heirloom plants

An heirloom vegetable is an open-pollinated cultivar that was grown during earlier periods in human history. Most popular heirloom plants are vegetables. The trend of growing heirlooms has been growing in popularity in the United States and Europe over the last decade and heirloom vegetable seeds are avaliable in many shops.

The tomato is an herbaceous, plant in the Solanaceae family like its close cousins tobacco, peppers and potato. The wild tomato is native to Central, South, and southern North America from Mexico to Argentina. The Aztecs in Mexico called it ‘xitomatl’ (pronounced shi-to-ma-tlh), meaning plump thing with a navel. In South America the tomato is a perennial. After the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish distributed the tomato throughout their colonies in the Caribbean. They also brought the tomato to Europe.