Saving your Tomatoe seeds

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

Thanks a lot Carolyn, I appreciate it. I look forward to your write up down the road. In the meantime the tutorial I read through has helped me have a good idea of how to proceed.

I suppose the one question would be, in general, is there a certain depth the goop should be for fermentation or doesn't that really matter.

I will sacrifice the first couple fruits of the varieties I want to save and just process the entire tomato.

If you are going to use those 9 oz plastic glasses you'd want it about half full, but it's not just the depth that's important, it's also the consistency of the goop/

When I process seeds I take a fruit and with my thumbs split open a fruit and then just, again with my thumbs and fingers, drag out the innards directly into a container'

Depending on the variety and also the ratio of flesh to juice and other innard parts I can get a somewhat watery goop with just a few other pieces of flesh, and of course the seeds, but other times there's way more flesh pieces, less juice, and usually less seeds.

And when the latter occurs I take my fingers and smash the flesh pieces against the side of the container , stir the goop and if it looks ok, ok.

And if it's a new variety I've not grown before, I take a huge bite of each fruit and record taste in my databook which I'd have handy/ Lots of tomato stains on those databooks.

On the upside if I was processing fruits , ripe ones only for seeds, I'd usually have green stained hands but after getting covered with tomato juice and whatever, my hands would be perfectly clean.

Learned that from my father many years ago, that is, after we brought the tomatoes in baskets into the shed for sorting and packing for market, we ASAP went to the closest greenhouse which had an outside faucet and a tub for washing mud spattered produce, grab a rotten tomato or two and wash our hands vigorously, Never failed to remove the green stains.

Carolyn