Talking Heirloom Vegetables/Tomatoes and Otherwise

Welcome back.  I hope you continue to enjoy reading my blog.

For this post I will be taking a closer look at heirloom vegetables.  Heirlooms have become very popular over the last ten years or so.  I have been enjoying growing the heirloom varieties, especially tomatoes. But what exactly is an heirloom vegetable and why are they so popular?

According to most sources, an heirloom is an old, open-pollinated variety that is of high quality and easy to grow.  As far as how old, some authorities say those vegetables introduced before 1951 qualify as heirlooms, 1951 being the first year hybrid vegetables were developed.  Some gardeners prefer even older varieties, as some heirlooms have been passed down for hundreds and even thousands of years.

Open pollinated means that seeds from the vegetable can be grown and will come back exactly the same as the parent plant.  A vegetable can only be called an heirloom after proving it remains true year after year.  On the other hand, the same is not true for hybrid plants.  Therefore seeds from heirlooms can be saved and passed down from generation to generation.

But why are heirlooms so popular?  One of the reasons I think is the nostalgic factor.  Growing varieties that your parents and/or grandparents grew certainly has an appeal.  I enjoy growing vegetable varieties that I remember my parents and grandparents talking about.  

The main reason though is the flavor.  These old varieties have the true flavor that vegetables should have.  The more modern hybrids sometime lack in flavor and studies have shown that in many cases they are also less nutritious.

Hybrid varieties were developed over the years to produce more consistent looking, disease resistant, and higher yielding vegetables, which provide a much better mass appeal in grocery stores ,etc.  These are much easier to grow in large quantities with consistent results.

Another advantage to growing heirloom vegetables lies in the ripening process.  Hybrids are bred to ripen uniformly, thereby making it much easier to commercially harvest them all at one time.  On the other hand, heirlooms tend to ripen more unevenly, which can be advantageous for the home gardener.

  

With the information I have provided, you should be able to decided whether or not you want to grow heirlooms.  I highly recommend it, however I also grow some hybrid varieties as well.  They both have their advantages,  As far as where to purchase heirloom seeds, I will now provide some information on that topic.

Where To Purchase Heirloom Seeds

At one time heirloom seeds were hard to find, except for online or in seed catalogs.  As their popularity increased, so did the availability of the seeds.  They can now be found in most stores that sell seeds and even as plants.

In my post on December 31, 2014 (http://dansgardening.blogspot.com/2014/12/happy-new-yeara-first-look-at-2015-seed.html), I shared quite a few seed catalogs that I have already received.  These all are good sources of heirloom seeds.

Heirloom Vegetable Varieties

With the every increasing availability of heirlooms available, it can be overwhelming to sort through the many varieties in search of ones that you may want to try.

Below is a guide I found at http://ecosalon.com/know-your-heirloom-varieties-a-guide-to-the-seasons-best-heirloom-fruits-and-vegetables/ which may help clear some of the confusion and give you food for thought:

Tomatoes: The tomato is perhaps the poster fruit for heirlooms.  You can thank the flavorless, mealy tomatoes that dominate the market for sending our pallets towards juicy, sweet and tangy heirlooms. They’re everywhere now, even your local supermarket.  Look for these heirloom varieties: Brandywines,  Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, Black Prince, Marvel Stripe and Flamme Orange.

Beans: Summer is full of bean varieties that bring so much nutrition and flavor to your plate. There are an incredible variety of heirloom beans as well.  In fact, the Blue Coco variety is one of the oldest known heirloom beans available.  It’s a pole bean, also known as Purple Pod and Blue Podded Pole.  Keep an eye out for others, including the Brown Lazy Wife pole bean, the butter bean variety Beurre de Rocquencourt Bean, the Hickman Snap Bean, and look also for fresh varieties of hardier beans like the Light Brown Zebra Bean, a variety of the pinto and Black Turtle beans.

Peppers: Sweet or spicy, peppers are crunchy, full of flavor and vitamins, and make any dish better. Check now for some of these sweet heirlooms:  the Sweet California Wonder, Jimmy Nardello’s, Napoleon Sweets; and these spicy varieties:  Anaheim chiles, Caribbean red, Cubanelle, Fresno Chiles, and the Purple Tiger.

Melons: Nothing says summer like juicy melon all over your face.  No more should you eat watermelon that tastes as dry as cardboard!  Give some of these delightful heirlooms a try: Canary yellow, Crenshaw, Iroquois,  Sakatas sweet and the Petit Gris De Rennes.

Cucumbers: Like their sweet melon cousins, cucumbers come in a tasty variety that make summer truly special.  Try as many as you can as often as you can!  The Lemon Cucumber may be my all time favorite heirloom summer treat. Others include: Arkansas Little Leaf, Crystal Apple, Lebanese Mirella, Tendergreens and Suyo Longs.

Finally, another nice sunrise at my home on Friday 1/22/15:

Until next time.



















