easy Tomato Seed Saving

[digitS']

So, I'm just about to enjoy my favorite tomato sandwich (salted & peppered chopped tomatoes on a peanut butter-slathered slice of toast ) when I look at the cutting board.

There are easily 50 seeds from the Dana's Dusky Rose beefsteak there in a thin puddle of juice. Using the tip of the knife, I place some on a paper towel and set seeds & towel in a sunny south window.

After a rainy day tomorrow, I should be able to get the towel (with "Dana's Dusky Rose" written in a corner) out onto a sunny part of the deck. A couple of bricks will keep it from blowing away. I'll probably have to bring it in to the window again but I'll be in NO HURRY to get the paper towel put away on a shelf for the next several weeks. In time, I'll put it in a plastic zip-lock bag and stow it in a box.

Couldn't be much easier . . . . if I have any trouble breaking the seeds loose from the paper in March, I'll just leave a little piece of towel on each seed that goes into the starter mix.

It could be that I get away with this simple approach to saving tomato seed because of an arid climate. I can't remember ever having mold on the towels. Dusky Rose is new but I've been saving seed from Grandma Pearl's tomato for over 20 years without a hitch.

Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

It is that easy! I must try it. THANKS for the simple instructions.

 

[April Manier]

LOL!

I wish I were looking forward to such a simple task. We have 6 varieties with 100 plants each! My husband is a seed saver and we work on creating new varieties. Apparently we will be doing something with trash cans of water. To boot, we leave for our honeymoon in Paris on Friday night, so this has to happen in the next 2 days!

Wish me luck!

 

[digitS']

April, do you anything about an outfit called New Dimension Seed Company there in your corner of the world?

I am curious about her source of seed.

And, if you are busy packing (or, seed-saving) - just let me know when you get back.

Steve

 

[cityfarmer]

I didn't know you could save tomato seed. I will have to keep that in mind!

 

[digitS']

These are in a very sunny window (once the sun comes up ). I still want to get them outside but we have had rain and then supposedly fog (actually, if froze and the sky was clear :/). I still want to get them out on the deck in the sun. Should have remembered to do that yesterday . Now, the clouds are back. It helps that there is a heat register below this window now that the furnace is back on.

I'm not trying to cook them, of course. I just want all those juice stains to be crispy dry.

After being on the deck for about 3 weeks, there are Buisson, Perfection, and Dr. Carolyn on the seed shelf. In sandwich bags from last year, there are some others. I don't think the frost was quite severe enuf yesterday to have done terrible damage to the fruits in the tomato patch. I'd better get a clear idea this morning if there are more plants out there that I'll need to save seed from. The top of the plants may be mush but, of course, the seeds are still good. Witness the number of volunteers I had this year!!

Some of the 2010 Sungold or SunSugar plants had offspring that actually ripened 1 or 2 fruits. Those two golden cherries are hybrids, however. There's no way of being sure what kind of genetic "instability" lurks within them. I grew what was said to be an open-pollinated version of Sungold this year - Wow. No, there was no real "Wow" about it. That was its name -- Wow.

I was totally unimpressed. Oh sure, the good flavor was there but I am almost certain that I didn't harvest 20 tiny fruits off that big sprawling plant! No, I'll buy Sungold seed and be happy with those .

I sell some plants each year and there are folks that kind of rely on me to have what they are looking for. I try not to get thing mixed up . . . initially. Often, I lose track of things in the tomato patch but figure out what went where eventually . . . at least, every other year or so .

It is a very, very good thing for me that most tomatoes are so careful about self-pollination! The guy who tends them and the weather crises that they often face -- are really enuf risk the poor dears should have to go thru . . .

Steve