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Saving Seeds from Heirloom Vegetables
As a boy in the 1950’s I knew there were two kinds of tomatoes: deep red, plump and tasty ones my grandfather grew, and the kind that came four in a package wrapped in cellophane. The Cello-Wraps, as I think of them, had no flavor whatsoever. They were decorative. Sliced and added to our iceberg lettuce salads in winter, they added color. I suppose my mom thought they added some vitamins, too, but I doubt they contributed much.
Heirloom tomatoes are often irregular in size and shape but they are tasty and you can save seeds for the next year
My grandfather saved seeds from his tomatoes and started plants indoors in the early spring. He was not growing hybrid tomatoes like those sold in the supermarket. Hybrid tomatoes are carefully bred by crossing specific varieties of tomatoes so that they will have special characteristics such as surviving long trips in trucks, having a shelf life almost as long as a tennis ball, or resisting certain diseases. But those are not suitable for seed saving – most of their seeds will produce mongrels, not the variety you grew.
My grandfather grew what we now call heirloom tomatoes: time-tested varieties that breed true from seed, generation after generation. Tomatoes that had been grown for many decades, seed shared with family and friends. Tomatoes so tasty that they were often eaten right in the garden, warm from the sun.
Examples of well-known heirloom tomatoes include Brandywine (often touted as the best flavored tomato in existence), Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Amish Paste and Black Krim. But there are hundreds of varieties of heirloom tomatoes. Each unique and loved by someone. Many have now disappeared – once a variety is lost, it cannot be brought back unless someone has saved the seeds so they can be grown again.
All heirloom vegetables are what are called “open pollinated” meaning that they will produce the same variety every year. Of course, in a packet of seeds some will produce better fruits than others. There is variety, but all Brandywines will take about the same length of time to reach maturity and taste about the same.
Once lettuce bolts like this it will flower and produce seeds you can save
If you would like to start saving seeds, read the seed packet or catalog and make sure what you buy is labeled open-pollinated or heirloom, not hybrid. At the end of the season, save some seeds and store them in a cool, dry, dark place, perhaps in a sealed jar in a refrigerator. Then start them the following spring.
I called Sylvia Davatz, the now-retired founder of Solstice Seeds in Hartland, Vermont to talk about saving seeds. Solstice Seeds only grows and sells seeds from heirloom varieties including some varieties from Europe.
She gave me lots of good advice, starting with the names of two good books on seed saving: The Seed Garden by Lee Buttala and Sharyn Seigel, and The Manual of Seed Saving by Andrea Heistinger. She recommends getting both books if you are going to be serious about saving seeds as even among experts there are differences of opinion. These books will tell you all you need to know.
One of the reasons for having good books about seed saving is that they will advise you about such things as isolation distances to prevent mixing genetic material by pollinators or wind.
I asked Sylvia what vegetable species are the easiest to save. She said tomatoes, lettuce, beans and peas are all easy. They are self-pollinated and annuals. No insects are needed, and seeds are ready by the end of their season.
The Seed Garden
Vine crops like squash, pumpkins and cucumbers are insect pollinated and more difficult. If you’ve ever let a “pumpkin” grow in your compost pile from last year’s crop, you know that sometimes you get weird things due to cross pollination – a pumpkin crossed with a summer squash by a bee, for example, may not be something you want to eat.
Most difficult in our climate are the biennials, things like carrots, beets, parsnips and parsley. These plants have to be kept alive all winter so they can flower and set seeds in their second year. You can dig up carrots and store them in soil in a bucket in a cold basement and re-plant them in the spring. But carrots, Sylvia explained to me, bloom about the same time as Queen Anne’s lace, a biennial wild flower/weed that can be pollinated by them – which would not produce the carrots you want.
Sylvia pointed out that in the not-to-distant past, seed saving was the norm. Farmers and gardeners saved seeds from their best plants, knew how to do so, and how to store them. She explained that the seeds you save will usually be of better quality than seeds from a packet. They will have more vigor and a longer life span.
A good source for heirloom seeds is The Seed Savers Exchange. It has, since 1975, collected and stored seeds from gardeners and farmers. You can join their non-profit or just buy some seeds or books from them. According to their website, they now store some 20,000 varieties in their collection, although at any given time only a fraction of them are actually for sale.
So think about saving seeds this year – even if only a few from your favorite heirloom tomatoes. And go to www.solsticeseeds.org to see a wonderful 8 minute video of Sylvia Davatz explaining all the importance and benefits of seed saving.
