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IT WAS 1 DEGREE Fahrenheit outside when I looked at my electronic weather station readout the other morning, a perfect time for some winter-defying tactics like talking tomatoes.
Organic seed farmer and breeder Don Tipping of Siskiyou Seeds in Oregon joined me for a colorful, warming conversation, because after trialing 55 tomato varieties last season, Don has some goodies to recommend—and some advice on growing your best tomatoes ever, including ones that actually store well long after harvest. Yes, storage tomatoes (like the ones hanging above).
Don Tipping founded Siskiyou Seeds, a family-run farm-based organic seed company, in 1997. Siskiyou is a farm with a view situated at 2,000 feet of elevation in the Siskiyou Mountains of Southwest Oregon, and features something like a thousand varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers in its impressive collection.
Read along as you listen to the Jan. 26, 2026 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
a diversity of tomatoes, with don tipping
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Margaret Roach: Hi, Don, how are you? I bet it’s not 1 degree there.
Don Tipping: No. Good morning. We have a typical high-pressure system in January of warm, sunny days. It’s been getting in the upper 50s and a little frosty at night.
Margaret: You’re trying to make me jealous, are you? Oh my goodness. Anyway, I think the last time we chatted, it was about another sort of summery, hot-colored passion of yours: zinnias. So today’s topic is kind of like that, tomatoes, and you did trials last summer at the farm of 55 varieties, as I mentioned in the introduction, that I had read about, and I kept meaning to get in touch with you. And so here we are. What was the goal of the trials? Why did you do that? [Below, Don’s ‘Firestarter’ zinnia.]
Don: Well, basically every year on the farm, I try and pick a few species that I’m going to really dive deep into and learn more about because I think there’s always new varieties that we haven’t grown, or people have enthusiasm for new crops.
So this year it was tomatoes, because I have a friend and colleague who’s been doing some tomato breeding. And recently I stumbled across the whole subcategory of storage tomatoes. So I was wanting to grow a whole bunch next to one another and learn more data, because I find being a farm-based seed company, the more research and development work I can do is really valuable, because oftentimes when I’m doing catalog writing, I’ll go to many other seed companies’ websites and I’ll notice that many of them use the same exact word-for-word description, which means they don’t really know. They’re just copy and pasting. But I would be able to speak from my own personal experience.
Margaret: Right. And speaking of that, that boilerplate copy-paste kind of thing, genetically speaking or whatever, I always say—and again, as a layperson—I always say a ‘Brandywine’ isn’t a ‘Brandywine’ isn’t a ‘Brandywine.’ Meaning the genetics of the seed in the ‘Brandywine’ packets that I could order from those 20 different seed catalogs that have the copy and paste of its same definition, it’s not the same unless it came from the same source of seed. So there’s so much potential variability, so much genetic potential expression and adaptability, all these adaptations that can happen. I mean, it’s so exciting—and that’s the miracle of seed. So I don’t want that cut-and-paste thing. I want your firsthand one, and I want them to get my firsthand one, right?
Don: Yeah. Well, a little figure I like to bring up from India from the work of Vandana Shiva is she talks about before the Green Revolution, there were over 30,000 varieties of rice there. And if you were able to look at them all growing, many of them probably look really similar, but seeds do have memory. And if you keep growing them season after season in the same place under the same growing conditions, they’ll do better every year, a little bit better in that area. Whereas most seed companies are just buying from the international wholesale market and it’s not possible to have that level of specialization. And this is what globalization has brought the world is-
Margaret: Right. So it’s availability to all, but it’s availability from the same source, which is one strain, so to speak, one set of genetics that’s adapted to those commercial fields in who knows where, and it’s usually a place that’s nothing like my garden. And the techniques used, it’s probably not…a lot of times it’s not organically managed, all these kinds of things.
