Anyone tried any Heirloom seeds in the survival kits?

[muleman]

I have been giving some thought to them as a means to have unmodified seed to raise our own from. So many seeds today have been jerked to where they don't grow or have poor results when you try to save your own seeds. The big players like Monsanto and ADM have taken food crops and made them almost unsustainable for the average person to propogate on their own.

 

[loboloco]

Mule, not sure these are 'heirloom', bit we have seeds that have been grown here for over a hundred years. I don't fool with the heirloom tomatoes, or others, but we do buy older types. Corn we grow 'mule' corn and silver princess, we also grow a variety of field pea known as red ripper, but it is about twice the size of the ones you can buy today from the store.
Tomatoes we grow the better boy, german pink, and pink girl. Most of these will revert after a season to 'cherry' type. The only 'heirloom' style tomato I ever grew was the Rutgers variety, but I didn't try to save the seed.
Sieva pole beans, clemson okra, ambrosia cantaloupe(hybrid), zipper peas, and top crop peas. This is in the garden.
On the farm, I'm planting both field corn and merit sweet corn, oats, barley, field peas. Mostly for feed conversion for animal stock.

 

[bczoom]

I bought some heirloom seeds to plant this year but walking through Lowe's last week, they had a rack of heirloom seeds there. I'm going to try the brand I found at Lowe's this year. I know I'm late but the tomatoes are starting to come up.

 

[EastTexFrank]

I tried growing heirloom tomatoes for 5 or 6 years but I never tried saving the seeds for the following year.

Down in East Texas, at least for me, they were never really a raging success. They produced but not as heavily as the hybrids and they seemed to be much more susceptible to disease, especially wilt. My answer was just to plant more of them so in the end we ended up with roughly the same production at the end of the day. They were also much more likely to split.

I sure did like eating them though. In appearance many of them didn't resemble the classic red globe seen in the grocery store but the flavor .... now that was almost worth all the extra trouble.

I've gone back to just planting fewer of the hybrid varieties but they were a lot of fun to play with for a while.

 

[Erik]

Frank,
you got it in one, right there.
Heirlooms do not have any of the "hybrid vigor and resistance", so the yield is less, they take more care, etc... BUT -- you can harvest the seeds for next year and get the exact same type of fruit/vegetable as you took them out of.

 

[loboloco]

Mule, per our discussion in PM, would a quarter pound of seed be enough for you. Of each type.

 

[muleman]

More than enough Lobo.

 

[loboloco]

Hey Mulie, FYI we planted our 'Tom' corn today. Others who still grow it have it 6" high.

 

[muleman]

Still a little early and cold for planting it up here. More toward the end of the month is usual corn time for us.

 

[Garmins_Dad]

I have three times the seed that we plant here at home in my kit..

 

[bczoom]

I have three times the seed that we plant here at home in my kit..

Thanks for the bump.

I bought some heirloom seeds to plant this year but walking through Lowe's last week, they had a rack of heirloom seeds there. I'm going to try the brand I found at Lowe's this year. I know I'm late but the tomatoes are starting to come up.

OK, those tomato seeds I got from Lowe's last year actually grew and I got tomatoes last year.

Fast-forward to this year. Even after rototilling things several times, those plants popped up again. Hundreds of them. I have around 300-400 tomato plants that weren't planted this year as they just popped out of the ground. Same is true for other heirloom things I planted last year.

 

[Garmins_Dad]

uhhh.. you need to pull the plants at the end of the season.. make sure not to drop any veggies or you will have plants out the wazoo...

 

[bczoom]

Pulled the plants but veggies lay around. Whatever comes up next spring will be pulled.

 

[DaveNay]

Pulled the plants but veggies lay around. Whatever comes up next spring will be pulled.

Solarize the garden over the winter.

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/gar...eds-to-eliminate-garden-pests-in-the-soil.htm

 

[bczoom]

Too big for plastic. It's about 70x35'.

I tried covering a couple times but wind, drainage... are always an issue.