[foofoo4u]

This sparks an interest of mine. I want to grow my own garden of fruits and vegetables. I can grab seeds from my local hardware store. But are these genetically the best I can buy? Is there not a genetic strain of seeds that I can buy somewhere else, perhaps online, that produce both the most nutritious and delicious?

[colechristensen]

I don’t know about “genetically best” but you can check out heirloom seeds from houses like the seed savers exchange (And many others)

https://www.seedsavers.org/

[foofoo4u]

Thank you. I think this gets me in the right direction. "heirloom seeds" seems to be what I am looking for. Some online testify that they find heirlooms taste better. I'll have to do some more research and try them myself to see if its true.

[jacquesm]

They will taste better, but be prepared for much smaller sizes than you are used to. And there is nothing wrong with that, it's just that most vegetables are as large as they are because they absorb a lot of water and effectively their larger size in the most literal sense dilutes the bits that give the vegetables their taste. That's why for instance smaller tomatoes taste so much better than the larger ones.

[dehrmann]

They won't necessarily taste better. One of the things we've been breeding for is better flavor. Also yield and shelf life, so some will definitely taste better.

[lebski88]

I grow a large amount of fruit and vegetables.

There isn't really a best seed. There are simply tradeoffs. That probably sounds familiar :-)

Disease resistance, water tolerance, soil conditions, climate, daylight, tolerance to heat and cold, pest resistance, taste, yield, time to grow, harvest period, storage period.

There are usually an incredible number of varieties for any given plant. It takes quite a few years to start to find ones that work the best for you. It's also doubly tricky as your conditions will change each year.

I like to plant a wide variety of seeds as that makes it likely that something delicious will thrive.

I'd also say that typically home grown fresh vegetables are so much tastier than ship bought that you might worry less about iothan you think.

[fsflover]

> There isn't really a best seed. There are simply tradeoffs.

(Probably a naive question, but I know very little about the topic, sorry)

Why not to make GMO crops without tradeoffs?

[hansel_der]

probably because "GMO crops without tradeoffs" are a contradiction

[fsflover]

Could you elaborate? GMO crops possess no safety risk (if that's what you mean): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_crops.

[hansel_der]

your overly generous assumption about the safety risk aside, imagine a genetic modification and subsequent introduction of that modified organism into the ecosphere like a big leap of faith.

genetic mutation occuring in nature is of smaller scale (a few differences, a few individuals) and not subject to contradicting incentives that politics and markets are prone to.

[fsflover]

> your overly generous assumption about the safety risk

This is not my assumption, this is scientific consensus, see the linked page.

> subsequent introduction of that modified organism into the ecosphere

This is not how the ecosphere works. The new mutation will only survive if it provides some benefits for the survival. If more nutritious fruits are like this, I see no problem here at all.

[RhodesianHunter]

The issue at the heart of this is soil quality, not the genes of the crops.

Anything you grow in your garden will likely be better out the gate. Doubly so if you compost.

[BLKNSLVR]

+1 for composting. There's something satisfying about putting down a deep, dark brown soil to grow some veges in. I don't grow a lot (peas and corn generally), but it's magnificent eating.

As a result of the composting, once my last winter crop of peas had died out, a bunch of mis-matched tomatoes began growing out of the same patch, so I left the trellis up and let the plants develop. Roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and regular tomatoes all growing haphazardly, totally unplanned. A most pleasant surprise that kept me in bruschetta for a few weeks :)

There's something soul satisfying about eating something from your own yard; must be a deep-seeded DNA/evolution thing, like the smell of a campfire.

Back to composting: it's amazing how small a volume of trash we throw out now that we're putting foodstuffs into compost.

[pards]

>> it's amazing how small a volume of trash we throw out now that we're putting foodstuffs into compost.

Toronto introduced its green bin program in 2002, where organic waste (food scraps, mostly) is collected separately and composted. The resulting compost is made available to residents for free.

It massively reduced the amount of garbage going to landfill AND enriches the local soil.

[barathr]

If you're in California, check out California Rare Fruit Growers. If elsewhere in North America, check out North American Fruit Explorers. Both focus on rare varieties that are really good to grow but are not commercially available. I imagine there are similar groups in other parts of the world.

[pneumatic1]

top notch stuff here: https://www.highmowingseeds.com/

[moistly]

I highly recommend growing heirloom tomatoes. The flavours will knock your socks off.