Saving Tomato Seeds

I've written before about seed saving. It's something that I think is really important for gardeners to know about. It's often very simple and can be done without a great deal of information. It also allows you to capture and develop great varieties that work really well in your garden.

In this case, I'm saving the seed of some self sown cherry tomatoes that came up in the garden where I work (not Malmsbury). They were really productive, delicious, beautiful and interesting, all good reasons to save the seed.

These tomatoes probably grew from seeds that were in the compost and worm farms. It's possible that they came from some hybrid, supermarket cherry tomatoes, which means the seed could produce something different to the parent plant. But they may also produce the same type of tomatoes, it's so easy to save the seed so it's definitely worth the effort.

There are a few different ways to save tomato seeds, some more complicated than others. As usual, I chose the easiest and simplest method.

To maximise success, I collected the ripest tomatoes I could find and if I had been able to, I would have collected from as many different plants as possible too.

these ones were really tiny, sweet and shiny

On a piece of thick paper towel, I wrote identifying information about the tomato variety, location where they grew and the date.

Then I sliced up each little tomato...

... and squeezed all the seeds onto the paper towel.

Now, I'm just waiting for the paper towels to dry so I can store them ready to sow in September. When the time comes, I will just 'plant' the paper.