Spread around my bedroom are small paper plates with tomato seeds on them. I grew a bunch of heirloom tomatoes this year, and so I am trying to save seeds from them so that I can grow them again next year. Thus, at least one of tomato of the ones I think I want to grow again have been cut in half, processed, and spread out to dry, in hopes I can grow more like it next year.
This exercise is made more exciting by the fact that I don't have a record of what I planted where, so I've had to reconstruct things from my faint memories of the spring and my list of what varieties I grew. So far I have IDed and gotten seeds from Nancy's Darlings, Cherokee Purple, Black Cherry, and Aunt Ruby's German Green. I'm crossing my fingers that I've done this right, as I would really like to grow the Cherokee Purple and the Aunt Ruby GG again, and if these seeds are viable I won't have to buy any seeds for them next year. (I want to grow some of the others, as well, but those are the two that I am out of seed of.)
If you've ever sliced into a tomato you know that the seeds are surrounded by a gel; that gel needs to be removed before you can dry them. The classic, most-recommended method requires several days to a week and involves having jars of rotting tomato guts sitting around your house. I'm not using that method. Instead, I'm using the one that takes 35 minutes and some Oxi-Clean. It's not organic, but I don't grow totally organically so there.
I'm very nervous about whether I'm doing this right. In a few weeks, after I am sure everything has dried, I am going to run some germination tests. If the seeds sprout I'll put aside what I need form myself and start giving the extras away. Because really, what am I doing to do with 50-60 Black Cherry tomato seeds?
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