Looming heirlooms-- and why sometimes it's best to leave the pests alone

Reason that real food costs so much, #489: real vegetables are not bred to last.





I am talking here about heirloom tomatoes, which everyone has heard about while very few people actually know what they are. I went to the Wikipedia site on heirloom tomatoes for a straightforward definition-- and was thwarted by the "some people say this; some people argue that" tone of the article. Apparently the construction of simple declarative statements is a lost art. (Check out the Wikipedia site anyway-- it's got some good information on specific varieties.)





But I digress. Heirlooms are varieties of tomatoes (or whatever other "heirloom" plant you're investigating-- this wikipedia site is much more helpful) is essentially a cultivar that was commonly grown during earlier times in history, (i.e., pre-industrial agriculture) and is not used in modern agriculture. Of course, the cardboard-tasting red balls you can buy in the supermarket are not the only alternative to heirlooms-- there are many varieties grown by organic and small farmers that are also modern-day hybrids, which are easier to grow and store. The big point to remember is that heirlooms are quite a diverse lot-- they're all sorts of colors, shapes, sizes-- and eye-popping flavors.





So why do they cost so much? First off, the seeds are more expensive. More importantly, however, you can put tons of effort into growing heirlooms and get very little yield. There's a very small window between ripening and spoilage. Out picking heirlooms yesterday, I was initially excited to see all the splashes of red peaking out of the green stems. But going through an entire 100 feet or so of heirloom plants, I probably had to junk about half the ripe ones I found. Many had split, and many more displayed a black spot on the bottom that belied the beginnings of "blossom end rot". (In that case, you can often cut off the black spot and eat the tomato yourself. But forget about displaying it at a farmers' market or getting any actual profit from it.)



I also had my first encounter with the dreaded tomato horn worm. These caterpillars are not only the ugliest thing you're likely to see on the farm (compared to them, earthworms are positively gorgeous), but are some of the most destructive. In addition to actual tomatoes, they munch on new growth at the tops of the plants, leaving naked stems in their wake. I'm also told that their--ahem-- excrement is about the size and shape of goat droppings, but thankfully I have yet to encounter this particular sight.



My mother, who always grew a few tomato plants in her backyard garden, used to get these things, too. At the time (this was 30 years ago), she simply hit the whole plant with some kind of pesticide. This is, of course, a no-no now, particularly on an organic farm. Instead, we get to pluck the thing off the plant with our (preferably-gloved) hands, drop it on the ground and step on it. At least that's the simplest way. If you have a lot, you can apparently also drop them all in a bucket and then burn them.

Probably not the preferred method for the animal-rights community, who would have been gleefully laughing at me later anyway, when I looked up tomato horn worms on the Internet and made an interesting discovery. The particular horn worm I saw had a bunch of white fuzzy things sticking to its back, which made it look even more like something I really didn't want on my plants. Another farm worker (who will remain anonymous to protect his/her identity) told me that they were eggs. (See this web site for pictures of the normal horn worm and scroll down a little for a picture of the white egg-like things.) Turns out that they're actually cocoons of a small braconid wasp called contesia congregatus, which is a natural parasite of the horn worm. Apparently, once the cocoons hatch, the wasps will actually kill the horn worm-- and then go off and seek more to parasitize.

I realize that none of this is very appetizing. But the point is that the standard advice is to leave parasitized horn worms as they are-- they'll die soon enough anyway and the wasps will live to chew on another of its kind.

On the other hand, I'm still not sure I could have left the thing there to munch, even knowing its days were numbered.