I’ve revived six functionally extinct Jersey bred tomatoes with community partners over the last two years. I have a lot of seeds for them now. 

The goal is to distribute these seeds to the public, and with a commitment to save these seeds for free distribution to the public through seed libraries, community groups or as individuals. 

Most of these revived Jersey tomato seed originated from the USDA Germplasm bank. Others from the Sandhill Preservation Center, and trusted seed savers.

This is a free seed community project. Selling seeds is highly discouraged. The pulp that’s left over, that’s a different story. 

Jersey Tomato starter kits
I wrote a book about the Jersey tomato being the intersection of Jersey culture, local seed and food history and tomato seed breeding. It’s being shopped around to publishers. 

My manuscript closes with a call to action chapter. This call to action is the inspiration for these starter kits. Originally, the call to action was going to focus only on the Garden State tomato because of its marquee name, and that it’s a Campbell Soup bred variety. The Garden State is also on Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste, a catalog of endangered local food biodiversity. That changed once I secured enough tomato seeds from the other five functionally extinct tomato varieties that I’ve revived.

The starter kits will include seeds for the Garden State tomatoes and or Garden State and one of the following, Kille #7, Burpee Sunnybrook Ealiana or Stokesdale.