Experiments That Yielded Fruit

My tomato breeding journey began when I searched the internet for how to cross-pollinate tomatoes and gave it a try!

I had already been starting tomato plants from seed for some of my gardening clients— my favorite varieties including Brad’s Atomic Grape, Tim’s Taste of Paradise, and Red Grape.

I got some viable seeds which I grew the next year, and I was hooked! I began reading tomato breeding blogs and research papers and learning about tomato genetics and looking for the best tomato varieties to use as parents for new varieties.

A few of the widely acclaimed ones lived up to their hype, but others were disappointing. Some combination of the growing conditions here and my own standards made me very selective in choosing any to grow more than once. Due to the coastal conditions with less heat, tomatoes can take longer to ripen here, and so I gravitated towards smaller tomatoes, but didn’t want to give up the great flavor of the bigger heirlooms, so I looked for tomatoes that satisfied both criteria— for instance, two of my favorite medium sized ones that have really great flavor are Little Lucky and Karma Purple.

In doing breeding work, I realized that I have a very particular taste and interest, and after learning more and growing hundreds of varieties of tomatoes, I found several main projects that continue to pull me forward: Large “tangerine orange” tomatoes, Grape tomatoes of all colors, and Micro Dwarfs with interesting leaves (variegated, light green, woolly).

I also found that I especially like particular sizes and shapes of tomatoes— orange/apple-size, passionfruit/kiwi-size, and grape-size. And so my experiments continue within this framework of interest, hopefully with more to show for them soon!