Heirloom vegetables have a romance of their own, these are the veggies that if you are over 40 years old will remember as the ones that your Ouma or Oupa planted. They were the big red meaty tomatoes or the big green beans that snapped in your mouth. It was the sweetest watermelon that had big pips that you spat at your friends on into the garden. It was the rows of peas that you and Ouma picked over and then sat in the shade to shell, every now and then popping a few sweet peas into your mouth while she scolded you. 

Livingseeds.co.za supplying South African gardeners with quality Heirloom and Open Pollinated vegetable seed

CONTACT SEAN FOR MORE INFORMATION www.livingseeds.co.za


 

Today you cannot go into your local nursery and buy these same varieties, they are still around but you will need to search for them. What’s available commercially are generally hybrids and unfortunately there are more and more Genetically Modified (GM) seeds being offered to the unsuspecting public. The question remains, why trade better flavored varieties for uniform hybrids and GM varieties? The answer is simple, and financially driven. Heirloom seeds are open pollinated, this means that if you grow the variety and save the seed you can then re-plant the seed the following year and get the same crop. All of this without the need to go back to the shop and buy the seed again… in fact you may never need to buy the same seed again and you can give seed away to anyone who wants some.

Tatashe Chilli
From the Kano region in Nigeria. A nice hot pepper that dries well with good flavour. Makes a fine ground pepper that can be used to spice up any meal.

Carrot Purple Dragon
Purple skinned carrot with an orange centre, having a high vitamin and antioxidant level. Use Carrot Purple Dragon steamed or raw in salads, dips or even juiced.

Hybrid seed on the other hand, cannot be saved and replanted as what will come out is generally not worth the effort, nor will any of the plants look alike, taste alike or even grow alike. If you plant hybrids you have to go back every year and buy more seed from the seed house… hence the preference from those who supply vegetable seed to supply hybrid or GM seed, their clients HAVE to come back and spend more mone.

This push by the seed houses to remove heirloom and open pollinated lines from their inventory has allowed many of the older varieties to fall into disuse. 

Most gardeners do not know that seed can be saved (there are techniques that need to be learnt for some varieties) from year to year.

In the last 4 years I have seen a quiet and rapid decline of heirloom and open pollinated varieties available to the South African public. Just last year (2009) a new Wit Boer Pumpkin Hybrid was released and the older heirloom varieties by that seed house have been withdrawn. Previously I was not going to supply Wit Boer pumpkins as they were freely available, however now I’ll need to add this uniquely South African heirloom to our inventory. The scary thing is that it’s not clearly marked as a hybrid, unless you know what to look for. Yes this new hybrid Wit Boer hybrid is meatier and has a thinner skin, produces better and all those wonderful things, but it also locks the gardener into the seed house, with no other option.

French bean 'Borlotto Firetongue'
This is an attractive variety with mottled red pods and large tasty beans. It is used extensively in Italian dishes, like minestrone, as either a dried bean or as a freshly picked pod.

De Grace Snap Peas
De Grace Peas are a great producer of both snap and green peas. The small compact plants need to be picked over every second day to give you bunches of lovely snap peas for salads or a lightly steamed veggie. Leave the snap peas to fill out for green peas, the pods have a distinctive ribbed look that are well filled with peas.

I’m not knocking hybrids, there is a specific need for hybrids, however when the choice is removed it changes the whole dynamics of what people are and are not allowed to grow. If you remove the choice and only allow one option, people will never know about the alternative until it’s too late.

The funny thing about relying on someone else for a product or service is that it all works perfectly well… until it doesn’t. Just remember back to the fuel/water and Eskom shortages over the last few years. When “they” are out they are out, there is nothing that you can do about it then. 

CONTACT SEAN FOR MORE INFORMATION www.livingseeds.co.za

So precisely, what are heirlooms? Heirlooms are the vegetables that our ancestors planted, these are the vegetable that fed the world for thousands of years. These are the vegetable that have better flavor, unique characteristics that are not often seen on the shelves and a history that makes for great conversation. These are the vegetables that many unique dishes are made from and now our busy lifestyle has just pushed the need to feed our gullets to a point of just buying a bunch of carrots, some beans or some tomatoes. Next time you go to your local veggie store or supermarket, stand back and have a look at what you see. You will see a selection of vegetables… but only ONE TYPE of each vegetable. Nope you are not going to see purple Carrots, red carrots or yellow carrots, nor will you see a variety of paste / jam and cherry tomatoes, heaven forbid asking for a beefsteak or sauce tomatoes, you only get one choice… a pale pink, watery tasteless tomato, what they call tomatoes. You won’t see 3 or 4 types of brinjals, each one with a subtle flavor difference. Don’t even try asking for more than one kind of green bean and as for dry beans… sorry for you, you get one choice, it’s probably imported from China and is GM anyway.

Red Noodle Bean or Red Yard Long Bean
This is a great bean to put in front of your guests. Our guests have never failed to be amazed when we put a dish of these on the table. They hold their colour well during cooking and are great either fresh or raw. The nutty taste gives a unique and interesting flavour that is uncommon yet "more-ish".We use this bean in everything from salads, veggie dips and in cooked meals as an addition to a stew or as a side with a full meal.


CONTACT SEAN FOR MORE INFORMATION www.livingseeds.co.za

Ping Tung Brinjal
A stunning brinjal a native of Asia it is a well know vegetable in the asian markets. Ping Tung is as easy on the eye as it is on the palate. The long fruits are very easy to work with and making Ratatoulie is simple with these guys.

Your Ouma if she grew her own veggies can probably still remember and tell you attributes of different named varieties of vegetable, I know mine can. The nice thing is I can grow those varieties, as seed saving is a tradition in our family. Ouma can’t go anywhere without bringing back some seeds with her. Nowadays we just eat tomatoes as if there is only one kind, just out of interest there are over 6000 named varieties of tomatoes, many of them heirloom with histories stretching back to pre-Columbian days. Did you know that tomatoes were never red, they were yellow, Columbus brought back Pomme de’Ouro (Golden Apples). The red varieties only came later.