The dream of the 10-pound tomato
Everywhere you turned were White's experiments. Stalks of short, fast-growing, double-eared sweet corn — yes, sweet corn in Alaska — with a modified genome to better suit a colder climate. Honeycrisp apple trees. Bushel gourdes plumping like water balloons. Long gourdes stretching 5 feet and still growing. Leafy tentacles of robust berry branches.
"Everybody knows you can't grow blackberries in Alaska, but I'm going to grow blackberries," said White, lifting a thriving branch. "The ones I grew in Idaho were bigger than your thumb — they're huge. They're really a Southern crop but they're doing fine."
Most of the growing space is taken up by more than 14 varieties of tomatoes, from bite-sized grapes and rotund cherries to softball-sized beefsteaks and bigger. Much bigger.
Read more at Alaska Dispatch News