Knowing your heirloom tomatoes

An heirloom is something that is passed down in a family. It is a valuable possession or has a lot of sentimental value. An heirloom is defined as it relates to fruits and vegetables as “a vegetable or fruit that is open-pollinated and is not grown widely for commercial purposes. An heirloom tomato often exhibits a distinctive characteristic such as superior flavor or unusual coloration.”

Heirlooms grown by my grandson Alex

In some cases, the seeds for heirloom tomatoes have been passed down through families for several generations. Usually, the variety has to be a minimum of 50 years old to be considered an heirloom or have been in circulation since before 1940.

For most people, the grocery store where you do your grocery shopping may not have any heirloom tomatoes. They are available at farmers markets or you can buy seeds and grow your own. How can you tell if the tomato that you are looking at is an heirloom? You can’t really; you have to trust the retailer. But one thing is most likely; an heirloom tomato will look different than the average varieties that you are used to buying.

Over the last 50 years, many small farms have been lost to large farms and some of the wonderful heirloom tomatoes that they produced were lost with them. The tomatoes that are sold commercially in supermarkets are hybrids. They were created to appeal to buyers visually. They all pretty much look alike; have a similar size and shape. The taste will be consistent if not too exciting. This is what distributors think that people want.

Heirloom tomatoes are usually oddly shaped, strange colored and generally not as visually appealing as the hybrid variety. What they offer that is vastly superior is taste. Heirloom tomatoes taste like what a tomato should taste like.

If you want to grow your own heirloom tomatoes, there are many places where you can buy the seeds that you will need. You can try a farmers market, your local greenhouse or you can use the Internet. A wide selection of varieties are available to choose from and ideally, several varieties will be perfect for growing in your area. Some of the most popular include the following.

Brandywine

This is considered to be the best known of the heirloom tomatoes by BHG. They believe that it is one of the best tasting and it is a large and attractive fruit. It is over 100 years old and therefore a true heirloom. The pink fleshed tomato is a good one for sandwiches and seeds are readily available.

Gold Rush Currant

If you are looking for a small yellowish-orange tomato, this is the perfect heirloom for you. The tomatoes grow in clusters and it takes about 80 days for the fruit to mature.

Green Zebra

When it comes to unique looking tomatoes, these will add a lot of interest to any dish that they are used in. Imagine a tomato sandwich with a striped green tomato?

There are some amazing purple tomatoes and some shapes that look like nothing you have ever seen before unless you are an expert on heirloom tomatoes. Don’t let their unusual shapes and colors scare you off, the taste and variety are well worth experimenting with.