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This was Matt Wallace’s first year growing Grace Lahman tomatoes, and he was pleasantly surprised by how productive and tasty they were. They produce beautiful clusters of medium-sized slicers with a lovely light red to pink tone, and are a meaty tomato that can be enjoyed in fresh salsas and salads, as well as for canning sauce.
Matt says, “Every time I brought my mom vegetables this summer, she specifically requested Grace Lahmans over any other variety. I was so impressed with their productivity that I plan to switch to this as my main home garden crop next year.” These tomatoes are mom approved!
Yanna Fishman, collective member, says “I’ve trialed and saved seeds for almost 100 varieties of tomatoes on a home scale. I received seed for Grace Lahman’s Pink from Gary Schaum in Oklahoma and have been growing it here in WNC every year since 2014. Gary originally sourced his seed from the Seed Savers Exchange.
This variety is a family heirloom from NGA member Grace Lahman of Fairview, Missouri. It was first offered in the Seed Savers 1991 Yearbook by Alice Morzuch, who noted that it ‘...tastes like tomatoes used to taste when I was a child.’ When WNC farmer Eileen Droescher of Ol' Turtle Farm asked me for a pink variety to add to her commercial production, Grace Lahman’s Pink was my top choice.
Eileen’s feedback: ‘Customers loved it. It’s easy to grow, generally very productive, and very uniform. I saw no disease problems until very late in the long season.’”
Matt Wallace, Rabbit Den Farm, Marshall, NC
Matt has been seed saving and organizing seed swaps in WNC for 15+ years. He is involved with a group that stewards 3 seed libraries in Madison County and is working towards creating a countywide (or perhaps WNC-wide) seed savers network to coordinate seed saving and sharing efforts for community use. He also grows seeds commercially and runs a plant nursery. Located in Marshall, North Carolina, Rabbit Den Farm is an ecologically driven plant nursery and mixed vegetable farm with a focus on fall storage crops and heirloom corn.
