Gardeners near Decorah now have three locally selected tomato varieties to investigate after visitors at Seed Savers Exchange’s Heritage Farm sampled and ranked 22 entries during a free tasting on Aug. 22, 2026. The event did not produce one overall champion. Instead, participants chose a favorite for each of three everyday uses: fresh slicing, cooking and snacking.
The category-based results give home growers a practical starting point when planning a future crop. A gardener hoping to make sauce may want a different tomato than someone looking for fruit to eat immediately from the garden, and the tasting connected each winning variety with its intended use.
The three crowd favorites
- For slicing: Bookie
- For cooking: Rizzi Softball Plum
- For snacking: Chocolate Cherry
Bookie received the most support from participants seeking a tomato for fresh slices. Rizzi Softball Plum led the cooking category, making it a variety to research for sauces and other cooked dishes. Chocolate Cherry was the favorite among visitors who preferred eating tomatoes directly from the garden.
The results should be viewed as a focused local tasting outcome, not a guarantee that one variety will perform best in every Decorah-area garden. Growing conditions, recipes and personal preferences can affect both how a tomato grows and how it tastes. The tasting introduced visitors to varieties they may not have encountered and narrowed the field for gardeners beginning their own research.
How Decorah-area gardeners can follow up
Seed Savers Exchange offers additional information for growers interested in the selected varieties. Bookie and Rizzi Softball Plum were directed there for further research, while Chocolate Cherry seeds were listed for purchase through Seed Savers Exchange.
The free event was open to tomato lovers of all ages and formed part of Seed Savers Exchange’s broader seed-preservation work at Heritage Farm near Decorah. That preservation mission provided the larger context for an event built around sampling, comparing and voting on tomato varieties.
Decorah Bank & Trust Co., Mountain Rose Herbs and Streamworks supported the tasting. Seed Savers Exchange also thanked the participants who sampled the tomatoes, shared their opinions and voted.
For gardeners planning a future planting, the locally selected shortlist is simple: Bookie for slicing, Rizzi Softball Plum for cooking and Chocolate Cherry for snacking. Those results can help narrow the choices, while leaving the final decision to each grower’s garden conditions, recipes and taste preferences.