Harvesting seeds from tomatoes
How can this be done. I want to save some seeds for next year. Thanks!
There are several ways. One is to simply dry out some goopy seeds and save them in a pill bottle etc til next year. These are not clean enough to trade with others.
If you want clean fluffy seeds like you get commercially, that will stay good for years there are two basic ways, chemical cleansing, and fermantation. I don't do the chemical cleanser, which involves scrubbing with something like commet or oxyclean so I won't go into that but you can find instructions on the web.
Most people ferment the seeds. Fermantation basically rots off the gel leaving clean seeds behind. The messy way is to simply squish the seeds into a container and add a little water (about 1/2 the volume of the goop, and let sit for 4-8 days depending on the temperature. Then lift off the mat of mold growing on top, add water and pour off the floating goo,.. repeat untill you have clean seeds then dry.
The clean way to do it is to squish the seeds into a wire seive, scrub them against the wire a bit with a rubber spatula to break up the gell, and push the gell into your fermentation container (I like 16 oz deli containers). Add the seeds to the container and add an inch or two of water on top and let sit for 3-5 days at room temperature. This method does away with the mold on top and the mass of gunk, and the seeds are ready faster. When you swirl the seeds and they clump together touching each other it shows that the gel is dissolved and you can rinse and dry. You can dip the seeds in a 10% bleach solution and then rinse a couple of times to sterilize them if you want (I never have). I like to dry the seeds on a paper plate out of the sun for several days. if you have a dense pile of seeds you have to let them dry longer, but for one tomato seeds spread out on a plate, 3-5 days is fine. Put the dry seeds in a vial or little zip lock to keep bugs out. They will be good for at least 5-10 years at room temerature.
If you want clean fluffy seeds like you get commercially, that will stay good for years there are two basic ways, chemical cleansing, and fermantation. I don't do the chemical cleanser, which involves scrubbing with something like commet or oxyclean so I won't go into that but you can find instructions on the web.
Most people ferment the seeds. Fermantation basically rots off the gel leaving clean seeds behind. The messy way is to simply squish the seeds into a container and add a little water (about 1/2 the volume of the goop, and let sit for 4-8 days depending on the temperature. Then lift off the mat of mold growing on top, add water and pour off the floating goo,.. repeat untill you have clean seeds then dry.
The clean way to do it is to squish the seeds into a wire seive, scrub them against the wire a bit with a rubber spatula to break up the gell, and push the gell into your fermentation container (I like 16 oz deli containers). Add the seeds to the container and add an inch or two of water on top and let sit for 3-5 days at room temperature. This method does away with the mold on top and the mass of gunk, and the seeds are ready faster. When you swirl the seeds and they clump together touching each other it shows that the gel is dissolved and you can rinse and dry. You can dip the seeds in a 10% bleach solution and then rinse a couple of times to sterilize them if you want (I never have). I like to dry the seeds on a paper plate out of the sun for several days. if you have a dense pile of seeds you have to let them dry longer, but for one tomato seeds spread out on a plate, 3-5 days is fine. Put the dry seeds in a vial or little zip lock to keep bugs out. They will be good for at least 5-10 years at room temerature.
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applestar
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I accidentally stumbled on another method based on seed tape technique. Same as TZ's strainer scrub method to clean, but to dry them, I dump on a paper towel, press and spread/squeeze them in the towel, then sandwich the seeds in a single layer between two dry sheets or one sheet folded in half. Write the variety and date on a corner of the sheets. When dry, I ply the two sheets apart (the seeds will be stuck to the paper towels). I make sure they're completely dry, then fold up the seed-stuck towels, labeled corner out, in zip bags. I'm just going to cut apart the seeds to sow them, paper towel and all.
I tried to just do it like this once before but the seeds looked as though they had collapsed in on themselves and non of them germinated.RickNC wrote:I really don't care what they look like. I scooped them out and now they are dried. I will just put them in a container and try to plant them next year.
