Allotments 4 All

I saved some seed from the last tomato in a supermarket pack (Matina I think the variety was) and dried it on a plastic tray, leaving all the sticky goo there too. I planted 4 of the seeds on the 28th and this morning to my delight one of them has sprouted.
Is there a better way of saving tomato seeds, so you dont have all the goo?

Yes.

Put the seeds into water and leave for 3 days.

Each day, tip the water out and rinse.

After the 3 days, drain the water off and leave on a saucer to dry.

By then, once dry, they should brush off easily and can be kept in a paper envelope until needed.

I have loads of little yogurt pots on the go all summer saving all my tom seeds; and an old tea strainer that is dedicated to helping to drain the water off.

Spread the seeds and goo out on a piece of kitchen tissue and leave it to dry Tear off however many seeds you want and plant them paper and all. Or put it all in a jar, add a little water, and leave to go well and truly mouldy. Skim off the layer of mould, which produces enzymes which break down the goo. Sluice the rest under the tap till you wash away everything except the seeds, which sink. Floating seeds won't germinate so get rid of them.

Quote from: aj on March 12, 2010, 13:15:57
Yes.

Put the seeds into water and leave for 3 days.

Each day, tip the water out and rinse.

After the 3 days, drain the water off and leave on a saucer to dry.

By then, once dry, they should brush off easily and can be kept in a paper envelope until needed.

I have loads of little yogurt pots on the go all summer saving all my tom seeds; and an old tea strainer that is dedicated to helping to drain the water off.

Thank you aj, i am hoping to be saving a ffew tomato seeds for swapsies and i wanted a logical easy way to do it  ;D

I saved tomato seed for the first time last year, from 4 different bush varieties, and they have all germinated. I don't know, though, if they will come true? What do you experts say?

They're highly unlikely to do anything else! They're self-pollinators which don't give pollen a chance to move around from one flower to the next, since it's all closed in.

I spread them and leave them to dry out on kitchen roll. If they stick to the paper, plant that with them.

I must admit that I have never had them go mouldy on me.

How many tomato plants do you need? One tomato will give any one more than enough seeds.

Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on March 12, 2010, 13:46:20
put it all in a jar, add a little water, and leave to go well and truly mouldy. Skim off the layer of mould, which produces enzymes which break down the goo. Sluice the rest under the tap till you wash away everything except the seeds, which sink.

the rotting process also removes any virii, leaving just clean seed. ;)

Good instructions for saving seed of all types of veg including toms here at the Real Seed website:
http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html

Thanks for the reply, Robert, so I need never buy seeds again! Wish I'd thought of it before - another plus point to A4A......

 Apart from Sungold all the tomatoes I sell at the Open Days are "saved" :)

If anyone wants a PDF on tomato seed saving from the HSL, PM your address.

Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on March 13, 2010, 17:42:17
If anyone wants a PDF on tomato seed saving from the HSL, PM your address.

Robert; isn't the point of the HSL that they produce income from people joining HSL and getting access to their documentation by being a member? Have you got the rights to distribute their pdf sheets?

Thanks for the replies everyone.  ;D
It seems like a very good way of saving money on tomato seeds.  ;D
...right need a nice beefsteak variety from the shops next  ;D
...and a cherry..

Quote from: aj on March 14, 2010, 10:17:52
Robert; isn't the point of the HSL that they produce income from people joining HSL and getting access to their documentation by being a member? Have you got the rights to distribute their pdf sheets?

The whole point of the organisation is to preserve old varieties and make seeds available. If they're going to try to keep information about seed saving to when it's nothing more than a restatement of what is already in the public domain, then I'm going to have a major quarrel with them! I can't see it happening somehow.

Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on March 14, 2010, 13:14:37

Quote from: aj on March 14, 2010, 10:17:52
Robert; isn't the point of the HSL that they produce income from people joining HSL and getting access to their documentation by being a member? Have you got the rights to distribute their pdf sheets?

The whole point of the organisation is to preserve old varieties and make seeds available. If they're going to try to keep information about seed saving to when it's nothing more than a restatement of what is already in the public domain, then I'm going to have a major quarrel with them! I can't see it happening somehow.

But they wouldn't exist without members and their fees/donations....could you not direct people to locations where the information is freely available - if it IS freely available in the public domain?

It's not really the done thing to give away pdfs that do not belong to you...