Red Belly. Big Orange. Didi's Yellow. Marz Green. Purple Passion. Pearly Pink.

Tatiana Kouchnareva's tomatoes come in a full palette of colours - not to mention shapes, sizes and tastes.

As an heirloom gardener, Kouchnareva has collected seeds for about 2,300 varieties of tomatoes. Each year on rotation, she grows about 200 types to maintain fresh seed stock.

"It's more a kind of hobby - a craving for a nice tasting tomato. I'm probably a collector in my soul somewhere, so I just started collecting different varieties," she said.

"You start growing them and see different colours and shapes and different tastes, and then it gets really addictive. Once you collect the seeds, you have to keep them going because they don't keep very long. Then you start feeling responsibility."

Some of her seeds stem from 19thcentury commercial varieties that are no longer available to the general public. Others are family heirlooms, with seeds passed down through generations of gardeners.

At her Anmore home, Kouchnareva plants seeds she has gathered from around the globe - including selections from Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, France, Italy and Switzerland.

"They're all different. Even if they look the same, the taste could be different. Some of them could be more juicy versus all solid meat and little juice. It's pretty interesting," she said.

"It's hard to grow them in our climate, though."

In fact, this summer was the worst yet for Kouchnareva's garden.

"This year was a bust, actually. It was cold and there was a disease that killed many of them. I've lost around maybe 80 varieties this year because they didn't produce," she said.

"I don't have any seeds anymore, so I have to re-collect them. It was very disappointing . The problem is that some of those varieties, I'm not aware of anyone else that's growing them. So this is a real shame because I might not be able to replace them."

As a former physicist, Kouchnareva is drawn to the science of sowing seeds. Yet her introduction to the art of agriculture began long ago.

"When I was a kid, I grew up on my grandmother's farm in Russia. I thought I would never touch the soil in my whole life. I guess I didn't really like it. Maybe it was too much work as a kid. We came back to it in the early 2000s," said Kouchnareva, who also works full-time in software development.

"My grandmother grew corn and peppers mostly, just a few tomatoes. But the tomatoes were huge and very tasty. When I came here, there was nothing even close to that. I'm still looking for that variety that my grandmother was growing back there, but I can't seem to find it."

She does, however, have top picks among her stock. Each year, Kouchnareva discovers about 10 varieties that she likes best. In the winter, she and her husband look at their tomato photos and reminisce about their flavourful favourites.

And in her opinion, store-bought tomatoes can't compare to her homegrown delights.

"You rarely find them tasting like anything in the grocery store. They [store-bought ones] don't even smell like tomatoes. Because they are bred specifically for long storage, there's a gene that's responsible for it. It's called non-ripening gene, specifically. That was bred into their current market tomatoes so the tomatoes could store for up to six to eight months," she said. "They're picked green and they're so slow-ripening . that's why they're not really tasting much. But they're firm and they're round and they're perfectly shaped, so I think that's what the current consumers are looking for in a tomato."

For those who prefer to grow their own, Kouchnareva operates a small seed shop. She has also compiled an online database of more than 3,000 types of tomatoes, including photos and detailed descriptions.

The database includes information about other fresh foods in her garden - including more than 40 varieties of heirloom garlic, plus melons, cucumbers, beans, corn and peppers.

"It's mostly about seed saving," she said. "That's the biggest obsession - save all those varieties, make them available to all the home growers and collect historical information about them so it's clear where they come from."

To view Kouchnareva database or to order seeds, visit www.tatianastomatobase.com.

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