We care for over 6,000 varieties of tomatoes in the seed vault and share over 100 varieties with the public.

The holiday season is upon us, which, for many, could result in several extra trips to the grocery store. The next time that you are browsing through your local produce department, take time to think about those colorful fruits and vegetables on display for sale.

Many foods feeding our nation today were engineered or bred to tolerate being picked, transported, and then displayed on a shelf for at least a few days before being purchased by the consumer and transported again to a home refrigerator.

Seeds under our care at Seed Savers Exchange are vegetables, fruits, and flowers from another time.

Our collection includes both historic and heirloom varieties which attract birds, bees, and butterflies.

Some of the varieties stored in our seed vault and grown in our gardens have evidence of being cultivated before 1950 and were good enough to share within families or communities for generations. Fruits and vegetables of the past were saved and shared due to flavor, not for the ability to travel thousands of miles and sit on a grocery store shelf.

Your year-end gift to Seed Savers Exchange helps preserve varieties from the past. You can help save seeds of tomatoes too delicate to ship. You can redistribute flowers that once grew in your great-grandmother's garden but have since disappeared from the commercial marketplace.