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Roger Postley displays some of his 30 tomato varieties.
Postley also is raising "walking stick" kale this year.
"For some
people, they like the idea of growing something from long ago. It's seen as
a way to preserve heritage and history."
Rick Durham,
UK Consumer Horticulturalist
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by Aimee D. Heald
LEXINGTON, Ky. (August 14, 2002) - Retired
science teacher Roger Postley is a man with many hobbies and he never does
anything on a small scale. While growing up in New York, Postley's father
taught him the basics of gardening.
Now in his back yard in urban Lexington, Postley's "hobby" is growing
heirloom tomatoes. But with more than 40 plants, the hobby has become much
more.
"I tend to go overboard on hobbies and what started as a few plants has
grown to 41 plants and 30 varieties of mostly European, Asian, American
heirlooms," he said. "I started with one or two and it became
addictive. I had to buy a small greenhouse to put the plants in. You have to
get them from seed since the majority of heirlooms are not available as plants
locally."
Rick Durham, University of Kentucky College of Agriculture horticulture
specialist, said heirloom varieties are usually older cultivars that were
developed in the early 1900s or before.
"Many current heirlooms were popular in World War II Victory
Gardens," he said. "Others were introduced from overseas by
immigrants over the past few hundred years. Still others have their origins in
Native American Culture."
Durham said one thing that sets heirlooms apart from modern-day cultivars is
that they are not hybrids. Rather they are open-pollinated which means they
usually are allowed to cross hybridize with one another and typically come
true-to-type in the next generation.
Postley thinks the main difference in heirlooms and modern cultivars is taste.
"There are over 4,000 named varieties of tomatoes, but only about 30 are
available as plants at nurseries," he said. "I just think the
heirloom varieties usually have more flavor than some modern varieties. I don't
want it to just look like a tomato; I want it to taste like a tomato."
Durham agrees and said that many people believe heirloom varieties have
superior flavor since they have been selected for taste and tenderness over
many generations.
"In contrast though, most modern cultivars are selected more for shipping,
disease resistance, firmness, appearance and country-wide adaptation to climate
than taste," he said. "It's not that modern plant breeders are
selecting against taste, they just have many attributes in addition to taste
that they evaluate."
Postley admits that a hobby is usually a bottomless pit for money, but said
this is the first time he's had a hobby that doesn't cost him money.
"I eat as many as I can, and I've never found it hard to give them
away," he said. "For the last two years I've been working with the
Lexington Farmers' Market to sell my tomatoes labeled as heirlooms. We've
developed quite a clientele. I'm not in this to make money or lose money, I
just break even and that's fine."
Durham and his colleagues at UK are intrigued with heirlooms. Recently they
began a project at UK's South Farm to study their uniformity. He said as
heirlooms are passed on from generation to generation the cultivar aspect can
get diluted and there may be two different varieties with the same name and two
of the same variety with different names.
"We've taken two of the most popular varieties of heirloom tomatoes --
Brandywine and Cherokee Purple -- and ordered seed from 5 sources for
each," he said. "Now we've grown them up and fruited them and we're
looking to see how uniform those fruit are between the different seed
sources."
Results showed that Brandywine is very uniform but Cherokee Purple has more
variance among seed sources.
"So we can't say with certainty, but probably if you're growing Brandywine
from any of these seed sources, it looks like Brandywine," he said.
Durham said it's fairly easy to get started in the heirloom scene with seed
varieties becoming more popular in catalogs and garden supply stores. He added
that many people like growing heirlooms despite the challenges presented by
growing from seed and sometimes reduced pest resistance.
"For some people, they like the idea of growing something from long ago.
It's seen as a way to preserve heritage and history," he said. "It's
becoming more popular to see the heirloom seeds in catalogs and in common
garden supply stores."
Postley's main interest is tomatoes, but he certainly doesn't limit his garden
to the juicy fruit. He said he heard a story recently about a variety of kale
grown in the Chanel Islands.
"They were growing kale and then harvesting, drying and varnishing the
stalks to sell to tourists and souvenir walking sticks," he said. "So
I decided I'd like to try that this year and I've got 16 plants."
If all goes according to plan, Postley said he'd sell dried and varnished
walking sticks from his kale at the farmers' market.
Writer: Aimee D. Heald 859-257-4736, ext. 267Source: Rick
Durham 859-257-3249
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