Heirloom/standard varieties are a good way to go for a lot of reasons. They don't have the resistance to disease or the productivity of the hybrid varieties, but they are often far better tasting. Just as importantly, if you grow heirloom/standards you can produce your own seeds (if you see to it that neighboring varieties don't pollinate the variety you are trying to seed). If the big crash does come, being able to produce vegetables true to type will be extremely important.

Also, if you are interested in perhaps trying to acquire a little independence from ZOG, traditional, heirloom varieties are quite hot with the veggie buying Volvo driving public and sell at premium prices.

Even though I live outside a fair sized town with a couple of really big feed and nursery stores, every spring (if something goes wrong with the seedlings I start and I need to look for replacements) all I can ever fine are the well known hybrids like Big Boy, etc. Hundreds and hundreds of flats of a few hybrids. Talk about a mono-culture.

If you like tomatoes - you can get a gigantic selection of heirloom seeds and even plants from any of these places.
Totally Tomatoes (www.totallytomato.com (http://)). They have a really beautiful catalog with all color pictures of hundreds of heirloom varieties, also of peppers and squash.
Heirloom Seeds (www.heirloomseeds.com). Black and white catalog with no pictures, but huge selection of heirloom varieties of all vegetables and flowers too.
J.W. Jung Seed Co. (www.jungseed.com) has a neat catalog too. Lots of heirlooms, but plenty of hybrids too. Very nice people, as well.

Most of these places throw in a few packets of free seeds with orders.

I got so inspired that I'm going to try and grow ten heirloom varieties of tomatoes this year and get my own seeds from the ones I like best.

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Heirloom/standard varieties are a good way to go for a lot of reasons. They don't have the resistance to disease or the productivity of the hybrid varieties, but they are often far better tasting. Just as importantly, if you grow heirloom/standards you can produce your own seeds (if you see to it that neighboring varieties don't pollinate the variety you are trying to seed). If the big crash does come, being able to produce vegetables true to type will be extremely important.

Yeah, the non-hybs require a little more attention and pest control and as you said, don't usually produce as much, but the hybrids will not give productive seed more than a couple of seasons at best. While the going's good, you can stick with the highly-productive hybrids, but I would keep a reserve of non-hybs at least. I've noticed the quality of the fruit/veggies on the non-hybs is oftimes a lot firmer than the hybs, even if it is less abundant and smaller.

Thanks for the links and let us know how the heirlooms grow this year and what extra care you need to put into them. I'm interested in building up a reserve of non-hybs as well.

J

thank you thank you for the info

I do like the taste of non-hybrid tomatoes better and plan to paticipate a little with the open air farmers market, esp if I can get some peppers and other "exotic" garden items (cayennes, okra) in.

sounds fun