Don: Yeah. Well, and you brought up ‘Brandywine,’ that’s one of the … Well, actually two of the varieties that we trialed was our strain of ‘Brandywine’ that we’ve been growing and saving seed of for years. And then one from my friend, Steve Peters at Seed Revolution Now, that he calls ‘California Brandywine,’ because they’ve been tweaking it and selecting for production on the Central Coast of California. So technically the same thing, but one has learned to adapt to a coastal California climate, whereas I’m in the mountains of Oregon.
Margaret: Yeah. And again, it’s just infinitely exciting the potential for these living creatures to express themselves in these intimately distinctive ways, I think. So that’s what I love about seed—I mean, one of the many things. So you had curiosity, you had curiosity about varieties you didn’t know. You had curiosity about comparing his ‘Brandywine’ to your ‘Brandywine,’ those kinds of things, and about the storage tomatoes.
So what in the world is a storage tomato? I mean, that just cracked me up when I saw that in here. I mean, I sort of had heard of it, but I didn’t really know. And do you actually have tomatoes in storage in January right now?
Don: Yeah. Well, to where the story begins, at least for me, is years ago, there was a tomato variety called ‘Longkeeper,’ and it’s still out there. And it’s a round red, nothing special, like two to two and a quarter inch diameter red slicer without exceptional flavor. But if you pick it slightly under ripe, not green, but let’s say orange, it’ll for a long time, but it’s not really exciting. And what really grabbed me with the Italian and Spanish and Catalan storage tomatoes was I was really introduced to it through Lane Selman, who founded the Culinary Breeding Network and has done a lot to champion the unsung heroes of the vegetable world stuff. [Above, Lane with some storage varieties.]
So I actually first saw it in pictures, and she had an artist do some pen and ink work of these clusters of tomatoes. So it looks like maybe a hundred cherry tomato-size things all clustered together like a bunch of grapes hanging up. And then finally at one of these events, they had a table with the Dryland Farming Collaborative that sprouted out of Oregon State University of two varieties. One was a red variety called ‘Annarita’ [below; photo from Dryland Collaborative], and another was a yellow one called ‘Pienollo Giallo,’ which is basically yellow tomato [above]. And so I actually bought a couple baskets of each of those, and you can do seed saving just because tomatoes generally don’t cross from those.
And then I also got some from a colleague who has a seed company in Spain, but they’re actually in the Catalan region, so they see themselves distinct. So I have, I think, five varieties from there. And so we grew them all this year and I actually grew them last year, but I didn’t manage to do a storage trial.
So at home, I have bunches of them hanging in my kitchen and they’re storing pretty well. I’m learning when you have to pick them. If you pick them totally ripe, some of them will rot and they definitely, the ripe ones in my kitchen became fruit-fly magnets. So I learned that’s not the way to do it. You actually want to keep them more in a root cellar, a cooler or a garage or some backroom that you’re not heating in your house.
Margaret: Wow. I mean, it’s pretty exciting because we, gardeners, everyone has grown a tomato probably who’s gardened. So we think we know it all about, oh, there’s cherry tomatoes, there’s beefsteak tomatoes, there’s this, there’s that, there’s paste tomatoes, whatever, but this is something that’s kind of different. And if handled correctly, if timed right and managed correctly and put in the right place, it could mean the flavor of fresh tomato into a time of year when we don’t have it. And that’s pretty exciting stuff for cooking, I think especially.
Don: Yeah, exactly. Because anyone who’s gardening, we have huge abundance in August, September and-
Margaret: Oh boy, do we? Yeah.
Don: But eventually we get tired of it, but this time of year, having fresh tomatoes is really great. And I think the care of it, I’ve really enjoyed that part because you clip little the tresses of tomatoes and then you use twine or string or something to tie them in bunches. To me, I love the look of a gardener’s kitchen where there’s baskets of dried herbs and all the things that you’re storing, onions and garlic or braids of onions and garlic. And this just adds to that aesthetic. And then when you’re cooking, it’s right there in front of your face. You’re like, “Oh, I’ll add some fresh tomatoes to this. ” Whereas that’s a very different relationship than a can or a jar on a shelf and a pantry, which is still food, but it’s not as … The tactile nature of it is something that is really …
Margaret: Yeah, it’s like a living pantry. I mean, yeah, it’s beautiful.
