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From purple carrots to blue potatoes, anything goes when it comes to heritage vegetables, which look - and taste - out of this world. Anna Greenland explains why growing these strange-looking vegetables are so important in our challenging times... and gives some tips on getting started.
Heritage veg: what and why?
With colourful names like Red Zebra Tomato, Bulls Blood Beetroot and Aunt Dinah's Climbing Blue French Bean, heritage vegetables were grown by our ancestors for generations. Seeds from favourite plants would be saved, nurtured and passed down like precious family heirlooms.
 Illustration by Robert Evans at Telegramme.co.uk
Many of the old varieties sported an extraordinary array of colours, shapes, and sizes, and were also able to adapt to changing climates and soils. However, in recent years more uniform hybrids, preferred by supermarkets and large-scale commercial farming, have dominated seed catalogues. Sadly, many heritage varieties have been lost and seed saving - a practice that was second nature to our forebears - has been all but forgotten.
With economic instability, peak oil and climate change dominating the headlines, food security is becoming far more of a pressing issue. For anyone with the space to grow food at home (a windowsill will do), now is the time to be thinking about getting soil under your fingernails.
By growing traditional heritage varieties, you'll be keeping alive our colourful culinary past, as well as potentially saving your own seed. It could save you money and keep you fed, but aside from all that, growing blue beans and golden beetroot is really fun!
When talking about the merits of heritage vegetables, it's tempting to get caught up with nostalgic notions of a bygone era - especially when varieties are called Grandpa Admires Lettuce or Grandma Mary's Paste Tomato. However, it's important to remember that varieties like these are also a fundamental part of our future and loosing them could leave us all in a rather precarious position.
Environmental challenges
To most of us, climate change is somewhat of an unknown quantity and it's hard to predict exactly what challenges lie ahead for our food crops. For example, as time goes by we could be faced with a totally different collection of pests and diseases from those present today, and that is where old varieties could be a saviour.
These traditional types of vegetables have slowly adapted through the ages and contain genetic material that could be of vital use in years to come. Certain characteristics unique to each plant (such as resistance to particular pests and diseases) may need to be harnessed for future breeding programmes in order to ensure food security.
Similarly, when we consider the issue of peak oil, the importance of preserving heritage varieties becomes apparent. Oil is key in the production of chemical fertilisers, and new hybrid varieties are reliant on these inputs to produce high yields. Old varieties on the other hand, have survived centuries without chemical boosts and have a natural ability to succeed without them.
Changing times
Despite the benefits of growing heritage seed, it's easy to see why so many have gone into decline. Most people now buy their food in supermarkets, that like vegetables of the same shape and size that can be easily handled by machine - and heritage varieties do not offer this uniformity. Hybrid varieties are far more attractive to commercial growers as they are bred to offer characteristics such as 'uniformity' and 'resistance to bruising'.
Due to the demand for these types of crops, farmers tend to grow large amounts of a limited number of new varieties, leading to a lack of biodiversity and a decline in important heritage varieties. "In the US and Canada, two thirds of the nearly 5000 non-hybrid varieties that were offered in the 1984 catalogues had been dropped by 1994!and the situation is even worse in Europe," says Sue Stickland in her book Heritage Vegetables.
Impact in the Third World
The promise of high yields that modern hybrids can give, has led many farmers to abandon traditional varieties that have adapted and developed to the particular conditions on their land over generations. Sadly, in some cases this has catastrophic results, particularly in the developing world.
In the 1960s, high-yield varieties of wheat and rice were developed which were initially very successful with inputs of nitrogen fertiliser. Unfortunately, over time pests and diseases adapted and peasant farmers also had to invest in pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, as well as machinery to utilise these sprays. Without all these inputs, new varieties often fared worse than the old types, and one of the causes of the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s was due to the desertion of old drought-tolerant varieties in favour of modern hybrids.
The plight of these farmers was worsened due to the loss of seed saving practices. A technique that had been practised for generations became redundant as they found that crops grown from saved hybrid seed failed. It is not possible to produce successful crops with seed saved from hybrids. When they eventually reintroduced old varieties back onto the land, disease resistance of this traditional seed was diminished making them far more vulnerable.
Seed saving is something that has been largely forgotten by today's growers and gardeners. It may not be imperative for us to save our own seed as it is for subsistence farmers in developing countries, but by doing so we can all help to keep valuable varieties alive that may be of great use in the future. It can also feel rather special passing on seed that you have nurtured to your friends and family; especially when you know that it tastes really good!
Saving your seeds
In some cases - French Beans for example - it can be as simple as leaving pods on the plant until they are totally dry, picking them and leaving pods in a warm airy place before removing the seeds.
Similarly, tomatoes are one of the simplest crops to save seed from. All you have to do is leave them on the plant until they are really ripe, cut them open and squeeze out the seeds and mush into a bowl. Leave this in a warm place for a few days until a film of mould appears, and after 3-4 days of ignoring the rather smelly goo, scoop off the mould and wash seeds in a sieve. Put them on a plate and let them dry somewhere warm, out of direct sunlight. And there you have it - more heritage seed to sow the following year without having to buy it from a catalogue or garden centre!
Growing food
Growing your own food is easy, even with limited space. You don't have to have a veggie patch to be eating fresh produce throughout the year. An array of vegetables and herbs can be grown well in containers. Tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, peas, beans, carrots and onions will all grow successfully, providing pots are deep enough and have good drainage. Maximise space by growing more than one thing per pot - rocket around tomatoes or salad leaves around peas and beans. Even if you only have a narrow windowsill, you could improvise with cut off plastic bottles.
If time is tight, grow some heritage tomatoes. You won't regret it, and will find it hard to eat one from a supermarket ever again. Check descriptions in catalogues for flavour and colour and you can grow yourself a rainbow of different varieties - reds, oranges, yellows, greens, pinks and purples to name but a few!
By growing old varieties you can help to safeguard biodiversity as well as gaining some fascinating knowledge about traditional methods of gardening. Winter is a good opportunity to plan out what you want to grow next spring and to start ordering seed.
Heritage suppliers and useful info
Real Seeds is a private collection of rare, heirloom, and unusual vegetables selected particularly for the home grower. You can also download a free information booklet about how to save seed from the website.
Kokopelli Seeds is a non-profit making organization in France that sells really interesting heritage seed and a fantastic book detailing varieties and seed saving.
Thomas Etty is a heritage seeds supplier with a comprehensive list of old varieties.
Tamar Organincs based in Cornwall and features some organic old varieties.
The Lost Gardens of Heligan Pentewan, Cornwall has a beautiful productive garden packed full of heritage varieties.
Garden Organic is the UK's leading organic growing charity. It offers advice and growing tips, a catalogue featuring a range of old varieties and is home to the Heritage Seed Library, which protects over 800 varieties of rare vegetable seeds from the threat of extinction.
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