[lively music] ♪ - [Shari] Homegrown tomatoes are a harbinger of summer.

You know when you see these beauties, fresh and bursting with flavor at your farmers' market, it's time to pull out your favorite tomato recipes.

Whether it's a tomato pie or just a good old-fashioned tomato and mayonnaise sandwich, there's no limit to the goodness.

Hey!

- How you doing?

- I'm good.

I'm looking at your maters.

Look at these little teardrop guys.

This looks like you picked up sea rocks at the beach.

- [chuckles] They're a little more tender, though.

- Yeah, thank goodness, right?

[vendor chuckles] If you don't know how to do a tomato, or you don't know which ones are best for the recipe you're looking for, just ask the grower.

They're gonna know for sure.

[bright music] - So this one is called margold.

It's really nice and sweet, and it's got a little bit of a tropical kind of fruit flavor to it.

- Is it gonna have that beautiful striping on the inside too?

- It totally does.

- This is great.

Thank you so much.

- Yeah, thank you, Sheri!

- It is always good to see you.

[lively music] [bright music] My friend Craig LeHoullier is a world-famous expert on growing heirloom tomatoes that are prized for their flavor and history.

He's the one that gave the beloved Cherokee Purple its name.

Through great gardening tips and seed-saving, Craig sees to it the all sorts of fabulous tomatoes get their day in the sun.

- Who's knocking at my door?

- It's me.

- Sheri.

- Hey, friend, how are you?

- Welcome to Hendersonville.

- Oh, it's so good to see you.

- It's great to have you here.

- Thanks for letting me come over today.

- We are gonna have some fun, lots to talk about.

- I cannot wait.

- Let's enter the world of tomatoes, a la me.

[Craig chuckles] [bright gentle music] I am Craig LeHoullier, and my role in the world seems to be to be the world's heirloom tomato expert.

I'm known as N.C. Tomato Man, and I just roll with that.

I amassed this huge collection.

And so what I end up doing is getting lots of emails from people every day, from all over the world, answering their tomato questions.

I've written my books, I've done a course.

What I'm doing now with the gardening world seems so much more fulfilling because I'm helping people grow great food and telling lots of stories along the way.

[gentle music] [bright music] - So, Craig, clearly we are in the tomato room.

[Craig chuckles] What all do you keep in here?

- It's so exciting to have you see the brain trust of my operation here, Sheri.

So, let's just take an example.

I have tomato seeds, eggplant seeds, and pepper seeds that have been saved for years.

So let's just look at this one.

I use a code.

T 17-3 means I grew that tomato in 2017.

It was the third one I saved, and it is called Dwarf from Tirrenia, three to six-ounce smooth oblate chocolate.

So I have a little notification.

Everything is backed up to an Excel spreadsheet.

If I lost my Excel spreadsheet, I'd be in big trouble.

And then I've got my library here where I just kind of do my research.

- [Sheri] All different tomato books, including the ones you've written.

- This one goes back to 1863.

So I love knowledge, and I love communicating with people.

And this really is the culmination of the different seeds I've collected over the years and the different information I've learned about.

So I'm never lonely.

- So, Craig, I have grown many tomatoes.

Lord knows, I've eaten a lot.

But you know what I have never done is plant from seed.

Can you show me how to do that?

- I would love to show you how to do that.

Want to go?

Let's go do it.

- Let's do it.

All right, thanks.

[jazzy music] [bright music] - A lot of people freak out about it, but starting your own plants from seeds is really, really easy.

There's a few tools of the trade that I really like.

I've got these plastic 50-cell, plug flats is what they call 'em.

They have holes in the bottom.

Do you see?

- Uh-huh, for the drainage.

- I've got some really good planting medium here.

- And you just buy that.

- This one is called Metro-Mix 830, but any good seed starter.

- Okay.

- And I've sieved some, because we're gonna use that as well.

- Okay.

- And the seeds we're gonna plant, it's called Dwarf Mocha's Cherry, which is one of our varieties that, little purple tomatoes and a three-foot-tall plant.

- But no matter what tomatoes, this is your method.

- This is exactly how it works.

- Got it.

- [Craig] So I like to fill these right until you're about maybe a quarter inch below the top.

So if you wanna fill up these two and take it on the same level.

- Got it.

- Feels good, doesn't it?

- It does.

It's very, very soft, almost like talc.

- All right, so the next step: I like to water these down a little bit before I plant- - [Sheri] Is this just tap water?

Do you do anything?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- So now, and this is what's different from the way a lot of people plant seeds.

A lot of people would put one seed per cell, which is absolutely fine, but I want lots of plants.

So here are my little Dwarf Mocha's Cherry seeds.

I'm just gonna take a pinch.

And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, that's about 10 seeds.

- No kidding.

- And if you want to- - So if you've got that in this many cells, you're gonna have a little forest.

- I'm gonna just take pinches of sieved material, and just sprinkle until I can't see the seeds anymore.

- So that's why you sieved it.

So you're just getting just light little- - Because I don't any of those chunky bits in it, yeah.

- [Sheri] Got it.

- And now we're gonna just take a sprayer, just a little bit of a mist.

Because what you're gonna do, we're gonna take a little piece of Saran Wrap and just drape it.

- We just made a little greenhouse, didn't we?

- We made a little greenhouse.

- [Sheri] And then you'll leave them in there how long?

- I'll leave them in front of that window for about two weeks, because then they'll start getting leggy because they'll be reaching for the sun.

That's all there is to it.

- That's great.

Thank you, thank you.

- You're welcome.