So there was something else that caught my attention … And I want to talk about some of your favorites and some of the sort of winners and so forth, but there was something else besides the storage tomato mentions in your report that I read of the trials. There was mention of … There was ‘Sungold,’ but it wasn’t just ‘Sungold,’ which of course is this fabulously popular yellow cherry that has this great flavor, but it was ‘California Sungold.’ And there was mention of dehybridizing, the process of dehybridizing. And I wondered if you could tell us a little bit, like an anecdote about what is ‘California Sungold’ and what does dehybridizing mean? What was that in the trials?
Don: I think first just a very broad brushstroke definition of what a commercial F1 hybrid is, is usually the progeny of two inbred lines. So the breeder or the company maintaining it has these two different varieties, we’ll call them variety A and variety B, and they look pretty much the same. But then when they cross them, you get what’s called heterosis, and this is what hybrid vigor is. And then that’s the F1, which stands for first filial generation. So every time they produce seed, they have to do that cross. So they’re actually maintaining three different seed lines. My friend Andrew Still, who I believe you’ve had on your-
Margaret: Oh, of course. …
Don: From Adaptive Seeds, he recently was on a podcast and he was theorizing that ‘Sungold’ has been one of these ones that for a lot of us, we haven’t been able to dehybridize. I know in my efforts when I just saved seed from ‘Sungold,’ the resulting variety was never as productive or as flavorful. So he was thinking that maybe it has more than two parent lines, maybe it’s multiples. And so the level of genetic disintegration, this is why generally people don’t save seed from hybrids. You get what’s called genetic disintegration by about the third or fourth generation.
Margaret: So what we say in very simple terms, it “doesn’t come true.” The seed of a hybrid doesn’t come true; it doesn’t look like the parent plant the next time around.
Don: Yeah. One of my mentors, Dr. Alan Kapuler, went by the name Mushroom.
Margaret: Yes.
Don: You can never technically dehybridize something because you can’t remove the cross, but you can stabilize a hybrid. So he did this with ‘Early Girl,’ which is a very popular hybrid market slicer tomato. And out of that, a beefsteak, a ‘Roma’ and a cherry came out of it. So in its progeny, it had all of those back in its ancestral lines. This is the proverbial black sheep kind of thing.
So with ‘Sungold,’ we’ve had a variety that I just called ‘Wali’s Gold’ after my eldest son years ago. He wouldn’t eat normal tomatoes, but he’d eat ‘Sungold,’ so we saved seed from it. But it’s never been that great of a variety, to be honest. So then I have another one called ‘Numex Sundog’ that’s from a grower in New Mexico, hence the name Numex. And then the ‘Cal Gold,’ which I got from Steve Peters and his colleague Kanti, who’d been in the commercial tomato breeding world for a long time, that one in our trials had the flavor of the ‘Sungold’ hybrid and the productivity.
So that’s going to be the one that we’re … I’m dropping the other two, and this is the value of hybrids. Because why have three different varieties that are all fairly similar if one is superior, and you don’t know if something is superior until you grow it and you have to grow more than one plant because maybe that one plant was on where an inordinate amount of compost went down or something like that.
So we were growing at least 15 plants of each of these varieties. So this 55-variety trial was a quarter-acre of tomatoes. It was quite a … As I was transplanting that out and having to make all the labels and maps, I’m like, “What did I get into?” But we really like that variety. So ‘Cal Sungold,’ [below] it’s going to be our new …
Margaret: That’s great. Right. And so that’s a little bit of a story of this dehybridizing idea, the idea that you can now save seed from … I mean, you’re a seed company, so there’s that. And yeah, it’s very interesting to me to see that. So just let’s shout out a couple of, maybe some old standbys that were proved to be winners again in the trials and a few, maybe a couple of other new names that you want to alert us to besides the storage one and so forth that you’ve told us about. Any other that you wouldn’t be without?
