Seed Saving from heritage tomatoes #Blogtoberfest day 8

Morning, today's post is all about seed saving. I have some lovely heritage tomato plants that I grow in my back garden, this will be the second year I have saved seeds from them. Next year I plan to plant some on Plot 36 too.

This week I have been saving seeds from Purple Cherokee tomatoes and Yellow Grape tomatoes.
First choose plump fully ripe tomatoes and cut them open. Carefully squeeze all of the pips and pulp in to a small glass of water. I have used cups with different markings for each variety as further along the seed saving process the seeds start to look very similar.

Place your cup of seeds and water on a warm sunny windowsill and carefully tip off as much water as possible twice a day (try not to loose any seeds down the sink though) and top up your cups again from the cold tap. Above is what the seeds look like after 3 days, all of the coloured flesh and pulp that was attached to the seeds has been washed away.

Above is a snap of the varieties I am saving, the Purple Cherokee are not yet ripe and I forgot to take a picture if tomatoes that these seeds came from originally. When they are fully ripe the colour is really pretty.

I would have preferred to let them ripen on the vine but my plants are showing the first signs of blight and so I picked and brought in the plumpest fruits to ripen indoors rather than loose the whose crop.

After 3 or 4 days your seeds will be clear of all of the fleshy bits of tomato. Tip out the seeds and water through a sieve and transfer the seed on to absorbent paper like kitchen roll. Spread the seeds out carefully to a single layer so that they don't dry out in clumps and stick together then place them somewhere warm to dry - these will go back onto my kitchen windowsill. Move them about from time to time to stop them from sticking together and sticking to the paper.

Once these are fully dried out ( after a week or so) I will wrap them in more absorbent paper and seal them in little grip lock bags to keep them dry over the winter. It is a great idea to pop in one of these little silica get packs that come with new shoe or purses if you have one too.

Have a lovely day, Jolene xx