You are making more work for yourself than necessary. I've saved tomato seeds for years & the quickest & best method that I've used is as follows: 1. Cut the tomato in half. 2. Squeeze or scoop out the gel+seeds into a fine mesh strainer over the sink. 3. Rinse the seeds until all of the gel is gone. Vigorously shake off the excess water. 4. Dump the seeds onto a plastic cutting board or plastic ice cream gallon bucket lid (which is what I use). 5. Spread out the seeds with a finger. 6. Allow the seeds to dry (usually only requires a day or 2 depending on the room temp, but you can certainly wait 5 days, if you wish). 7. Scrape the dry seeds loose from the plastic with a finger nail (which is quite easy to do). 8. Package & label the seeds in a paper seed packet (I carefully opened an old seed packet & traced it onto thin cardboard stock for a template & then use that template on copy paper to make quick home made seed packets). Alternatively, use a clear grocery store produce bag as a storage container, a piece of paper for the packing info (date, tomato variety, etc), & a twist tie. Trim off the excess bag plastic. 9. Put the seeds in a cool dry location (personally, I put them in a Zip-lock bag & put it in the refrigerator & it works perfectly--meaning the seeds last for years using this method). While the above list looks like a lot of steps when detailed, the most time consuming step is making the paper seed packets--which isn't even very time consuming as I can trace, cut, fold, & tape the seams in less than a couple of minutes per packet).
@user-ey2ei5yv3f The odds are that wouldn't matter. Remember, there are lots of micro-organisms in the soil. Seeds are quite capable of lasting until the growing conditions are right to germinate.
I always ferment mine to save and have fantastic germination. I always add a little water. I have also been snipping the suckers off the bottoms of my determinate tomatoes and sticking them in little pots so I have plants ready to go in the ground when my first determinates are done.
Scott thank you so much for this video. I've had good luck just slicing up a tomato and sticking it in a pot of dirt. I have so many roma tomatoes growing in my backyard now. But I wanted to save some of those seeds to plant in the fall. It's getting really hot here in Orlando. I wish it would rain here. So Thank you for this video! Looks like I have a fun Friday night planned. 🤪 I love gardening. 🍅🍅🍅
I've simply tossed left over seeds I've cleaned up from the cutting board into a space in the garden, or tossed a 'gone over' tomato into a space in the garden and they sprout the next spring when it warms up. Same thing with Japanese Pumpkins, and various kinds of zucchini or squash. The seedlings I don't have space for, I give to neighbors as a gift.
