Happy Urban Dirt

How to Preserve Tomato Seeds

As your favorite homegrown tomatoes begin to ripen on the vine this summer, be sure to save those seeds for planting next year. It takes a little care to get the seeds out of the gelatinous tomato goo they’re suspended in, but once you do, you can exploit those seeds to nurture and perpetuate the unique flavor of your tomatoes.

Below is an excerpt from Seed Underground: The Growing Revolution to Save Food By Janissy RayIt has been adapted to the web.

Photo by Jonathan Billinger, Wikimedia Commons


Choose good tomatoes that even a naughty child can crush. If they are gigantic, cut them in half along the equator. Hold them over the jar. (Try not to exploit plastic for anything. Plastic is bad.) Squeeze out the pulp, the gelatinous matrix that suspends the seeds, like frog eggs, in the jar. If you are working with cherry tomatoes, you will need to hold the whole tomato between your fingers and squeeze. All that will be left is the skin.

Cap the jar, shake it, and label it with the variety name inside. If you don’t label the jar, you’ll forget what’s in it. If you have two tomatoes that you’re saving, you think you can plant the Yellow Mortgage Lifter on the right and the Pruden’s Purple on the left, and you remember which is which, and you’ll soon wonder whether the Yellow Mortgage Lifter was on the right or the left. Just do it.

The tomato peel is still edible. I think the sauce is a good idea at this point.

Fermentation, the process you do to the sticky mass in the jar, is the best way to preserve tomato seeds because the gel dissolves during this process.—contains chemicals that inhibit germination. Fermentation causes seeds to germinate faster when you plant them in the spring. Fermentation also breaks down the seed coat, where seed-borne diseases such as bacterial canker, spot, and mottling can lurk. Leave the mess in a hot place for two or three days, longer if temperatures are below 70°F. Books say to stir daily, but I don’t.

The process is complete when the surface of the tomato seeds becomes covered with a layer of blue-gray mold.

Sometimes on heated days (seven months of the year here) seeds start to sprout in the middle of the goo, which means I haven’t tended them for too long and they think they’ve planted and it’s time to throw themselves back into the vortex of creating plants and fruit. Don’t be like me.

Look at the bottom of the jar. The viable seeds will sink to the bottom. Skim off the foam, then fill the jar with hot water and start pouring out the rotten goo, being careful not to spill the seeds. You may need to add water or rinse the seeds from the inside of the jar and slowly pour again. The viable seeds will sink to the bottom. Do this until the jar is mostly seeds and water.

Now pour the seeds into a gigantic metal sieve with holes smaller than the seeds, rinse, drain for a few minutes, then spread them out on a sieve or plate covered with newspaper or a tidy cloth (don’t buy paper towels). Leave the seeds to parched.

Label it (very significant!) and store it.


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