reversing the trend does not require sacrifice. Instead, as this book attests, it can be a fascinating adventure both in the garden and at the table.
No matter what draws you to the preservation effort, it’s only fair to mention a few caveats. Many heirloom vegetables have been selected and maintained to match old-fashioned cooking and storage methods. From a modern standpoint, this often means using “stringy” string beans that have a great “beany” flavor or huge “keeper” carrots that, while they are a bit unwieldy to store and cook, are incomparable roasted in the embers of a fire or baked. Of course, part of the great fascination is preparing dishes that are rich in taste and color as well as represent a slice of living history.
Heirlooms are the focus of this book and make an exciting, even absorbing, theme garden by themselves. But my research and my own gardening experience have shown me that the venerable old varieties have a place in any garden. Growing an heirloom garden is a way to focus on these treasures, but the true place of heirloom vegetables is wherever gardens grow.
how to grow an heirloom garden
Heirloom varieties are not necessarily rare. You probably already grow a number of them—for example, ‘Kentucky Wonder’ beans, ‘Black Beauty’ eggplant, ‘Pearson’ tomatoes, and ‘Yellow Crookneck’ squash are all heirlooms. You could fill a garden completely with common heirlooms, but my purpose here is to explore the uncommon and even unique possibilities of an heirloom garden. By growing an heirloom garden you can have the fun of growing unusual and tasty vegetables, keep alive the less common varieties, and learn how to save some of your own seeds.
Choosing and Obtaining Heirlooms
Let’s look at how to choose and obtain some of the rarer varieties. Read through An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Vegetables (page 21) for descriptions of various varieties and then choose a handful that appeal to you. To keep things simple, choose only six to eight varieties to start with. Since you are probably planning to save your seeds, you might want to begin with the vegetables whose seeds are easiest to save: beans, tomatoes, peppers, and lettuces. Assuming you haven’t yet grown any of these varieties, I recommend that you treat your heirloom garden as an experiment. After all, you won’t know when you start out how well these varieties are going to perform in your particular climate.
With a few exceptions, plan, plant, and maintain an heirloom garden the same way you would any other modern vegetable garden. For information on how to install a vegetable garden from scratch, details on maintenance, and solutions to pests and diseases problems, see Appendices A and B (pages 90-101). You should know that, compared with modern varieties, some heirloom vegetables are more disease-prone (for instance, some of the cucumbers and peas), less productive (some of the colored potatoes in particular), and less uniform in their ripening times, shapes, and colors.
Heirloom vegetables primarily from my heirloom garden include: ‘Blackstone’ watermelons with their thick rind for pickling; ‘Brandywine’ tomatoes; ‘Dr. Martin’s’ and ‘King of the Garden’ limas; ‘Rouge Vif d’Etampes,’ ‘Flat White,’ and ‘Sugar’ pumpkins; ‘Long Island Improved’ Brussels Sprouts; and numerous gourds.
You may have to order some of the more unusual heirlooms by mail. Most local nurseries carry only a limited selection, so for the rarer old vegetables, such as ‘Cherokee’ beans or ‘Dad’s Mug’ tomatoes, you’ll have to obtain seed from companies that specialize in heirlooms (see Resources page 102). To explore heirloom varieties further—perhaps to locate a specific variety you remember as a child or to track down one of the really rare ones—contact the seed exchanges.
Seed exchanges, either membership organizations such as the Seed Savers Exchange, or informal ones run by seed companies like Seeds Blum, are grassroots networks of dedicated gardeners who trade seeds of unusual and threatened open-pollinated vegetable varieties. To use an exchange you become a member or obtain a catalog and select varieties of seeds offered by an individual gardener. You then mail a self-addressed stamped envelope to the people offering the seeds. If they still have seeds they will send some to you. In many exchanges seeds are traded, and you will need to offer varieties. from your garden in order to be listed; in others there is no such limitation.
Keep in mind that seed exchanges are primarily trading organizations for preserving the seed bank, not commercial seed companies, so inventory varies from year to year and among exchanges. A hint: for the largest selection of varieties, trade seeds in these organizations early in the year before most of the choice varieties are gone.
Saving Seeds
I never even thought about saving my own seeds when I started vegetable gardening thirty years ago. As far as I was concerned, seeds came in beautiful packages, not from my plants. I find myself amazed at how simple and satisfying the process is. For example, I merely keep a few ‘Dutch White’ runner beans each year for next year’s crop. I make sure they are completely dry, freeze them for a day to kill any weevil eggs, package them, label them, and put them away. That’s all there is to it. I felt like a chump for having ordered new seeds of open-pollinated varieties every spring when I could have easily saved my own.
Though the seed-saving process is easy, some background is essential. To select and save seeds, you have to know some elementary botany, and you have to practice some trial and error. That’s why I suggest that you start simply, with only a few heirloom varieties.
My heirloom garden contained many different varieties of lima beans including; ‘Dr. Martin’s,’ ‘King of the Garden,’ ‘Christmas,’ and ‘Fordhook Giant.’
‘Brandywine’ tomatoes I purchased while in the Brandywine Valley in Pennsylvania were the best I’d ever eaten.
Let’s begin with a review of the birds-and-bees information that people think they already know (until they’re called upon to explain it). The reproduction of seed plants involves pollination—the transference of pollen, which contains the sperm cells (produced by the stamen), to the stigma, which contains the ovary. Once a plant has been pollinated, seeds form. If the pollen from a flower fertilizes the ovary of the same flower, the process is called self-pollination. To self-pollinate, a flower must have both stamen and stigma; such a flower is called a perfect flower. Beans and peas have perfect flowers and usually self-pollinate. When pollen is transferred, either between flowers on the same plant or between plants, the process is called cross-pollination. Pollen is carried from flower to flower either by an insect or by the wind. Corn, squash, melons, and beets are all cross-pollinated.
The aim of seed saving is to preserve existing varieties unaltered, to prevent the plant from cross-pollinating with a different variety. Suppose you have a ‘Jack-O’-Lantern’ pumpkin plant situated next to a zucchini plant. A bee might visit a male flower of the pumpkin plant and then fly over to a female flower of the zucchini plant, thus transferring pollen from one plant to the other—that is, cross-pollinating the zucchini and the pumpkin. (The resulting cross-pollinated zucchini and pumpkin fruits will not be affected until the next generation.) When you plant the seed from the cross-pollinated squash
