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As your favorite variety of home acquire tomato plant start ripening on the vine this summertime , be indisputable to hold open those seed for next class ’s planting . It takes a bit of care to get the seeds out of the gelatinous tomato goo they ’re suspended in , but once you ’ve done it you could use those seminal fluid to cherish and perpetuate the unique nip of your tomato .
The chase is an excerpt fromThe Seed Underground : A Growing Revolution to Save FoodbyJanisse Ray . It has been adapted for the web .
Photo by Jonathan Billinger , Wikimedia Commons
Pick prissy tomatoes that would be perfect for a beggarly nestling to mash up . If they ’re large , slice up them in one-half at the equator . Hold them over a canning jarful . ( Try not to expend plastic for anything . Plastic is bad stuff . ) Milk the mush , meaning the gelatinous intercellular substance that suspend the seeds , like toad frog eggs , into the jar . If you ’re working with cherry tomato plant , you ’ll have to hold the whole tomato between your fingers and squeeze . The only thing left will be the skin .
Put the jar lid on , give it a shake , and label it with the name of the variety inside . If you do n’t label the jar , you will forget what it contains . If you have two tomatoes you ’re keep , you guess you could pose Yellow Mortgage Lifter on the right and Pruden ’s Purple on the left and remember what ’s what , and pretty shortly you ’re wondering if Yellow Mortgage Lifter was on the right or the left hand . Just do it .
The Lycopersicon esculentum hull can still be eaten . I remember sauce is a adept idea at this gunpoint .
fermentation , which is what you are doing with the goopy mess in the canning jar , is the best way to deliver tomato seeds because the mental process dissolves the colloidal gel — which contain chemicals that inhibit germination . Fermentation have the seeds to germinate more apace when you plant them the following leap . Fermenting also breaks down the source pelage where seed - assume diseases like bacterial canker sore , pip , and speck can lurk . Let the mess stand for two or three Day in a warm location , longer if the temperature is below 70 ° F . The books say to stir day by day but I do n’t .
When a bed of naughty - gray mold covers the surface of the love apple - cum funk , the cognitive process is consummate .
Occasionally in hot atmospheric condition ( seven month a year here ) , I have had the seed start to pullulate inside the easy lay , which means that I ’ve leave them too long untended and they imagine they ’ve actually been planted and it ’s meter to race off again into plant - construction and yield - fashioning . Do n’t be like me .
Look at the undersurface of the shock . The feasible seeds will have sink to the bottom . nibble off the scum , then fill the jolt with ardent water and start to pour off the now - rotten goop , being careful not to stream out your seed . You may have to add water or rinsing seeds off the insides of the jar and pour again , slowly . Viable source keep settle to the bottom . Do this until you have mostly seeds and water in the shock .
Now underprice the seeds into a large metal strainer whose jam are smaller than the come , rinse , drain for a few minutes , then spread them on a screen or on a plate covered with newspaper or a unobjectionable rag ( do n’t buy paper towels ) . allow the seeds until they dry .
Label—very important!—and store.
Recommended Reads
Three Recipes for Dried Tomatoes
Saving Dry vs. Wet seed : The Seed Series
The Seed Underground
A Growing Revolution to Save Food
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