Master Gardener Mary Centala, who owns Heritage Acres greenhouse, was selected by her cousins to carry on the tradition of her late Uncle Claude Robarge, who created the special variety of tomato.

“Uncle Claude developed the tomato for a nice canning and eating tomato for his wife, Mary, and family,” Centala said. “Top priority was flavor. Second priority was a good tomato for slicing and canning. Third priority was a tomato that grew well in our area.”

Centala explained that seed saving is a process that acclimates the plant to the climate, making the tomato able to withstand colder temperatures.

“Unlike saving pumpkin and squash seeds, you should take the extra step of fermenting the seed prior to drying them out,” Centala said. “This is another lesson from my cousin Margaret Robarge, who died a few years ago from cancer. She was a very good gardener, and an elementary teacher, whose teaching talents carried through to teaching gardening to people who were interested.

Mary Centala starts the seed-saving process.

“Fermenting seeds helps make them more disease resistant,” Centala noted. “So, despite my original hesitation to purposefully grow mold in my house and possibly heighten my allergies, I gritted my teeth and fermented these tomato seeds. Oddly enough, I did not find the process to irritate my allergies.”

Centala has gathered much of her gardening information from various gardeners, and through the MSU Extension Master Gardeners Program.

“It’s always exciting to see a seed you have saved, fermented, dried, stored over the winter, and planted, sprout into an actual baby tomato seedling,” she said.

She saved the seeds, then shared the plants with a few customers and they said this variety withstood below-freezing temperatures while other plants did not.

“All of them said, ‘We got a frost, and these withstood it,’ so we had temps of about 28 degrees,” Centala said. “They said their other tomatoes got frost on them, and these did not.”

The Robarge family gave Centala permission to sell this family variety of tomato in her greenhouse. She said she wanted to check because she is just the caretaker of these special plants. The family wanted to share this delicious tomato, which is great for slicing and eating fresh or canning.