Don: So anytime you do a trial, you need something to establish your baseline, something you’re actually familiar with. So for myself, one of my favorite slicers for many years has been ‘Cherokee Purple.’ If I could only grow one slicer tomato for the rest of my life, I’d be totally fine with that. It’s not the earliest one.
So I grew that and a few other just varieties that I already knew that I liked them. Another one was a Greek heirloom called ‘Thessaloniki’ that’s just a good baseline for a red slicer with flavor. And then we had a couple yellow ones, because they’re a different category. So I had ‘Yellow Brandywine,’ and ‘Valencia’ as an heirloom type and more just a yellow orange slicer. So that I could compare a new variety that I’d never seen before if it isn’t as productive as those as early or later or also the flavor, which is highly subjective.
And thankfully I was able to participate in a couple public events to do tomato tasting. So even though I grew 55 varieties, once I was into the harvest, some of the clear winners began to emerge. So I went to an event called Tomato Fest up in Portland, where there were about 800 people. They closed down a city block and we all had booths and there were all kind of activities and tattoos, like those temporary tattoos for kids and artwork about tomatoes.
So I had my favorite two-dozen varieties that I’d cut up and had with toothpicks for people to sample, and then a scoring chart. So it was interesting to see what people liked and it was pretty consistent.
So a number of the ones … So there’s appearance. If something is very engaging with appearance, I think we’re going to want to like the flavor of it more. And so it’d be interesting to repeat some of this as a blind taste test, because if something’s really amazing, striped, marblelized, all kind of unique colors, we’re going to want to like how it tastes. So that’s from my observations.
And then I did it at a few farmer’s markets as well. So from that, some of the clear winners were from my friend and colleague who has her own little seed operation, mainly focusing on tomatoes and peppers, called Carmel Bella Farm. Her name is Lisa Troutner. And a lot of these have really unique names like ‘Gunmetal Gray’ or ‘Dragon’s Eye’ or ‘Lithium Sunset’ or ‘Rebel Starfighter.’ So she’s doing some breeding.
These are not all varieties she’s bred. She carries some material from Brad Gates, who he’s gotten a lot of attention for his ‘Brad’s Atomic Grape’ tomato, which is one of my favorites as well. But a lot of the ‘Lithium Sunset’ was just a clear winner in our taste test. And that one, it’s kind of like a reddish, orange, yellow, very distinct striped, not like faint stripes, but really just bold stripes and marbleized on the inside.
And a bit of that flattened pleated shape that I’ve seen from heirloom varieties from the Oaxaca, Mexico, area. We have a variety called ‘Oaxacan Pink,’ and there’s a few other ones, ‘Tlacolula Pink’ and ‘Tlacolula Gold.’
Once you’ve grown enough varieties, you can see like, “Oh, this is a variety from Eastern Europe,” or “This one’s from Mexico.”
Margaret: Oh, exactly. Because again, genetics, right? People, animals, if you know plants, whatever, you can see lineage, you can see a lineage in them once you’re familiar.
Don: Precisely. So I have a lot of Eastern European descent, so I’ve sought out varieties from Hungary, Poland, Rome. And I’ve realized after growing enough of those that they don’t like squishy tomatoes. They like firm, as firm as a ‘Roma,’ but bigger.
Margaret: I see.
Don: So these are just preferences. It’s not to say one’s better than the other, but I think having a seed company, there is something to … We eat not just for our tongue, we also eat for our eyes and our nose. So some of these varieties that are really striking, those are intriguing to me. Obviously having a seed company where we’re using the website and that kind of thing, it is helpful because we have one variety that we trialed called ‘Uluru Ochre,’ which is a weird name, but that was really high in the taste test. But in terms of appearance, it wasn’t that striking. It was kind of orange with some gray striping. So whereas ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Pink,’ just the name alone, people are going to want it.
