Discovering NC Agriculture is a year-long series focusing on twelve N.C. grown, raised, caught, and made commodities. Tune in each month to see how an N.C. commodity is grown, harvested, packed for consumer use and more. Learn nutritional value, find fun recipes to try, hear from local chefs who use that product, and other unique commodity facts throughout the series. We look forward to helping you better understand some of our N.C. commodities and how they impact your everyday lives!
You say toMAYto, I say toMAHto – the NC Tomato Man says heirloom tomatoes!
The Tomato Man, aka Craig LeHoullier, has been growing heirloom tomatoes in his garden since 1981. His love of gardening was born long before he started his first garden. LeHoullier has fond memories of walking around his father’s and grandfather’s gardens when he was a kid, watching them care for their plants and helping them work. His tomato garden is located in Hendersonville and is planted entirely above ground in either containers or hay bales.
But how’d he come to be known as the N.C. Tomato Man?
“Well, I’d have to blame myself,” LeHoullier laughed while recounting how he got his nickname. After he left his corporate job in biopharmaceutics, he had to create a new email and decided on the address NC Tomato Man. The name stuck and, over the years, it’s become his calling card. Today, the NC Tomato Man has a social media following of 13K on Instagram where he shares updates on his garden and offers advice.
Heirloom tomatoes are tomatoes that haven’t been cross bred for 40-50 years and are not a hybrid variety. These tomatoes come from a single genetic line and are essentially the pure breed of the tomato world. These tomatoes are very colorful and have many unique flavors. They also can be grown from seed, are open-pollinated – just be careful because if you plant two different types of tomatoes close to each other you may end up with a new variety! There’s no official count on how many varieties of heirloom tomatoes there are, but there’s an estimated 3,000 in active cultivation.
Another thing that makes these tomatoes so notable is the fact that they often have rich stories and history attached to them. LeHoullier is a major part of one of these tomatoes’ history. In 1990, John Green of Sevierville, Tennessee, mailed him the seeds and shared that the tomato had originated with the Cherokee people of the area over 100 years earlier. LeHoullier grew the tomato and gave it it’s now iconic name: the Cherokee Purple.
Today, he has a collection of several thousand heirloom tomatoes and this year he’s growing around 80 different varieties. He uses some of the skills he learned while working in the pharmaceutical industry to help manage data on the tomatoes he’s growing, and his good memory helps him keep track of the types of care that each plant needs. Because tomato gardening is seasonal, and he typically does the bulk of his work during the summer, LeHoullier takes the rest of the year to recover.
For gardeners looking to try their hand at growing their own heirloom tomatoes, LeHoullier shared some advice to help ensure their success. “They tend to be very tall plants, so you need to be able to vertically support them,” he shared. However, he’s found that, overall, they grow just as well, if not better, than hybrid tomatoes. For people who spend a lot of time out in their gardens, he believes that they will have no problem growing these delicious tomatoes.
If you’re looking for more advice or are just interested in learning more about heirloom tomatoes, you can visit his Instagram page or website where he posts regular videos and blog posts. LeHoullier is also the author of “Epic Tomatoes” and “Growing Vegetables in Straw Bales.” Both of these books would be good places to start for those interested in growing tomatoes!
