VintageGriffin.com

One of the "invisible losses" that we have experienced as a culture is the loss of choice in our gardens, and on our plates. The loss of genetic diversity as agrabusiness and other growers opt to raise and market vegetable varieties that are not chosen for taste -- but for how well they ship to your local grocery store, and how they look when they get there. Have you wondered why tomatoes taste so...tasteless lately? A lot of folks nowadays might have forgotten what a real tomato tastes like, or worse, have never known (pictured at left, Rosa Bianca eggplant from Seed Savers Exchange).

My grandfather had a tremendous garden in his intensely cultivated backyard. His house and lot were in a semi-urban area, yet he fed his family through wars and the depression inbetween with the tomatoes he grew (then bred) himself. Besides tomatoes there were rutabagas, mint, peas, peppers, cabbages, beets, all of it. Sadly, as he became an elderly man, he moved into a nursing home, and his plants were abandoned, then lost. It's a tale that has been repeated too often.

But there's an alternate ending to this tale. Heirloom varieties of vegetables (and flowers) have become increasingly recognized as important in their own right, not just through the lens of nostalgia. So where are all these heirloom varieties hiding?