... and, even more contentious, rather against the "heritage" vegetable trend, this piece from yesterday's Gardening Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=A1YourView&xml=/gardening/2008/06/06/garden-first-kingsbury106.xml
I have to say that I rather agree with much of what he says, although it's a bit naive to believe that new seeds will be developed to give gardeners lovely flavoursome tomatoes, rather than developing less tasty tommies with good appearance and keeping qualities.
We do love the fly-resistant carrot varieties, though.
This year I have planted predominantly F1 varieties for a change. Spending a little more, double or even treble what I usually pay for the seed to see if the benefits are worthwhile for the yield. I will hold my decision until harvest time. Though I do agree with his points of view.
I once heard a boss say to a colleague who was whinging about how things were in his day blah blah blah... to which the boss replied "Either move with the times or get left behind". Businesses to it all the time. Same principles apply here. We either adapt to the everchanging environment or will be left to starve. ;)
I became a convert to F1 cauliflowers after Jeannine sent me some in a seed swop and I had fantastic results. Other than that I save a lot of my own seeds, so mostly not F1 types, the advantage of which is that they are 'free' and gradually adapt to my soil and environment.
I refuse to pay F1 prices though, wait until the Wyvales summer sale to stock up !!
I try to grow as many open-pollinated and heritage varieties as possible. The following news articles/websites offer good reasons for doing so...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/12/08/eaveg108.xml (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/12/08/eaveg108.xml)
http://www.btinternet.com/~bury_rd/heritage.htm (http://www.btinternet.com/~bury_rd/heritage.htm)
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/clay56.html (http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/clay56.html)
bd
Notice trhe plug for GM at the end; the guy's got an agenda. Go lef' me ba, halaky!
Barkingdog's Telegraph article claims the crimson-flowered broad bean as 'extinct'. Not in my garden.
Nor in mine ;)
bd
F1 hybrid "Cool Breeze" cucumber gave huge and constant tasty crops last year on small vines not in full sun. Quite amazing! I think the seed company said it only produced female flowers if I remember correctly.
But I'm still trying old and new varieties of toms out of curiosity. Nice having such a wide variety of choice in this era- more to fight over it appears ;D