Tayze’s Tomatoes is a gift to our community in honor of my childhood BFF, Tayze Dunae.

Tayze lost her battle with Type 1 Diabetes on April 2, 2015, 2 weeks shy of her 2nd kidney transplant. While she lived with this terrible disease from age 8, she never let it define her and she continued to live her life outside the box.

When I asked her what she was most excited to eat after so much time on dialysis, she said home grown tomatoes. I told her she was in luck as I had just gotten a greenhouse and had 100 seedlings started!!

She never made it to her surgery. And never ate any of my tomatoes. She died of a hemorrhagic stroke on April 1, 2015.

In her honor, I raise and sell tomatoes. The proceeds of this sale go to a family that is affected by Type 1 Diabetes.

This year we have 3 types and 10 varieties of slicing, paste & cherry tomatoes. I'll be spotlighting the different types of tomatoes on our Facebook page between now and May 1.

If you know a family whose life is impacted by T1D, please feel free to nominate them. Send an email with their story of life with T1D to brandi@otbfarmstead.com.

And mark your calendar for May 1!