about heirlooms tasting better, but sadly, in the South with our high humidity, we have so many fungal diseases and blights that they don't do well at all. Every heirloom tomato I've grown has been beset with disease problems and as a result, did not bear well or last very long.
I start my tomatoes usually in the fall and carry them through the winter with protection on cold nights so I want to keep them going for at least 5 months. The heirlooms just never last that long for me.
My advice is to go for varieties with a lot of letters and numbers on the label. VFFI 123 etc. indicate resistant to verticillium and fusarium which are very common, as well as several of the soil-borne bacterial or viral blight diseases.
Btw, seeds are not treated with insecticide but sometimes with a fungicide to prevent them rotting in the soil. None of that treatment affects the bees at all.
