Save seeds from your favorite tomato!

The Growing Ester's Biodiversity program is pleased to present for the second year a free workshop on saving seeds from tomatoes and other pulpy fruits. Many such fruits require a period of fermentation to remove the projective coating that prevents germination, while others, such as tomatillos, do not.

Aurora Siberian tomatoes grown in Ester, 2014. Photo and garden by Deirdre Helfferich, GEB director.

This year, as in our first year of conducting the workshop, we have the good fortune to have local grower and seedsman Kurt Wold of Pingo Farm / Zone 1 Grown in attendance; Wold has been finding tomato and pepper varieties that do well in our climate and offering them in his catalog. He is the only seed grower for vegetable seeds in the state. He is also a certified potato grower. Wold is the organizer of the Great Alaska Turnip Breeding Project, in which local gardeners grow turnips and harvest the seed or report on the results, with an eye to developing a tasty, tender, large, root-maggot-resistant turnip for the Interior. Wold will talk about the project and bring bouquets of lettuce and carrot flowers.

The workshop details:

• location: John Trigg Ester Library Clausen Cabin, 3629 Main Street
• time/date: 4 pm, Saturday, September 27, 2014
• bring: heirloom/open-pollinated tomatoes, cucumbers, or tomatillos, a sharp knife, a jar and lid for each variety you'd like to save, towels, and a cutting board or plate

We'll provide labels, pens, informational handouts, and some extra jars if people run out. We will also have samples from our seed library. Bring extra tomatoes and we'll have a tomato tasting!