I am a plant breeder, and I love creating new varieties of vegetables with bright, beautiful colors, that taste as good as they look.

I farm and breed on six acres in Northern California, and I have created a number of new striped tomato varieties -- called Artisan Tomatoes -- that are generally available from seed catalogs.  When we sell seeds at our online store, it is under the Artisan Seeds brand.  This is a video about one of our past tomato breeding projects.  It shows our farm and some of our unique tomatoes.  In my tomato-breeding projects I develop new, uniform, varieties.  However, in many other cases I am not interested in creating new varieties that are uniform (or true-breeding in genetic terms).  For a number of my crops, I am more interested in the age-old endeavor of creating diverse "landraces".

Landraces are genetically diverse populations that evolve every year in the hands of a gardener or small farmer.

The main difference between a "landrace" and a "formal breed" is that landraces are not as genetically uniform.  Farmers all over the world use landraces to hedge their bets, as the genetic diversity within a landrace can buffer against catastrophic crop losses.  

On the other hand, we use landraces primarily because of the value of the genetic diversity to our customers.  Mixed cartons of peppers and nasturtium are prized by our customers, and every fall they are captivated by the diverse array of 3-lobed squash that we bring to our farmers' market display.

It is no coincidence that all of our landrace populations are visited by pollinators, and undergo significant cross-pollination in the field.  Bees perpetuate the mixing and matching of colors and flavors in our landraces.  Our landraces started years ago when the bees crossed our favorite true-breeding varieties to each other.  By saving seed from our best, and most interesting fruits, we continually shape our landraces to be what we want them to be, for the most part.  But, when working with landraces, there are always surprises in the next generation, and these are all part of the fun.

My landraces of peppers, squash and nasturtium are highly valued by our farmers' market customers, and by chefs.

Our most exciting pepper landrace is derived from Caribbean Seasoning peppers from Grenada and Cuba.  Although our "seasoning" peppers are related to very hot peppers like the Habanero, they are mild and fruity, and they have wonderful bright tropical flavors.  If they seeds are removed they are even milder.

The colors in my Caribbean Seasoning pepper landrace vary from red to yellow, and contain many hues of gold and orange in-between.  Sizes, shapes, flavors and textures are also variable.  Last year was the first year we offered this pepper mix to our customers, and demand very quickly exceeded supply.  You don't have to be a heat-seeking pepper-head to appreciate these, and they are a beautiful addition to all kinds of dishes.

We have two major landraces of squash on our farm, and both are 3-lobed squash like Triamble.  The Terremoto landrace produces mostly pink, hard, 3-lobed squash that easily keep for over a year.  The dense flesh is very flavorful and sweet.  Terremoto is a great pie squash, and is also great for baking.  

Papavero is a landrace that is skewed towards producing mostly soft-skinned, orange, 3-lobed squash.  The soft skin is flavorful, and edible.  Making creamy soups with Papavero is a snap, as the skin is soft enough to be pureed right into the soup after cooking. 

Nasturtium Landrace

We spent a few years picking and choosing between the most bright and colorful nasturtiums available.  Once we had grown them, and selected the ones we liked, we started harvesting seed for our own nasturtium landrace.  While standard orange nasturtiums are nice, we like the mix of colors and markings available in our landrace.  Nasturtiums are delightful in salads, and the diverse colors in our mix can be used to make beautiful bright salads all summer long.  At the end of the season, the unique nasturtium seeds can be saved for next year's crop, and some can be pickled as well.  

Landraces can be used to develop new uniform varieties, or they can be grown continuously as landraces.

Although our landraces carry genetic diversity, and they do not produce uniform vegetables, they can be used as a source for the creation of new true-breeding (uniform) varieties.  All one has to do is to spend a few generations carefully hand pollinating plants that are similar (and keeping pollinators, like bees, from their work of random cross-pollination on the plants being bred).  Anyone who has our landraces (or who creates their own landraces) can at any point start selecting back towards new, unique varieties!

Alternatively, landraces can be simply appreciated for all of their diversity, and for all of the surprises that they bring each year.  

We want to share our best crop landraces with gardeners and small farmers across the country this year -- to do this, we need help growing, harvesting and packaging seed on our farm.

We would like to start offering all of these landraces at our online store, but we need some help with the initial costs of seed harvesting, drying and packaging.  We always save some seed for use on our farm, but we would like to expand our seed saving of landraces so that we can offer them to others.

The Perks