I just saw "Heirloom Orange F1" tomato seed in a Wilhite catalog. PPPFFFTTT!
Worse than "Jumbo Shrimp".
I saw "heirloom tomatoes" advertised in a supermarket and checked it out. There was a wicker basket with several different shapes and colors of tomato ... just that and the word "Heirloom". Each fruit had the SAME barcode: like pepper varieties sold as "red" peppers or "yellow" peppers. Real helpful, NOT.
It was obvious why supermarkets usually only stock tomatoes like pool balls or baseballs. These Mystery Heirlooms were all bruised and squishy. I tried to pick one up to buy it, but it sagged like raw liver and I gave up.
A trend that baffles me is that fruit stands and supermarkets can label and charge more for "On The Vine" tomatoes. They can charge more for NOT trimming the stems off? What kind of tomato is it, a connoisseur might ask? "On The Vine".
Perhaps next we'll see a premium charged for "On The Vine" tomato seeds.
Is the whole world wacky, or is it just me?
I have to admit I was startled to learn that some seed traders thought that "Open Pollinated" meant "open to the sky and winds and insects, freely crosspollinating with whatever".
I like Joseph's term for that: "PP" meaning "Promiscuosuly Pollinated".
