Heirloom Seeds Organic

heirloom seeds organic

Heirloom and heritage mean exactly the same thing as far as seeds are concerned. It would be nice if all the seed companies that offer OP (open pollinated) seed would get on the same page and use the same terminology in all the catalogues

This is Carolyn Male’s Definition (Ms Male is one of the top experts on heirloom tomatoes and has written several books on the topic)
1. Commercial Heirlooms: Open-pollinated varieties introduced before 1940, or tomato varieties more than 50 years in circulation.
2. Family Heirlooms: Seeds that have been passed down for several generations through a family.
3. Created Heirlooms: Crossing two known parents (either two heirlooms or an heirloom and a hybrid) and dehybridizing the resulting seeds for how ever many years/generations it takes to eliminate the undesirable characteristics and stabilize the desired characteristics, perhaps as many as 8 years or more.
4. Mystery Heirlooms: Varieties that are a product of natural cross-pollination of other heirloom varieties.

I have checked personally with Ms male about this as we have known each for many years other through some gardening forums and this question comes up perennially and she also says heritage and heirloom mean the same thing. Seeing as how all the seed companies use her definition of Heirloom I would say she is as good a source as one can get on this topic

Organic has absolutely nothing to do with this and as a matter of fact, most of the heirloom seeds sold are NOT certified organic. Seed savers Exchange and Fedco both offer certified organic heirloom seed but neither offers only organic heirloom seed, they also have conventionally grown heirloom seed. The heirloom seed offered by Burpee, Parks, etc., are not certified organic at all and in some cases have fungicide treatments that would make the land they are planted upon uncertifiable for 3 years or would decertify organic land.

Hybrid seed can be certified organic. I have bough pounds of such seed in my life. Hybrid cannot be heirloom as others here have explained

3 Heirloom Tobacco Seed Collections ( of four types), Up for Trade.

Other articles you might like;

• Vegetable Seed For Sale
• Heirloom Tomato Seeds
• Garden Seeds Organic
• Seed For Sale
• Heirloom Seeds For Sale