Henry is the author of 4 gardening books and a lifetime organic gardener. He lives in Cornish Flat, NH. Reach him by e-mail at henry.homeyer@comcast.net
Tomatoes
Windowsill-grown tomato
This year I met a lifelong goal of growing an edible tomato in the house, though I have I have to admit that it was quite by accident. Last fall I dug up an avocado plant that had started itself in the compost pile. Mixed in with the soil were seeds that germinated, including a tomato, a pepper and of course, weeds. I let the tomato grow and harvested a ripe tomato on May 10.
The plant has been in a west facing window and, although I did provide some supplemental lighting, that was only for a month or so. I don’t know what kind of tomato it is, but the flavor was excellent – a combination of sweet and tangy.
A few words about “volunteer” tomatoes: I get some in my garden each year, but never let them develop because many are not particularly tasty. Most modern tomatoes are hybrids (Big Boy, Jet Star, Sun Gold are all hybrids). That means that someone figured out that specific crosses of the parents would produce a tomato with desirable characteristics. But seeds from these hybrids will not breed true. Seeds saved from a Big Boy will most likely revert to one of the parents of the fruit, which may not be especially nice. So as you clean up your garden this spring, I recommend that you yank the babies.
What we call heirloom tomatoes do breed true. Tomatoes, unless manipulated for growing seed, are self pollinating. Heirlooms such as Brandywine, Purple Cherokee and Ox Heart will produce seeds that you can save each year and get just what you had the generation before. Heirlooms are not often sold at the grocery store because they are often of irregular size and shape (hard to package) and don’t have the tough skins needed for shipping and handling. But they have amazing flavors.
I grow both heirlooms and hybrids each year – a total, usually of about 30 plants. So why do I grow hybrids if heirlooms are so wonderful to eat? The modern hybrids have been bred for disease resistance, which is important. There are a variety of fungal diseases that can kill the leaves – or even the entire plant, and old fashioned breeding programs have developed tomatoes that resist them.
The worst disease for tomatoes is late blight. If it hits your garden, your tomato plants may well turn into a soggy, blackened mess of inedible fruit and dead plants in just a few days. Late blight also affects potatoes, and was the cause of the Irish potato famine. One hybrid tomato , the Defiant F-1, which was developed by the plant breeders working for Johnny’s Selected Seeds, is listed as “highly resistant” to late blight with “intermediate resistance” to early blight, another pest. I’ve grown it and like it. It has nice medium sized fruit, good flavor, and matures early.
There is much talk about GMO labeling in Vermont right now – they just passed a law that will require processed foods to indicate if there are genetically modified ingredients. As far as I know, there are no GMO tomatoes or other garden vegetables on the market. One GMO tomato was developed in 1994, but the public objected and the market for them was nil.
This year I started my tomato seeds indoors on March 24, three weeks earlier than usual. I transplanted them into bigger pots in early May and they are growing like crazy. But the plants are getting huge, which is a problem: they are too big to fit on my plant stand. I’ve had to remove a shelf so the plants can continue to grow.
Planting tomatoes sideways
If you have long, leggy plants like mine, you’ll need to plant them sideways when the time comes. I will dig a hole for the root ball and then a trench for the long stem. I’ll pinch off all the lower leaves, then cover the root ball and the stem except for the very top cluster of leaves. I‘ll bend the tip of the stem up so that the leaf cluster is above ground level. The plant will straighten itself up in a few days. The long stem will turn into roots. Alternatively, you could plant the rootball deep, burying part of the stem.
Whether you grew your tomatoes from seeds or bought plants at the garden center, it is important to harden-off the plants before they go in the garden. That means introducing them to the sun’s powerful rays and the wind’s drying effects a little each day until the plants are ready to go out in full sun. Put them near the house on the north side so that they get just a few hours of morning sun, then gradually give them more sun. Just like a fair-skinned toddler, plants can burn if they get too much sun. Greenhouses provide a lot of protection. And bring them in on cold nights.
A soil thermometer is a useful item at this time of year. Cold, wet soil is not good for most plants, and tomatoes in particular. Sixty degrees is a good minimum soil temperature to attain before planting.
I don’t plant frost-sensitive plants until well after the last frost, though a few warm days always tempt me. But lettuce, peas and other frost hardy things are going in now. I’m ready for summer!
Henry’s Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com. Contact info is there, along with previous articles and information about his gardening books.