What Are Heritage Seeds?

This year, after reading multiple publications over several years about the benefits of growing vegetable plants from heritage (heirloom) seeds, I decided to try them. This was not a snap decision, as I gave the idea much thought and consideration. The thing that made me decide to use heritage seeds was that almost every article I read talked about the flavor of the vegetables the plants produced, how a tomato grown from a heritage seed tasted like a tomato from 40 years ago, before they were genetically engineered. Being somewhat skeptical, I tasted tomatoes grown from heritage seeds and I decided I want those tomatoes. When I mentioned to family and friends I was going to grow my vegetables from heritage seeds, they all asked me, "What are heritage seeds?"

According to The Wisdom of Plant Heritage: Organic Seed Production and Saving, by Bryan Connolly, heritage or heirloom seeds are a crop variety that has been selected because of a set of desired characteristics and been handed down from generation to generation. In the last century, scientist started experimenting with genetic engineering of seeds for many reasons, some being to improve the crop, to help fight disease, but most importantly to have a higher crop yield. Although improvements were made, some things were also lost, such as true flavor and specific varieties.

There were once 7,000 varieties of apples, now there are only 1,000. Even though the genes may still exist for those lost varieties, the conditions needed to match the fruit produced by them years ago, does not exist. It is like having a book of words that do not tell a story.

When using heritage seeds, your produce may not be blemish free or as big as the genetically engineered store-bought kind. Your tomatoes may have splits around the top where the stem meets the tomato, as they did when I was a child. You may have to use organic gardening techniques such as companion gardening to help fight plant diseases and to keep pests away, but the needed effort will be worth it.

Heritage seeds may cost a bit more than genetically engineered seeds, but after tasting the outcome, to me they are worth the price. Plants from heritage seeds can be left to mature and then you can harvest the seeds to use next year, keeping the plant heritage ongoing. You can also save seeds from genetically engineered seeds, but they do not fare as well from year to year. This is how the seeds companies make their money and why they stay in business.

Each year I start my seedlings indoors and this is the first year I have started heritage seeds. I have approximately 100 tomato, pepper, broccoli, and Brussels sprout seedling growing in my portable greenhouse and they are thriving. I plan to save the seeds from these plants to use next year.

Sources: Stolen Harvest:The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, by VANDANA SHIVA, Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, by Haley Stein