And it is beautiful and it does have a really good flavor. So it’s interesting. There’s the trifecta of appearance, the name, and then the flavor. And I think only later do people experience gardeners ask, well, how is its disease resistance, or how early is it? Or how vigorous is it?
Margaret: Right. So speaking of the sort of cultural stuff, because I don’t want to run out of time, I want to get some advice. You’ve grown a lot of tomatoes, not just last year, but over time. Are you a six-week seedling or an eight-week seedling person? And do you bury them deep and do you pinch them, or prune them? Do you know what I mean? Do you have any? What are Don Tipping’s top tomato tips? Do you have advice that you want to tell people?
Don: I have a little rule. I don’t start tomatoes too early inside because I think they get stunted if you grow huge seedlings and you’re waiting for the weather to warm up.
Margaret: Yes, I agree.
Don: I think this applies to all plants. They want to sprout and grow at a steady trajectory throughout their lifecycle. You don’t want to start your tomatoes super-early in February and then have to keep them under lights or something because it’s too nasty outside to put them in the ground. So we usually start them all on heat mats, which helps because they’re a heat-loving crop. So that really improves your germination is to use bottom heat.
And then we’re transplanting them out in the field about 18 inches apart in a single row. We’re usually trellising using the Florida weave. We use a lot of compost, incorporated into the soil to make sure they have what they need. If you struggle with blossom and rot, oftentimes that’s a calcium deficiency.
So using some type of mineral amendment that gives you calcium will help with that.
And then there’s a whole debate. Do you prune your tomatoes? Do you train them to a central leader? I just think that depends on how much space you have. If you’re limited from space, then baby them and give them everything they need for the optimal results. But I tend to have a more Darwinian approach. You just need to be able to survive here because my end goal is the seed. So I don’t necessarily need big, juicy tomatoes that are babied with a lot of water and stuff. But I do think they’re a heavy feeder. So like all the other summer vegetables, you just think if they’re growing a lot of foliage and fruit, the soil needs to be able to show up for them and the sunlight. Don’t grow your tomatoes behind tall sweet corn or sunflowers where they’re going to not get all the sun that they need.
Margaret: And do you plant them deep when we do transplant the seedlings because they do have that potential to make roots off the main stem?
Don: Yeah, we use these pots and they’re about two and a quarter inches square, but really tall. So sometimes it’s hard to dig a hole that deep. So we actually will plant the root wad 90 degrees because the plant’s fine, and then mound soil up around the stem.
Margaret: I used to do that too, plant it all sideways. Exactly.
Don: Yeah. The tops on pretty much all plants are heliotropic. They’re going to grow towards the light. And so even though they might look a little sad when you first plant them-
And another thing we have to watch out for in this, I don’t know if this is a West Coast thing only, is flea beetles love the solanaceous crops. We transplant and then all of a sudden it’s really hot. The flea beetles can be really damaging. So we might even spray, it’s a liquid slurry of kaolin clay. And so then it’s kind of a white clay. Yes, just the flea beetles don’t like that. So that’s one little trick we’ll do, or we might do a foliar spray of fish emulsion and kelp just to help get them growing early. So those are a couple of our tricks.
Margaret: Great. Well, I’m so glad we talked about tomatoes, especially again since it was 1 degree this morning when I woke up. And Don, I’m just going to say you’re just a natural-born teacher, and there’s so much good information. I’ll give links and so forth on your website and you do on-farm training and all kinds of other teaching. And it’s just, I always learn from you and I’m so appreciative. And the Siskiyou offerings are just incredible so I’m excited to turn people onto some more of them. And it’s been fun to talk to you again. Thank you so much for making time today.
Don: Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you.
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MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its 16th year in March 2025. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the Jan. 26, 2026 show using the player near the top of this transcript. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
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