I think they taste better than the grocery store varieties but usually it is more difficult growing them, and they have a lower yield than industrial varieties.
There are also general quirks with growing them. Experience lends me to suggest that heirlooms are more immediately sensitive to the environment that convention varieties. Buying from baker creek who are out in the Midwest, Seeds are going to have a different response in the growing in the SE Atlantic region, that response seems more pronounced although I have no idea of how to quantify it.
Ultimately I think it is worth it, it is fun, and it taps into more of the holistic aspects of gardening. For example, learning how to make quesadillas because your heirloom corn gets infected with corn smut, so instead of an infection you have a product.
That kind of frame-shift i think goes into the nostalgia of Doing It How We Used To.
Recently visited a local botanical garden and saw their mature Ficus lyrata (Fiddle lead fig) and was astounded to see mine at 6 feet tall was merely a juvenile branch on the entire tree.
The author has also a good point in that maturing plants is a lot of work and as they become more of themselves they become more than, imo, what people would consider aesthetically appropriate.
M.deiciosa is a hot plant right now and maybe in these 5+1 apartments someone will live in one long enough to let it really start branching up and out and taking up a valuable amount of living real estate. It also has these, to my fiancee, 'penile' roots that are to her unsightly.
They make me feel more alive seeing the plant thrive and do its thing.
