since this far north there aren't any other varieties butternut will cross with. Planting seed from an OP variety will guarantee similar offspring, but planting seed from hybrids will give you a wide variety of butternuts. Waltham Butternut is the most famous old-time butternut.

WHERE TO PURCHASE HEIRLOOMS

Seedlings:

Local growers at a farmers' market or farm stand. (Not all heirlooms are available as transplants, some need direct seeding.)

Some seed catalogs offer southern grown seedlings, bare root and ready to plant.

Seeds: Each company has it's own unique focus. We order from all these listed, but there are dozens more.

Johnny's Selected Seeds, Albion (farm) and Winslow (store/warehouse). Very informative catalog, great service. Worker-owned company. Some heirlooms and some organic seeds.

High Mowing Seeds, Wolcott, VT. Started from a small farm, all organic varieties, many heirlooms.

Fedco, Clinton, divisions: Seeds, Tubers, Trees, Bulbs, and Organic Growers Supply. Oddball ordering system, each division has its own schedule, very inexpensive, very informative B&W catalog, a co-op. Specializes in heirlooms, offers many grown organically.

Seed Savers Exchange, a worldwide collection of small scale seed savers who finally put out a catalog a few years back. Good pics, many varieties found nowhere else.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Mansfield, MO. GREAT BIG detailed catalog pics, all heirlooms.

Local Growers will often sell a few varieties of seed they save themselves. Ask them! Most are happy to share.

HOW TO SAVE SEEDS

I will focus here on tomatoes, butternut squash, garlic, lettuce, lupines, and maybe a few others if there's time.

EASY-to-save seeds.

Tomatoes: squish, add water, ferment for a week, pour off slop, add more water, pour off until clear. Good seed sinks to the bottom. Dry seed on newspaper in front of a fan for 2-3 days, then break up seed clumps, label with variety and year. Tomato seed may be kept for up to ten years.

Butternut squash, the tan, bell shaped winter squash, is the only one of the squashes that it's safe to save seed from, since it doesn't cross with the other squashes. If the variety was an F1 hybrid, your butternuts may not all look alike, but they'll all be butternuts. Butternut squash seed may be kept 2-5 years.

Garlic: Doesn't use flowers at all, so never swaps genetic material between plants. Vegetative reproduction means garlic gets acclimated to where it's growing over several generations, so choose locally grown garlic whenever possible. Edible garlic and seed garlic are the same thing, except that seed garlic is generally freer of garlic diseases. Break the garlic bulb into cloves and plant cloves six inches apart. Every clove planted produces a bulb. Plant in October, harvest in late July. All your seed garlic must be planted every year, it will not keep a year.

Lettuce: An out-crosser, so varieties will not stay true. However, that's how new varieties are born! No matter what the next generation turns out like, it may be a perfectly fine lettuce. To keep from crossing with other varieties lettuce can be isolated by either time or space. To isolate in time means to make sure it goes to seed before any other lettuce could possibly be flowering, perhaps by starting it extra early in the house or greenhouse. Any garden lettuce, after it bolts, produces a three foot tall stalk and a seed head reminiscent of dandelions with seeds suspended from wispy parachutes. Collect seeds before they blow away, and when very dry rub them between your hands, then carefully winnow out the “parachutes” and chaff. Because lettuces go to seed so early, seed gathered from an early planting of lettuce can be planted later that same year. Lettuce seed may be kept a maximum of a year or two.

Lupines: An out-crosser, meaning color will never stay true. But usually all colors are beautiful, so unless you're trying for a narrow color scheme, then saving lupine seeds is fairly easy. When the pods that replace the blossoms mature to a dark brown of black color (usually early August but varies widely), clip off whole seed stalk and keep in a paper bag for a month indoors to dry out. Then pop the pods to obtain two to seven BB-sized seeds per pod. Winnow in front of a fan or outdoors on a windy day to separate the chaff from seed. Lupine seed can be kept for several years.

HARD to save seeds:

For some crops seed saving is very difficult, due to two major difficulties.

Biennials only go to seed the second year: leeks, carrots, beets, parsnips, cabbage, onion, scallions, celery & celeriac, chard, kale, and others. In our climate, they need to be harvested, stored for the winter and re-planted in the spring. Seed stalks appear by early June, after which the plant starts to look very little like it did in its first year.

Out-Crosser refers to a plant that vigorously crosses with any variety in the same species, either via wind or insect pollinators. In order to keep the variety true, these need 1/2 to 1 mile isolation OR at least a week difference in flowering time from any other varieties in the species. Peppers, all squashes, all cukes, all melons, all corns, lupines, lettuces,

Seeds may be saved & replanted without such isolation, but with no guarantee of what you'll get, perhaps a zumpkin, a thimble-sized pepper, a new lettuce variety, or a new color of lupine.

Non-Seeds:

Many common garden vegetables are not planted from true seed. Some plants reproduce vegetatively as well as producing seeds, while others reproduce vegetatively only. Potatoes, sunchokes, ginger, garlic, shallots and onions (if by sets), gladiolus, and tulips are examples of plants where we generally plant vegetative parts rather than true seeds, either because true seed is never available (example: garlic), or because planting true seed will give us unpredictable results (example: potatoes).

27 Organic Farm Road, Pittsfield Maine 04967 http://www.snakeroot.net/farm owned and operated by Tom Roberts & Lois Labbe Tom: Tom@snakeroot.net (cell) 207-416-5417 or Lois: Lois@snakeroot.net (cell) 207-416-5418 Gardening for the public since 1995.