This grew out of a talk I had the opportunity to give to Novella Carpenter’s Urban Agriculture class at University of San Francisco in 2026.

I was inspired for a title by this article authored by Dani Zamir, a big deal in the world of plant breeding, real plant breeding, not just amateur breeding like me.

But even at my level, I see it as an art and a science. It is an art because it is a creative expression, I am guided by intuition and joy and curiosity and beauty.

Which leads to the science: taking careful notes, trying specific experiments to see what will happen, learning more to be able to guess what might happen and then compare the actual results.

I am inspired in my artistry by my mom, natural perfumer Mandy Aftel, by Gregor Mendel, by Charles Darwin, by Charles Rick, Tom Wagner, Craig LeHoullier, Fred Hempel, Karen Olivier, Bill Yoder, and the so many others working to make beautiful, tasty, healthful, adaptive tomatoes.