Save the tomato seeds

It’s no secret that I like to save seeds and prefer to grow vegetable varieties for fun, rather than high yield or disease resistance.

Many years ago a fellow gardener gave me a ‘Costoluto Genovese’ tomato seedling. The ribbed tomatoes were gigantic, deep red, and delicious. Some years later, I saw one at the farmers market and bought it. I also noticed a ‘Costoluto Fiorentino’ so I bought it. Then another variety called ‘Matina’, good for slicing and an early carrier, along with a ‘Principe Borghese’, a low water content Roma type. All four were Italian relics and he intended to save their seeds.

Here’s how to do it (don’t forget to label everything):

1. Put the tomato seeds in a glass jar or other medium to large size jar (it is okay to include the tomato slime).
2. Fill the jug 2/3 full with water.
3. Let stand at room temperature to ferment for a few days to a week. It probably smells bad while fermenting, so place it accordingly. The fermentation process will remove the slimy coating from the seeds, which is crucial to successfully storing them for germination next spring.
4. After about a week, the viable seeds will sink to the bottom and the unwanted tomato pulp will float.
5. Carefully fill the jar with water (at the sink) so that the moldy matter on top overflows from the jar.
6. Strain the seeds through a mesh strainer and rinse well.
7. Place the strained and rinsed seeds on a plate and spread them out to dry completely. This can take from a few days to a week. Again, this is crucial to successfully storing the seeds until next spring.
8. When dry, pack the seeds in labeled envelopes. Avoid storing in plastic bags to reduce the chance of mold forming.
9. Store the seeds in a cool, dry place.
10. One last note on how to save tomato seeds: make sure the seeds you save come from traditional varieties. Hybrid tomato seeds (labeled F1 on the seed packet) do not produce plants like the ones the seeds come from.

Start your tomato seeds 8-10 weeks before your average last spring frost date. Transplant them every three weeks into the next size pot. They will double in size each week and should be 12 to 18 inches tall when the weather is ready to be transplanted outdoors.

I still have seeds from those tomatoes, the first ones I collected seeds from. They have been planted and reaped many times since then. That’s the best part of growing traditional vegetables – you only have to buy the seeds once.

Copyright Sharon Sweeny, 2011