an off grid life

How to Save Tomato Seeds for Next Year

Saving tomato seeds can be a little different than saving seeds from other plants. First, you need to make sure you’re saving seeds from the proper type of tomato.

Follow a simple process to remove the gelatinous sac protecting each seed and ensure they’re properly dried. If you do it properly, you can grow the same perfect tomatoes year after year.

01 Use fresh ingredients - especially yeast

Yeast Package

02 Storage: dry is nice

Thermometer

If you bought your tomatoes at a supermarket, there’s a chance you won’t be able to use their seeds next season. So if you're serious about growing your own food to feed your family, consider buying heirloom seeds to start.

Most store-bought varieties of tomatoes are F1 Hybrid strains. This means they produce genetically unstable seeds, and won’t share many of the characteristics of the previous plant.

Choose open-pollination or heirloom seeds These varieties have often been saved over multiple generations, keeping the same standard characteristics expected in a tomato plant.

Seed saving is a great family activity. If you have kids at home, turn this into a learning experience.

Properly drying the seeds means they will still be usable many years from now. Once you have rinsed the seeds, spread them out on a paper plate.

See the full post for step by step instructions for saving, drying, and storing tomato seeds to grow next year.

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