What Are Heirloom Tomatoes Anyway?

We’ve probably all seen them while wandering through the market, those strangely shaped, multi-color, big ol’ beauties. But have you every wondered exactly what makes an heirloom tomato different than a regular tomato? The name is a good place to start. When we think about heirlooms, we think of something that has been passed down generation to generation. Heirloom tomatoes have done just that, but with their seeds!

The seeds are what make an heirloom tomato an heirloom tomato. It’s commonly agreed upon that heirlooms are varieties from before 1940. The seeds are passed down from season to season. Farmers take them from the tomato plants that produced the best fruit. This allows farmers to select for certain desirable traits like juiciness, size, shape, or color. Heirloom tomatoes are also often open-pollinated, which means that they are pollinated naturally, by birds, insects, wind, or human hands. No genetic modification here! Which is a bonus for farmers’ market shoppers – most mass produced tomatoes you’ll find in the grocery store have been bred to look consistent and nice, but but are not necessarily bred for flavor. And as far as color goes, tomatoes are naturally multi-colored – pure red tomatoes are a mutation that have only been bred since the 1940s! We’ll take a bright, colorful, juicy, flavorful, rebellious tomato with some history over a “picture perfect” one any day!

Heirloom tomatoes are fully out right now at the Chico Saturday Farmers’ Market! Now that you’re better acquainted with this fabulous fruit, head to the market this Saturday to start weaving heirloom tomatoes into your life!