Be Careful What You Say...and How You Say It!

The Internet is a powerful communication tool. A few months ago, I discovered the garden message board of America Online. Located in that area is a folder named “tomato”, and, of course, I could not resist checking it out. Sure enough, there are numerous messages from gardeners all over the United States discussing every aspect of selecting, growing and eating tomatoes. Perhaps 10 years ago the message board would have been quite different from today due to the lack of selection available to home gardeners. Hybrids were much more popular than heirlooms varieties back then. And, to be fair, they were indeed better than the open pollinated tomatoes that were commonly available, such as Fireball, New Yorker, Bonny Best, Rutgers and Marglobe. So, I am sure the discussion would have centered around how people’s Big Boy, Better Boy and Whopper tomatoes were doing in their garden, and which was best.

Since the mid 1980’s, and the efforts of seed preservation organizations such as the Seed Saver’s Exchange, the availability and variety of open pollinated tomatoes has exploded. The majority are family heirlooms that have found their way into some seed catalogs. Availability to the general gardening public is due to the efforts of open minded, forward thinking (in a way, backward thinking!) seed companies such as Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Seeds Blum and Tomato Growers’ Supply Company. I even noticed some 6 paks of heirloom tomato plants at some local gardening centers this spring.

The results of all of these choices are evident when reading the posts in the tomato folder of the AOL gardening message center. People are trying and talking about heirlooms with nearly the same frequency as hybrids. Over the past 10 years, Carolyn and me have gained a lot of first hand knowledge about heirloom tomatoes, having trialed perhaps as many as 800 between the two of us. We also have done extensive reading on the subject, digesting old seed catalogs, gardening books, and other publications that give a glimpse of the gardening past of the United States. We have been freely sharing our knowledge on the message board, giving advice when requested, pointing people in the right direction for further experimentation, and generally serving as heirloom tomato resources.

A few months or so ago, an heirloom novice who was trying a couple of varieties for the first time sent a message that asked whether the heirlooms are best used for cooking or canning. The person did not state which varieties they were growing, so it was not possible to make a specific comment. I sent a response that suggested that among the heirlooms are some of the best tasting tomatoes available, for fresh eating or for sauce. My follow up comment was that many of the hybrids, developed for disease resistance and shipability, are probably best used for processing or cooking. I also made the unfortunate choice of generally connecting hybrids with the term “commercial variety”!

The response to this posting from another on line gardener was remarkable in its anger! Sent in all capital letters, it completely disputed my claims, called me (and aimed at Carolyn by inference) essentially self serving and “humbug”, and indicated that we heirloom enthusiasts are brainwashing the gardening public away from hybrids for our own personal gain. Of course, I sent a response that I will not detail in this article, which caused escalation of the matter. All is now peaceful, as Carolyn sent a long retort that smoothed the situation, essentially requesting room for all opinions, which is how it should be.

The exchange was enlightening to me for a number of reasons. People in general seem to become very passionate about their specific gardening likes and dislikes, and take it personally when something that they value is not evident to others. I confess that when Carolyn states her relative dislike for Brandywine or Cherokee Purple (two of my favorite tomatoes), my first reaction is that she has one heck of a nerve criticizing my favorites! My second reaction is that she must have different strains, or that they have crossed and she has not experienced the flavors that I have. What it really comes down to is that taste is truly a personal issue, and her senses just do not interpret those two tomatoes with the same favor that mine do. Goodness knows, there are plenty of tomatoes that she enjoys that I have found ordinary, and I will be willing to bet that she has the same complex responses to this information as I do.

The value of variety is that with such a wide choice, everyone should be able to find their gardening favorites. Obviously, I struck a nerve with the AOL hybrid supporter. Perhaps my love of heirloom tomatoes has somewhat blinded me to their shortcomings, of which there are plenty. Maybe I should grow a Better Boy or Whopper next year and see if my memory no longer serves me accurately. But, I must also remember that gustatory pleasure is not the only reason for growing heirloom tomatoes. Carolyn and I had an interesting phone conversation recently, and we were discussing these issues. It came to me that Big Boy (which is the favorite variety of the militant hybrid lover) is the result of a simple cross between two tomatoes. Carolyn has discovered that one of the parents is a very fine heirloom tomato (she has talked to the creator of Big Boy). Long ago, in the days of the Livingston Seed Company heyday, tomatoes were developed from observing chance mutations or crosses in large fields of single varieties of tomatoes. A bit later, new tomatoes came from selections from specific crosses. That is how Rutgers and Marglobe came into being. Marglobe originated from a cross between a perfectly round pink tomato, Livingston’s Globe, and a disease resistant red tomato, Marvel. The F1 generation was grown (a description of the hybrid is not described anywhere that I am familiar with, but it can be assumed to be a round, red tomato with disease resistance), the resulting seed saved, and a large number of the F2 generation grown the following year. Both pink and red tomatoes showed up in the second generation. The red tomato was saved, future generations selected and grown for a number of years until a stable, open pollinated representative was named and released as Marglobe.

Somewhere along the line it was recognized that it would be far more profitable for a seed company to create the hybrid, keep its parents secret and sell the hybrid seed. It would fetch a higher price due to the labor involved in doing the crosses. It would also cause the gardening public to return to the seed company each year to purchase the hybrid seed, since saved seed would segregate and not grow true to type. If this realization would not have occurred, then Burpee would have taken their new tomato, Big Boy, and, instead of releasing the hybrid (in 1949), spent time growing out seed saved from the hybrid and creating an open pollinated version that would essentially be just like Big Boy, and allow the gardener to save seed and regrow it each year. As you have probably realized, this is exactly what we can all do in our gardens, however. It takes time and effort, but it is not impossible to take a hybrid tomato that we like and, within a few years, create an open pollinated approximation of it. We can also give it a name, since it is in fact a new tomato, created with our specifications in mind. No two people would probably select for the same traits, since, as I said above, taste is a very individual thing!

So, where are we after this long discussion? My opinion is that those who love hybrids and do not favor heirlooms are entitled to think this way, just as those of us who favor heirlooms are perfectly justified to hold this opinion. There really is not a whole lot of difference between the two, however. It just could be that the heirloom that creates such loathing in the garden is the mother or father of your favorite hybrid!