Heirloom Tomatoes from seeds...from tomatoes...from the market..

Randall, Tomatoes are generally self pollinating, so in general, a large type tomato will breed relatively true to type, if it truly was an heirloom / open pollinated type. Small tomatoes like wild tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, current tomatoes are more likely to cross, so even in heirlooms for those you can have some different tomatoes showing up when you grow them out. If they were hybrids, the seeds might not replicate the parent tomato.

So in a nutshell, if you love the tomato and it's an heirloom and not tiny, it has a decent chance at coming out same or similar to the one you have.

(I'm sure KYH will correct any errors I've made...);)

Some other vegetables, like squash for instance can cross pollinate for distances like a quarter mile, so something like a squash wouldn't be a good candidate to grow from seeds from one in the store you liked, but tomatoes are worth taking the chance.

I like to "clean" the tomato seeds, by fermenting tomato goo, then everything molds off at the top, and cleaned seeds come out the bottom. Kinda unpleasant to have around... you can just dry them with their goo and plant them like that next year too.

I'd think coming from Whole Paycheck, they're not irradiated.

Good luck.

RP...I know I,m a little late with this but I,ve grown heirooom tomtoes for 12 years and have grown about 50 or so different kinds ,,yes you can take the seed of heirlooms tomatoes ,ferment them and you will end up with the same tomato..but hybrids are a cross of two or more different plants and you will end up with the parent plants coming up ..I belong to the [Gardenweb tomato forum] a great site for any information on heirloom tomatoes...never heard of Jersey is that the heirloom name?Also I buy my seed from [Totally Tomatoes,and there is many others the forum list many differnt mag.]

I'd say you pretty much covered the basics, Stir It Up.

One comment: The "goo" surrounding the seeds contains anti-germination compounds. Give it a little thought and you'll understand why: the warm, moist interior of a tomato is the perfect nursery for seed germination.

One reason we ferment tomato seed is to get rid of those compounds.

If you forego fermentation, make sure you over-plant when starting seeds (which, RP, should be done indoors six to eight weeks before last frost), because germination rates will be way lower than normal.

Think about how many seeds a typical tomato has. Then think about the small number of volunteers that result.

>can I grow them on my own starting with a few tomatoes from the store? <

RP,

FYI, many of the heirloom varieties we've rescued through the years were done just that way.

For instance, Black Mountain Pink was popularized by a collector who found them in the London (KY) flea market.

The process is the same as from tomatoes you've grown yourself. Remove the seed mass (most people merely squeese out the juice and seed mass, but I do it with a spoon, and save the flesh for making sauce) to a waterproof container. Add an equal volume of water.

Stir once a day.

Depending on temperature, in from one to three days fermentation will start. Viable seed will sink. Non viable seed, debris, remains of the gel coat, etc. will float, and a white mold will form on the surface.

When all the good seed has dropped to the bottom (about five days, usually), pour off the crud. Wash the seed well and dry it on paper or foam plates. Try to get as near a single layer as you can, and stir the seed (and rub it between your fingers) periodically as it dries.

When it's surface dried, leave it alone to dry fully. This takes from 1 to 3 weeks. Err on the side of lengthier drying. Then store the seed.

I use empty pill bottles for this.

Depending on variety, tomato seed remains viable for 4-10 years.

Nothing to add, just wanted to say thanks for the advice - from another new tomato farmer :)

I love heirloom tomatoes, but I have never grown them from seeds I always get the small starter plants from the nursery. At the end of the season this year, however, thanks to your great advice, I now know what to do with some of my excess tomatoes. I'll be prepping seeds for the following season.
Thanks for the great tips!!
Rick :bounce:

Rick, you really should learn to start your own plants. It's not hard.

The main reason this makes sense is that with nursery plants you're rather limited as to selection. There are something on the order of 6,000 known open pollinated tomato varieties, with a vast diversity of size, shape, color, and, most of all, flavor.

Growing your own lets you experiment with more of these varieties to find the ones that most please you.

Rick,

I'm a long-time tomato grower from seed and it's a piece of cake. Tomato gardening forums such as on Gardenweb or at Tomatoville can help you select varieties that will do best where you live.

All tomatoes will self-pollinate if conditions are right.

jt

of course you can grow tomatoes this way.You just need to let the tomatoes sit out in the sun till they get all mushy, get the seeds out spread them to dry, and store in a paper baggy in a dry place. Next year seed them in early april.

>All tomatoes will self-pollinate if conditions are right. <

JT, I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Tomatoes have perfect flowers and are in-bred. All of them are self-pollinating no matter what the conditions. If the plants will set flowers then they will self-pollinate.

Most standard tomatoes, in fact, do not outbreed at all because they have unextruded stiles. As a result, the pollen isn't readily available to pollinators.

Current types, potato leaf varieties, and, maybe, double-blossomed beefsteaks readily cross because they have extruded stiles, and pollinators do find tomato flowers attractive. But if you cage these they will still self-pollinate.

>get the seeds out spread them to dry, and store in a paper baggy in a dry place<

Mainaman, while this can work, the recommended method is to ferment the seed. There are several reasons for this.

1. Unfermented seed has a tendency to stick to itself, and can be cumbersome to work with.

2. The gel mass surrounding the seeds contains, among other things, an anti-germination compound. This makes sense, because the moist interior of a tomato would otherwise be the perfect nursary for seeds. But there's very little incidence of in-situ germination because of those compounds. Fermentation, among other things, removes those compounds---along with non-viable seeds and all the other crud fond in the seed mass.

3. Productivity of unfermented seed goes down, for the above reason. Every leave a tomato behind in the garden? Look at how few volunteers you get, compared to the number of seed in that 'mater. On the other hand, properly harvested and fermented seed should yield at least 92% germination.

4. Fermentation destroys most seed-borne pathogens. All of the surface pathogens are destroyed (which, in tomatoes, is most of them), and many of the systemic pathogens are killed as well.

All in all, fermentation is an extra step well worth taking. It doesn't take long; isn't difficult; and results in a better seed crop overall.