Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop

Seed Savers Exchange near Decorah, Iowa, is hosting a free Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop on Saturday, September 1, 2012. The Tomato Tasting will run from 1:00 – 4:00 pm, offering visitors the opportunity to sample a wide variety of heirloom tomatoes and learn how to save tomato seeds.

The event will be held at the Lillian Goldman Visitors Center. More than 40 varieties of tomatoes of all colors and sizes will be available, including yellow cherry, pink beefsteak, striped stuffing, red grape and green roma’s. This year’s tasting will include 10 rare varieties from Seed Savers Exchange’s seed bank collection. Last year, Dester, a beefsteak tomato from the rare varieties was voted most popular.

The Oneota Food Co-op in Decorah is sponsoring this year’s Salsa Contest. Limited to 25 entrants, applications are available at the Co-op, by calling 563-382-4666, and online at www.oneotacoop.com. The registration deadline is Monday, August 27. The co-op will also be providing food for purchase during the event.

There will be tomato seed saving workshops beginning at 12:00 noon featuring Seed Savers Exchange staff as well as tomato advisor and expert Craig LeHoullier. LeHoullier will give two talks, Tasting the Biodiversity of Tomatoes and Tomatoes with Great Stories and Great Flavors. Visitors will be able to tour Seed Savers Exchange’s tomato gardens. Guided hayride tours begin at 12:00 noon and are scheduled for every 45 minutes.

“This family event gives people the opportunity to experience the wide diversity of tomatoes available, and learn how to improve their own gardening experience,” says Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange. The event will include music with special activities planned for kids.

All events are free to the public.

Founded in 1975, Seed Savers Exchange operates an 890-acre farm in northeast Iowa where thousands of rare fruit, vegetable, and other plant varieties are regenerated and preserved in a central collection. Its non-profit mission is conserving and promoting America’s culturally diverse but endangered food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants. For information visit www.seedsavers.org

For more information contact:

Shannon Carmody Seed Savers Exchange shannon@seedsavers.org 563-387-5630

All in a day's work at Heritage Farm

These photos were taken within 30 minutes of each other yesterday—just another beautiful, busy day at Heritage Farm![uds-billboard name="all-in-a-days-work-at-heritage-farm" ]

Welcome to the family

Please help us welcome the newest—and cutest—member of the SSE family, calf number 1801!

SSE's herd of Ancient White Park cattle is one of only five major herds in the U.S. White Park were recently upgraded from critical to threatened by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy; threatened means that there are fewer than 1,000 annual registrations in the United States and an estimated global population less than 5,000.

Read more about Ancient White Park cattle and Heritage Farm

Behind the scenes of the 6th Annual Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop

Ok, we have a secret; it’s in the public’s best interest that we come clean with this information. We at Seed Savers Exchange have ulterior motives behind the upcoming Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop at Heritage Farm on September 3rd.

If you’ve been to the Tomato Tasting in years past, you know that (on the surface at least) this event is a celebration—a festival of flavors, colors, textures, shapes and sizes. In fact, this year visitors will have a chance to sample 40 to 50 different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, ranging from yellow cherry tomatoes to pink beefsteaks and striped stuffing tomatoes. However, we’ve heard from a reliable informant that there will also be a few “new” varieties in the lineup—that is, varieties not currently offered in the Seed Savers Exchange Catalog—or any seed catalog for that matter. This year’s Tomato Tasting will, in fact, feature a few varieties from the SSE collection. Not only do these “trial” varieties keep regular visitors to our Tomato Tasting on their toes, they also represent a critical aspect of SSE’s preservation work.

Many of the varieties in our collection are rare. Offering them in the catalog is a way of introducing them to the public—and more importantly, the food supply. Here’s how the process of selecting “new” heirloom varieties occurs:

Each year SSE’s Preservation garden crew grows out accessions from our collection to regenerate seed. During this time Preservation staffrecord vegetative characteristics, evaluate the quality and quantity of fruit, and save enough seed to preserve in our long-term storage facilities.

Towards the end of the growing season, SSE staff, local market gardener Eric Sessions, and Board Member David Cavagnaro, tour the preservation gardens looking for stand-out varieties. These stand-out varieties are then grown for further evaluation by the Commercial garden crew the following season.

Here’s an example: ‘Emmy’, show-stopping yellow tomato without any signs of blemish, was grown in 2010. We hoped the history of this variety was as good as the tomato, and then we read the donation letter:

October 20, 2005

Dear Seed Savers Exchange,

My friend Emmy was born in Transylvania which used to belong to Hungary. At the end of WW II she was expelled (she was of German descent) and had to leave her house. As she left in the fall of 1945, she grabbed a tomato, managed to keep it throughout the arduous journey into Germany and kept planting the seeds of her Transylvanian tomato.

I met Emmy in 1978 in Rosenheim, Germany and when we left in 1979, Emmy gave me some seeds of her Transylvanian tomato. I have planted this tomato every year, first in Eugene, Oregon and then in Tigard, Oregon. The tomato is yellow, does not grow very large (at least in my garden) and has a very intensive tomato flavor. If you wish, you may name the tomato Emmy!

- Ernestine Bloomberg

“New" or “trial” varieties making an appearance in this year’s Tomato Tasting include the ‘Strawberry’ as well as the ‘Emmy’ tomatoes, both of which are not currently commercially available. However, with your help, that could soon change. We hope you’ll join the conspiracy by attending this year’s tasting and telling us what you think of each variety. Your opinion, and vote, will help us determine the lineup for future catalog offerings!

Browse tomato varieties from the SSE catalog in our online store Learn more about the SSE Yearbook Learn more about SSE preservation

Pine Spring Creek Restoration Project

Last week marked the official groundbreaking for the Pine Spring Creek Restoration Project at Heritage Farm—and with it, an exciting advance for genetic diversity here at Seed Savers Exchange headquarters.

As a partnership between the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Trout Unlimited and Seed Savers Exchange, the project will restore stream habitat for native Brook Trout as well as a number of native plant species.

Years ago, a previous owner of the property created the pond for trout fishing. Over the  years, however, the stream-fed pond has silted in, increasing the water temperature by nearly 8 degrees, making it less suitable for native Brook Trout.  Removing the pond and restoring the stream will lower the water temperature closer to the 65 degrees preferred by Book Trout, which were stocked by the DNR in 2003 and 2004.

In addition to restoring the flow of the original stream bed, gravel substrate was introduced to the new section of stream to improve the habitat for spawning. Brook Trout are already reproducing naturally in Pine Spring Creek, according to Bill Kalishek, a fisheries biologist with the DNR. The planned restoration will greatly improve the likelihood that this trend continues.

The area where the pond was will be planted with grass and White Pine and Bur Oak trees. There will also be a small wetland to provide habitat and feature native plants such as Marsh Marigold and Skunk Cabbage.

SSE would like to thank the numerous Trout Unlimited chapters and other fishing organizations for their generous financial support for this project.

Heritage Farm is the headquarters of Seed Savers Exchange. The farm is located six miles north of Decorah, Iowa. Nestled among sparkling streams, limestone bluffs, and century-old white pine woods, the 890-acre farm is a living museum of historic varieties. Thousands of heirlooms are grown in certified organic fields. The farm includes preservation gardens, a historic orchard as well as ancient White Park Cattle. The Lillian Goldman Visitors Center is open 9-6 Monday-Friday and 10-6 Saturday and Sunday, tours depart at 1 p.m. both days.

More information about Heritage Farm and the Lillian Goldman Visitors Center.