What does heirloom mean?
“Heirloom” refers to heirloom varieties of plants that were commonly grown in previous decades or centuries but are not generally grown in large-scale agriculture today. Many heirloom plants precede agricultural industrialization and can help to diversify our gardens and our diets. Although some growers consider heirloom varieties to date back over 100 years, DoLeaf defines cultivars as “heirloom” if they originated before 1950. Many heirloom plants on DoLeaf could have been found in homesteaders’ vegetable and flower gardens or in the Victory Gardens planted during World War Two.
