Saving seeds sounds great at first -– who could argue with growing your own heirloom seeds instead of buying them? But when you take a look at what’s involved with saving things like squash and corn seeds you start seeing the beauty of capitalism. Even easy seeds like beans and lettuce require you to do your spring planting with fall seed harvest in mind.

But saving tomato seeds is different. Not only can beginning gardeners do it, people who don’t even HAVE gardens can do it, because the best tomatoes to eat are also the best source of seed.

It’s one stop shopping and how great is that? You can save the seeds from a single terrific tomato, no matter where you got it. In theory, at least, you could dig the seeds from a yummy tomato served in a restaurant and save THOSE. The seeds are simple to collect and process. And they last for years.

The only must-have is a tomato that is not a hybrid (read about why here), and that means we should all be very grateful that tomato names are now in style. Instead of “tomatoes,” pure and simple, the farmer — and increasingly the restaurant — offers Brandywines, Jetstars, Aunt Marie’s Marvels and who knows what-all. There are hundreds of possibilities. Doesn’t matter. As long as you know the name you can — bless Google — just look up “xyz seed. ” If it’s a hybrid that can’t be saved, “hybrid” will be part of the description.

The actual moral of this picture is do not get to the farmers’ market at 9:30 AM if official start time is 9:00.

I’m going to save seeds from a tomato –- a big fat wonderful tomato — I bought at the Rockland, Maine farmers’ market a couple of weeks ago. It’s called Hillbilly Potato Leaf, so I know that like many delicious heirlooms the plant will have broader, simpler leaves than common tomato plants.
Continue reading “The Best Deal in Garden Seed Saving — Tomatoes! via @the_daily_green” →