The Galina tomato is a yellow cherry tomato that was developed in Siberia, and brought to the US by Bill McDorman. Galina tomatoes were chosen as one of Organic Gardening’s ten best early tomatoes. The gardeners of Siberia made an important contribution to vegetable diversity while the Soviet Union was in power. In the USSR, apartment dwellers were allowed access to a garden plot in the country called a dacha. The dacha growers did not have access to seed catalogues, so they only planted seeds they saved, and selected the best varieties year after year. Because there were so many different gardens with their own seed selectors, the community functioned like a genetics laboratory. Since they saved the seeds from the earliest and the best tomatoes, over time the flavor and speed of ripening vastly improved.

Seed School students remove the seeds of Galina tomatoes. We put the seeds with the juice in a jar and will let it "mold", then dry them in the sun. This proccess, counterintuitively, protects the seeds from fungus.