standard seed packets are often hybrids but not necessarily and are usually not organic (organic seeds cost more).organic seeds as you know are collected from plants that have been grown organically (without artificial fertilisers and pesticides etc). hybrid seeds are from crossing different varieties to come up with a new variety with favourable characteristics of both parents.

Heirloom seeds are varieties that have been handed down from generation to generation, and have been around since before hybrid seeds gained popularity. some also consider seeds heirloom if they have been around for at least 25 - 50 years old but the problem with this is that nowadays, there were many hybrid seeds around 25-50 years ago but it's a loosely defined standard. they are generally only considered heirloom if they are open polinated though(which means they are not hybrids).

many people have returned to growing heirlooms vegetables for a few reasons. Often when vegies are crossed to make new varieties it has been done so that they ripen at the same time in a field, or have thicker skins that bruise less easily, or store for longer etc. these are all good things for farmers, but along the way, other things like flavour have been bred out of the vegies. You notice this especially with tomatoes as most of the shop bought ones just dont have much flavour and people can actually remember tomatoes tasted different when they were younger. so by growing heirlooms you can get a much tastier fruit, that may bruise easier or ripen progressively but those things are not a problem for home gardeners who do not use harvesting machinery or transport and store their vegies over long distances and time. many people also feel that these old varieties may get lost if people do not continue to grow them and save and share the seed as was done many generations ago.

If seed is organic or heirloom it is usually labelled that way for marketing anyway, so unspecified seeds are usually not heirloom or organic.

there are many online seed merchants, some of them specialise in heirloom varieties and/or carry organic seeds and I prefer these smaller companies than the mass produced seed companies just because I like to support what they are doing and help them continue financially to do it and so you really dont have to buy those seeds off the shelf anymore, the heirloom merchants sell so many varieties that you will never have heard of so you get much greater choice with them.

ps. sorry for the long post, but there was so much you wanted to know in your query that it just turned out this way :)

one more thing I forgot to mention is that when you grow hybrids (crosses) and save seed from your vegies to sow the following year, you have no guarantee that they will come true, in other words some or all of the seed may revert back to one or other of the parents so you arent growing the same variety anymore. with heirlooms (open pollinated) they are not crosses so when you save seed it will be the same type of plant as the year before so this is a big advantage of growing heirloom and open pollinated varieties

trancegemini_wa thank you for your long and very informative post. It clears up much of the mystery for me.

I wish I'd have known about this before buying seed, as it is likely I'd have bought only heirloom seeds. The idea of growing heirloom varieties appeals to me since I'd be growing something I probably can't get in the store. Also, I'm gardening partly to get the freshest and best tasting vegetable flavors possible, and it sounds like heirloom varieties might be best for that.

In some cases I'll get to compare, as I have heirloom and hybrid varieties of a couple of different vegetables.

I'm looking forward to learning all that I can about gardening. Thank you again.

no problem yrdling :)

"The idea of growing heirloom varieties appeals to me since I'd be growing something I probably can't get in the store."

absolutely, there are literally hundreds of heirloom tomato varieties out there for instance you could spend a lifetime just trying them all out, and you realise that not all tomatoes even taste the same, the different heirlooms varieties have different flavour characteristics to each other. when you next buy seeds do some searching online for heirloom vegetable seeds and you'll see just how much variety is out there that you wont find on the shelf at the shops. good luck with your garden :)