A love of gardening and a passion for teaching inspired Master Gardener Sheryl Casteen to create the annual Tomatofest, which celebrated its third year at the Lebanon Senior Center on Sept. 28.
The event, which drew nearly 1,000 visitors, featured an array of homegrown heirloom tomatoes, gardening tips and local vendors, all while fostering a sense of community around organic gardening and sustainable food practices.
The idea for Tomatofest stemmed from the free gardening classes Casteen has been offering at the Senior Center since 2008.
“I teach organic gardening and in May I give about 500 plants away free to most of my garden students,” Casteen said, who grows rare heirloom tomatoes including varieties like cherry, paste, beef and juice tomatoes. “There could be 25 different kinds, ones you won’t find in the stores.”
Casteen’s classes, which begin in March and run through April, focus on different aspects of gardening, from soil preparation and planting seeds to dealing with pests and knowing when to harvest.
“The soil is the big deal,” she said. “There are easy steps that will make you successful.”
Open to the public and free of charge, her classes attract a wide range of participants. Each session covers a specific topic, such as soil basics, irrigation and disease management, and allows students to walk away with three or four seedlings to plant in their own gardens.
Casteen’s goal for both her classes and Tomatofest is simple: to empower people to grow their own food.
“Our food sucks,” she said bluntly. “I want to give people the ability to grow their own because tomatoes are the most popular fruit, and once they learn how to grow them, they’re hooked.”
Tomatofest is the culmination of these efforts, where garden students, master gardeners and volunteers – including medical students from Western University – come together as volunteers to showcase their hard work. Casteen encourages her students to bring back four to five tomatoes from the plants they receive in May, creating a colorful display of homegrown produce for tasting at the event.
This year’s fest featured long tables of freshly cut heirloom tomatoes for visitors to taste, along with a variety of homemade tomato soups.
“We have people of all ages here, from little kids to seniors,” Casteen said.
The event also hosted several local growers from around the Willamette Valley. Andrew Still of Adaptive Seeds, who has known Casteen for years through seed swaps and gardening events, was one of the featured vendors. Still’s company specializes in rare heirloom seeds, many of which he and his partner collected during trips to Europe.
“We grow lots of vegetable, flower and herb seeds, as many as we can grow,” Still said. “We produce the seed and we till it. We do plant breeding, fine, rare heirloom plants, and try to make them more accessible to people. If it grows well for us, it will grow well for you.”
Another vendor at the event, Steve Peters, is a tomato plant breeder who has been working on creating commercially viable tomatoes for the past eight years. His focus is on breeding tomatoes with good yield, firmness and shelf life, while maintaining outstanding flavor – traits that aren’t often prioritized in commercial tomato breeding.
“Mouthfeel and flavor don’t get factored into the breeding for most commercial tomatoes,” the vendor explained. “I’m working to change that by breeding tomatoes that farmers will want to grow and that taste great for consumers.”
Tomatofest wasn’t just about tomatoes though. Visitors were also able to browse booths featuring local honey, knitted hats, cheesecakes and other handcrafted goods. The day included prize giveaways, tips from master gardeners and a seed swap for attendees to plant in their own gardens.
As the event wound down, Casteen reflected on the success of the day and the growing enthusiasm for gardening in the Lebanon community.
“I’ve been doing this for over a decade, and every year, more and more people get involved,” she said.