What is “Heirloom”

Heirloom is a term usually used to described those large, funky shaped tomatoes we all love to eat in the summertime. While those are heirloom tomatoes, the term heirloom applies to numerous types of fruit and veg.

Simply put, the term Heirloom just means that the plant was not hybridized - humans did not cross pollinate two different types of plants to “breed” a plant with desired traits. it is open pollinated by bees, wind, and other insects, and the seeds from the fruit will be “true to type”.

This means that if you save a seed from a heirloom tomato, zucchini, spinach, or any other heirloom variety of fruit or veg, you can plant it and get the exact same plant. Perpetual free food!

If you save seeds from a hybridized plant, there’s no telling what will come up - you might get a funky shaped squash, or something that doesn’t taste very good. It’s unpredictable.

I recommend only buying heirloom seeds - unless you live in an area where you need a hybridized variety of certain things to overcome locational challenges (ie. heat tolerant spinach bred to be more hearty in hotter weather). If you do this, you’ll need to keep buying those seeds year after year since saving them will not be an option to get the same crop year after year.