Seed Saving has begun!

[gflynn]

My tomato anxiety is very low today. I have everything in the ground and all the seedling distributed and I have even bagged blossoms on many varieties.

This morning I bagged:

Kimberly
Black Cherry
New Big Dwarf
Taxi
Dr. Lyle
Earl's Faux
Aunt Gertie's X Cherokee

The season is on Cruise Control.

Greg

[Earl]

So if those bagged are first to ripen, you're gonna squish the seeds from them and not eat them? Right!!! :-)

[Worth1]

(((The season is on Cruise Control.))))

Good I will send some grass hoppers your way.

Bad luck to eat the first tomatoes you know!!!

Worth

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by Earl

So if those bagged are first to ripen, you're gonna squish the seeds from them and not eat them? Right!!! :-)

What perfect timing. I've been meaning to ask a pro...

Am I doing myself a disservice if I carefully scoop the seeds and gel out of a dead ripe tomato into a glass bowl, add water, and set it to ferment that while I enjoy the now seedless tomato? Does the tomato really have to make the ultimate sacrifice to make good seeds? Maybe if I had a bustling garden with more tomatoes than I know what to do with, but right now I have access to tomato varieties one-at-a-time via farmer's markets (real ones, not grocery store dumping grounds) and helpful Houstonites.

Out of 7 CP fruits set on my one CP plant, 1 has been half-eaten by a worm and another one, the stem supporting it mysteriously fell over.

[Lee]

Feldon,

I very rarely sacrifice a tomato to seed saving.
I usually do exactly as you outlined. If I'm saving seeds
from it, it was usually too good not to eat!
Also, many varieities have been saved and regrown
after the massive tastetesters have devoured them
at Tomatopalooza[tm].

The only downside is time...... it's just easier to squeeze
the whole thing....

Lee

[gflynn]

Earl,

I would be hard pressed not to eat the first tomato. There are many other blossoms lower on these plants and I am sure they will set fruit first but thanks for your concern

Worth,

Can you cover them with chocolate first?

Feldon,

As Lee says it just seems like too much work, however, if you want to be efficient there are recipes that require deseeding like Guacamole for example. I love that stuff.

Lee,

I do the same thing you do and often use the crappier tomatoes for seed. Some say that this will produce crappy plants but is this really true? I tend to think not. I figure its just an issue of partial pollination.

Greg

[coronabarb]

I don't understand this 'ultimate sacrifice' thing. What am I missing here? You don't need the whole tomato in the container...just the seeds. I always eat the tomato...it tastes just as good all squished up. Or do like me and use a nice little spoon and gently dig out the seeds from each cavity...and eat the tomato.

[JerryL]

Hey you guys. You don’t have to save ALL the seeds from that first tomato. As many have suggested, scoop a FEW out. Or cut the fruit in half. Squeeze one half. Slice the other.

Chances are there are more fruit/seed where that came from.

[Suze]

I like to try and incorporate seed saving into my canning activities whenever possible, because I prefer to squeeze out seeds from the tomatoes I put up anyway. For onesies/twosies I don't feel like eating at the moment, those get seeded and then put in a ziplock bag in the freezer for cooking at a later date.

[Suze]

Originally Posted by gflynn

This morning I bagged:
[...]
Aunt Gertie's X Cherokee

Greg, refresh my memory. Was this a cross you deliberately did? What was the fruit like last year?

[gflynn]

Suze

This was a natural (unintentional) cross from last year. I had an Aunt Gertie's Gold that was surrounded by Cherokee Purple on one side and Cherokee Green on the other. The branches of all three were intertiwined.

My efforts to bag seeds from Aunt Gertie's was a dismal failure so I simply saved some of the seeds from fruit that was unbagged and started the seeds this winter. I figured that true seed would be Potato leaf and crosses would be regular leaf in all likelihood.

So sure enough some of the seeds produced regular leaf plants and what's more is that they looked just exactly like the leaves of the Cherokee Green and Cherokee Purple seeding.

So.... the Aunt Gertie's is probably crossed with either Cherokee Green or Cherokee Purple.

Further, after talking to Keith my impression is that the only way to tell will be to see the fruit and even then it may be difficult.

What it looks like is if it is crossed with Cherokee Purple the fruit will most likely be Red\Brown. If it is crossed with Cherokee Green their is a third of a chance of the fruit being Yellow, Red or Purple\Brown. So if the fruit is Yellow then I can be sure it crossed with Cherokee Green.

Greg

[Vaccinium_Hound]

Aunt Gertie's Indiscretion?