Posted by Janet Harriett on Aug.31, 2010

When I started gardening, I ransacked the seed displays and catalogs in search of new tomato varieties to try. Over the years, though, I’ve settled in to a few reliable favorites, and with life catching up to me and a book to write, I have less time to be experimental with the veggie patch. Sure, maybe one day I’ll give those white cherry tomatoes a shot, but for now, I have my snacking tomato, my dehydrating tomato, my salad tomato, my paste tomato, my yellow tomato and my all-purpose slicer and vegetable soup tomato. No need to mess with what works.

Now that I know what tomatoes grow well in my garden and that my family will eat, I save the seeds from one year to plant the next, sparing me the temptation of the seed catalogs and garden center displays. Seed saving is as old as agriculture. While most seed saving is as easy as letting a plant produce mature seeds and collecting them, tomatoes are a bit trickier. Although I’ve grown tomato plants from seeds that I saved by simply spreading the seed glop out to dry, rinsing and fermenting the seeds using the process detailed below produces a much higher germination rate with just a little bit of work.

Conventional gardening wisdom is that you can only save open-pollinated or heirloom seeds. Open-pollinated tomatoes are more consistent from generation to generation and provide the most reliable seed saving. Hybrid tomatoes are a first-generation cross between two other varieties, and seeds won’t necessarily produce a tomato the same as the one you saved the seeds from. Saving and planting hybrid seed does make an interesting long-term science experiment to teach older kids about genetics and heredity. The tomatoes that grow from saved hybrid seeds will often exhibit characteristics of the hybrid’s parent varieties that weren’t expressed in the tomato that the seed came from.

Step 1: Choose A Good Parent Tomato

The tomato you choose to save seeds from should be a high-quality specimen with all of the characteristics you want in next year’s tomatoes. It’s tempting to want to eat the best fruits and relegate the misshapen ones to seeds, but that just propagates the undesirable characteristics into next year’s tomatoes. Even if you’re trying to bump up the first harvest date, don’t choose the very first tomato off a vine if you have more than one vine. Wait to see which plant has the best flavor. Tomatoes should be ripe, preferably vine-ripened, so the seeds are mature. The tomato pictured is a purple calabash. I got the original set of seeds from the gift shop at Monticello.

Step 2: Get at the Tomato Seeds

Slice the tomato across the equator, so one half has the stem end and one half has the blossom end. Seed cavities run vertically through a tomato, so the equatorial slicing exposes the maximum number of seed cavities. Paste tomatoes may only have two or three seed cavities, while slicing tomatoes like the purple calabash have many smaller cavities.

Step 3: Extract the Tomato Seeds

Using a spoon or the tip of a blunt knife, pull the seeds out, trying to avoid as much of the tomato flesh as you can. Scoop the seeds into a clean cup or glass jar. If the seeds are extracted carefully, you may still be able to use the tomato, especially for a stuffed tomato dish.

Step 4: Prep the Tomato Seeds for Fermenting

I like to give my tomato glop a good rinse, but as long as the seeds are floating in liquid, the rinse isn’t necessary. If the tomato seeds aren’t free-floating, add a bit of water to give them some wiggle room. During fermentation, the seeds will need air, but you’ll also want to keep the cup or jar covered so fruit flies and other insects don’t get in. Some seed savers use plastic wrap with a slit cut in it. My favorite setup is a canning jar with a paper towel held on with the screw band. I write the variety directly on the paper towel to avoid confusion over which variety of seed is which.

Step 5: Ferment

A 2-4 day fermentation period eliminates the pulpy sac around the seeds that contains growth inhibitors. The fermentation process has a distinctive odor that some may consider unpleasant. You are, after all, fermenting something. I strongly recommend aging the seeds in the garage or somewhere that doesn’t share a lot of air exchange with the living quarters. The seeds are properly fermented with the scum layer covers the surface or bubbles start coming up from the seeds. The seeds should settle down to the bottom of the jar. Any longer than four days, and the seeds may start to germinate.

Step 6: Clean the Tomato Seeds

Take the seeds, some extra water and a fork to the compost pile and lift the scum layer off the seeds with the fork. While you could put the scum down the sink, this is NOT a process you want to do in the house. Add a bit of water to the jar of seeds and give it a good swish, then pour off most of the water into the compost pile. Any floating seeds are probably duds, but try not to dump any of the seeds at the bottom. With the first rinse done, the smelly part is over. Take the seeds inside, strain through a fine mesh sieve, and rinse well under running water.

Step 7: Dry and Store the Tomato Seeds

Spread the clean seeds onto a glass plate and let them air dry for a few days. Be sure to label the plate so you remember which variety of tomatoes you have. When the seeds are thoroughly dry, store them in a labeled envelope or plastic bag, away from heat or humidity, until late winter when you can start the seeds indoors for next year’s garden.

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Posted under Home Environment, Money Savers, Organic Garden.