  

Organizing Vegetable Seeds/2015 Garden Planning

Once again welcome back to my blog.

I hope you are enjoying bird watching this winter as well as looking ahead to warmer weather and another gardening season.

As the bitter cold weather continues, it may be hard to shift your focus to gardening.  However, it is a good time to start thinking about which vegetables you may want to plant this year and how to plan for a successful garden.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the 2015 seed catalogs that I have received (http://dansgardening.blogspot.com/2014/12/happy-new-yeara-first-look-at-2015-seed.html).  Since then I have received another one plus a garden supply catalog:

Also, seeds and seed starting supplies are starting to appear in the stores.  To be honest I purchase most seeds locally since I find them less expensive, however for certain varieties such as heirloom tomatoes, I do use the catalogs.

The first step is to decide which seeds from previous years are still viable.  If you are a first time gardener, you won't have to worry about this step.  My general rule of thumb is to throw away seeds more than a year old.  In other words, this year I will keep seeds dated 2014 and newer. Some seeds will keep beyond a year, but I like to play it safe since so much time and effort goes into the gardening process.  Minimizing re-planting will make your gardening experience much better and your garden more productive.

It is also helpful to organize your seeds into groupings, for example lettuces/greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, etc.  Rubber bands work well for this purpose and it helps to keep your seed box a lot neater.

Below is a video from the Jung Seed Co. that will benefit new and experienced gardeners alike.  It has many tips regarding improving the soil, maximizing garden yield, controlling weeds and pests, succession planting, starting plants early indoors, and using a great garden planning tool (http://gardenplanner.jungseed.com/).  It will get you thinking about the growing season coming up:





If you are a first time gardener, I would suggest starting small so you won't get overwhelmed.  I started small myself, and gradually increased my garden sizes over the years.  I am now at the point where I might start to decrease my gardening effort since my children are grown and we don't need as many veggies as we once did.

In future posts I will discuss starting seeds indoors and also winter sowing, a technique used to start seeds outside in the dead of winter.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Can Bird Watching Benefit Your Health?

Welcome back and once again  Happy New Year.

This week the weather has turned brutally cold, which should bring even a larger number of birds to the feeders in search of food.  As I write this post, the wind chill is currently closing in on minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit.  I wonder how any living thing can survive in these conditions.

American Tree Sparrows 

I have noticed for years that bird watching is very relaxing and enjoyable for me.  It helps to take my mind off of my normal daily routine and to think about something different,  This in turn helps to keep me more focused for my work.  Gardening also has many benefits, which I will cover at some point during the upcoming growing season.

So in what ways is bird watching beneficial?  I thought I would do a little research on the topic. There are many sources of information that I found, below I will summarize a couple of them.

According to Alive, an online health publication (http://www.alive.com/articles/view/23905/birding), bird watching has many benefits including:

• Even though bird watching can be done from the comfort of your home, sooner or later it will lure you outside to observe them in their natural habitat.  Birding can be an active outdoor pursuit, taking you to all different types of terrain, rural and urban, in all sorts of weather.  It will involve walking and maybe even biking, hiking, or canoeing.  It can even bring you the thrill of feeding a bird from your hand, which I have done quite a few times.

• Birding is most often a casual activity, but can also be taken seriously if you chose,  The beauty is you can chose your level of pursuit.  It can be very challenging, with many new learning opportunities.  As I have posted here in my blog, there are various online research projects that you can participate in involving bird watching,  including Project Feederwatch (http://feederwatch.org/) and the Great Outdoor Bird Count (http://gbbc.birdcount.org/).

• It is a great family activity, one that children will love and will help everyone involved to have quality time together and prove to be very educational as well.

Next, from Birds & Blooms magazine (http://www.birdsandblooms.com/birding/birding-basics/birding-health/):

• As mentioned above, birding will eventually get you out side.  The benefits of just being outside are many, including elevating mood, Vitamin D production, and alleviating anxiety and depression.

• Bird watching will help you build a strong network of friends, which has been proven to help you stay healthy and happy.
• Birding involves many opportunities for new learning experiences which is known to help fight back against diseases such as Alzheimer's.  

Bird watching is also a great activity for the cold winter months if you don't like to go outside or can't for health reasons, etc.  It is a great activity for the elderly and can be beneficial for them.  It can be an enjoyable activity during the long winter months especially for someone who is house bound.

Birding and gardening also compliment each other very well as there are many flowers, shrubs, trees, etc. that can be planted to attract birds and help them to flourish in your yard.

So dust off the binoculars, put up a feeder, and enjoy.  I know you'll become interested and eventually birding can become a great hobby for you and family. 

White-Breasted Nuthatch & Black-Capped Chickadee

Next week, I will turn my focus back to gardening as I sort through my seeds to see what I have that's not outdated and what I need to buy for the upcoming season.

Until next time, and thanks for reading.