Heirloom Vegetables for Montana Gardens

Did vegetables really taste better in the “good old days”? Is an heirloom ‘Brandywine’ tomato that much better than a hybrid ‘Early Girl?’ It depends, of course, on how you define “better” and “superior” and it depends upon individual preferences.

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“HEIRLOOM” IS DIFFICULT TO DEFINE AND MEANS

different things to different people, but in general, an heirloom cultivar is one that first appeared more than 50 years ago and often has a documented and interesting history.

Gardeners today are excited about raising heirloom vegetables, even though they generally have poor pest resistance compared to modern hybrids. There is a certain charm about being able to enjoy flavors and textures our forefathers experienced. It is a gardener’s way of touching a long-gone era.

Heirloom names are romantic and colorful. ‘Lazy Housewife,’ also known as ‘White Cranberry’ pole bean, was brought to America by German immigrants about the time of the Civil War. The bean is stringless and very productive and its name implies that even a lazy housewife had time to prepare it for dinner.

In past times, most vegetables were “open pollinated,” meaning that they crossed readily with others of their species.

There were no “man-made” hybrids, so seeds taken from fruit and planted the following year came “true,” or nearly so; that is, they reproduced nearly identical to the parent. For example, if you planted seed from ‘Country Gentleman’ sweet corn or ‘Bloomsdale Long Standing’ spinach, both pollinated by wind, you got ‘Country Gentleman’ or ‘Bloomsdale Long Standing’ again, so long as there were no other corn or spinach cultivars within a mile or so. Other open-pollinated vegetables, like the crucifers, radish, carrots, endive, leeks and onions, parsley, rutabaga and parsnip, are pollinated by insects and need only about 200 yards of isolation from other cultivars.

And best of all, peas, beans, lettuce and many tomatoes are self-pollinated and should need no isolation whatsoever. It’s easy to save their seeds for next season and you can plant more than one cultivar in the garden without fear of “contamination.” Plant them at opposite ends of the garden though, just to be sure. What is now the standard practice of purchasing all seeds only began in earnest after World War II. Until that time, and for about 20 years after, many gardeners saved the seeds from their best open-pollinated plants to plant year after year.

During the 1950s and 60s, hybrid crops that were generally more vigorous and pest resistant and produced pretty, uniform fruit became mainstream. But seed saved from ‘Bodaceous’ F1 hybrid sweet corn and planted the following year will not produce ‘Bodaceous’ sweet corn, as the corn genes segregate in the second generation. As the old cultivars disappeared, we lost something less tangible. Perhaps we miss the imperfections (and colorful names) of ‘Bull’s Blood’ beet, ‘Rhode Island Asylum’ sweet corn, and ‘Cow’s Horn’ carrots. They came from a simpler time; they had character.

In the 1970s, reactionary gardeners rejected the “perfect” hybrids and began to turn back to the heirloom cultivars to rediscover the trials and tribulations of gardening a century or more ago. But heirlooms have their downsides. Many are adapted only locally. What grows well in Maryland may not perform at all in Malta, Montana.

Many need a long season to mature or require too much space for today’s gardens. As mentioned above, most have poor pest resistance, and all the blemishes that come from a wilder, more romantic era. Nevertheless, by careful choice you can find an heirloom that is right.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the original author of this MontGuide, Dr. Bob Gough, former Extension Horticulture Specialist.

¹ Date Uncertain ² Origin Uncertain

¹ Date Uncertain ² Origin Uncertain

¹ Date Uncertain ² Origin Uncertain