5 Short-Season Tomatoes

As the founder of the Taos Seed Exchange in New Mexico, I receive a lot of interesting seed donations for our annual seed swap. One year, tomato seeds came in from High Ground Gardens in Crestone, Colorado, a few hours’ drive north of my organic nursery in the Rocky Mountains.

Owner Bryon Pike breeds short-season and cold tolerant tomatoes outdoors at elevations between 7,000 and 8,500 feet. I was excited to receive his donation, because I too live and garden in a short-season part of the Rockies. From Pike’s seeds, I grew and sold a handful of ‘Super Tomato’ starts with the understanding that the buyers would return fresh seed for the seed exchange. One plant went to a woman who