As nearly everyone around the United States will attest, it has been a very odd year weatherwise. The week before last I was lamenting the early arrival of cool, wet, Fall weather and then this week we were setting record high temperatures. But judging from the forecasts, it looks like our hot days are now behind us and wet weather is returning.
This creates many challenges when attempting to harvest the seeds that you all are counting on for your gardens next spring (and that we count on to support our continued seed variety preservation work). The optimist in me is thankful that we are looking at impending periods of showers and not freezing temps. We can put on rain and mud gear and continue our work . . . it is just not very fun.
All of this aside, we have all hands busily doing the harvest dance. John is out in the field picking and documenting, the main part of the crew is squeezing tomatoes into containers to ferment, and I am trying to keep up with the washing, drying, and preparing the seeds for storage in preparation of germination testing and getting them ready for packaging. And that is jut the tomato seed harvest. Everything else is being picked and hauled into buildings and put on screens to finish drying. It is always an exciting time bustling with activity.
A group of my immediate family members and cousins working on harvesting tomato seeds.
I have posted several more harvest related photos on our Facebook page - Click Here. Folks at most other seed companies probably will find it funny how we do everything by hand. Yes it is expensive and laborious. But it is the only way that I can come up with to maintain our quality standards and maintain so many diverse varieties. If folks think it is silly that we toil manually, I look at it this way, I do not have to pay for a health club membership and I think of the product we produce as something akin to a craft beer or a limited edition,, reserve or boutique wine. 
Small batches, all by hand.
My break is over, the sun is finally breaking through the clouds, and it is time to get back out and wash tomato seeds for several more hours!
~Mike
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