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Saving tomato seeds!

Hello, Matt here:)

Today in this episode I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about saving tomato seeds.

I don't know about you guys but over the years I've grown many different types of tomatoes. Over those years of growing tomatoes there's two kinds that my family and I have really enjoyed. Of course they're both organic and heirloom!
(For those of you that don't know, organic just means no pesticides were used to grow this particular plant. Heirloom just means "it's been passed down from generation to generation", which would also mean that it's not genetically modified because it was passed down. No GMO's.)



Let's look at the two I will be saving seeds from. 

The zebra tomato grows a lighter green with darker green stripes until it's fully ripe. The way you can tell it's fully ripe is it will turn completely yellow with those dark green stripes.

The size when fully ripe is about 3" in diameter. To me that is a good size tomato for burgers and hotdogs!! Very succulent tomato!!


And my new favorite is the Brandywine tomato! These tomatoes are misshaped and not very appealing to the eye. But where they lack in appearance, they make up for in sheer size and flavor!!

When fully right they can be a pink or a brilliant red! Not only that but I think I pulled some tomatoes off this year that weighed about 3 pounds each!!

Now compared to the zebra tomatoes these Brandywyne tomatoes are really "meaty" and good for making tomato sauce and salsa's.

Now with tomatoes this good wouldn't you want to save the seeds for the next year or would you want to hope the stores will still carry them? Not only that but do you want to pay those high prices for the plants?

From one tomato you can get anywhere between 500 and 1,000 seeds!


Since I know at this point you've decided that you're going to save your seeds lets look at how I do it.
  • Be sure to pick the best looking and biggest tomato from your strongest plant.
  • Cut your tomato open and scoop out all the seeds.
  • Put all the seeds in either a paper towel or a regular towel to do an initial drying by pressing down on the seeds to smash up the jelly around each seed.
  • Then take another paper towel/towel and put the semidry seeds on it and let it dry thoroughly for two weeks in the paper towel/towel.
  • Take some of those seeds (like two or three) and plant them to see if they sprout:)

I've heard people say on numerous occasions that you "have to" make sure that your seeds go through the fermentation process in order to get them to sprout, however that is not true. The reason for fermentation is to fight off diseases that can be carried over within the seed to the next growing season. If you have not had a lot of problems with disease there's no reason to do the fermentation process. Just a little FYI;)

Now it's just a matter of packaging and storing them:) You can get little ziplock bags or use this template to make your own seed packets at home for yourself and if you saved enough seeds you can give a lot of them away to your friends and family!!

I hope this video and blog was helpful to you:) If it was please pass it around, and also on the video hit that "like" button and share it with your friends on Facebook and whatever other social media you use! Once again thanks for watching and for reading:)

God bless!!

4 comments:

  1. Hello from Cricket Song Farm CSA. I have saved my heirloom tomatoe seeds for the past 20 years using the paper towel method. I just remove seeds and spread out over toweling, I even write the type of seed right on the towel. Let dry. Place in a plastic bag and store in the fridge. To plant just tear off little bits of toweling and seeds, and lay directly on potting soil. Moisten and cover with more soil. Very informative videos.

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  2. Hi Jill:)

    What is "Cricket Song Farm"? Had to ask!

    Good little tidbit on the "tear off little bits of toweling":) It is so easy like that! Thank you for that little gem!

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    1. In response to your question,"What is Cricket Song Farm". I am a farmer's daughter, and am now in my twenty-first year of running a successful CSA. When I first purchased my farm I named it "Cricket Song Farm" because I have always been an organic farmer and tend to feed a variety of bugs. The "cricket's" at least sang for their supper.

      I am going to try the suggestion of drying eggs. I have dried goat's milk frequently over the years, but hadn't thought about drying eggs. Thanks for the imformative blog.

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    2. No problem at all. This blog is member driven, that drying egg blog is from one of our members on Facebook:) If you get a chance, join us! We got some really cool people there!!

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