A fully ripe tomato releases a sweet scent and twists free of its stem at a touch, and inside it lies next year’s crop. Saving seed from non-hybrid varieties costs nothing, keeps a favourite true to type, and, kept dark and dry, those seeds stay sowable for six years.
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You can’t simply use seeds from any random tomato plant. It’s important that you only try to save seeds from varieties that aren’t hybrids. Avoid hybrids, they’re produced from two genetically different parents. Hybrid seeds generally are labeled as such. For instance, “F1” appears on the seed pack for hybrid vegetables and fruits.
Why should you avoid hybrids? It’s quite simple: if you sow their seeds, you’ll have unpredictable and often disappointing results. The plant will produce fruits that will have a completely random appearance, taste and color – nothing like the mother plant at all.
With non-hybrid varieties, you won’t get this problem: each tomato flower will self-fertilize. From the stamens of each flower, grains of pollen will fall deeper into the flower, and will meet the tip of the pistils there to fertilize it.
The further apart you plant different varieties, the more you’ll be able to avoid cross-pollination.
You’d typically harvest tomatoes 4 to 5 months after sowing. This duration depends on how much sun they get. The sunnier the weather, the earlier the harvest. Based on your sowing calendar, you’d start sowing seeds under cover sometime in late winter-early spring. After that, young seedlings are transplanted in the ground as early as mid-spring, once any risk of freezing has subsided.
Tomatoes are thus ripe enough to be harvested when midsummer comes around. The harvest season lasts up to mid-autumn-late autumn, depending on the region – the cutoff date is usually the first autumn frost.
It’s important to harvest your tomato when the fruits are perfectly ripe. Their color is full and flush, even though there may still be a hint of green around the stem. Note, however, that some varieties such as the ‘Green Zebra’ stay completely green even when they’re fully ripe.
In any case, your sense of smell can help: ripe fruits will release a sweet scent. If you twist is a little on its stem, the fruit should break off easily. If this isn’t yet the case, you’ll have to wait a little longer: your tomato isn’t yet perfectly ripe.
It’s quite straightforward: they’re inside the fruit.
Saving tomato seed spreads across the whole growing year, from the first sowing under cover to the sealed jar on the shelf. Here is what happens when, and what matters at each step.
| Stage | When | What you do | Key point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sowing under cover | Late winter to early spring | Sow saved seed in trays of seedling mix | Warmth indoors gets plants going ahead of the season |
| Planting out | Mid-spring to late spring | Move young plants from nursery pots into the ground | Wait until any risk of freezing has passed |
| First ripe fruit | Midsummer | Pick fruit for eating and mark your best plants | Roughly 4 to 5 months after sowing, sooner in sunny weather |
| End of harvest | Mid-autumn to late autumn | Take the last fruits before the weather turns | The cutoff is usually the first autumn frost |
| Extracting the seed | 2 to 3 days after picking | Soak pulp and seed in a bowl of warm water, then strain | Warm water in full sun loosens the pulp from the seed |
| Storing | Up to six years | Dry, then seal in a labelled envelope or airtight jar | Write the variety name and the date harvested |
Dated, labelled packets mean you always know which variety you are sowing and how old the seed is.
That fabulous moment when you sow your own seeds has finally arrived: the beginning of spring! Bring your seeds off of the shelf or drawer where they were stored.
All that’s left is to care for your growing tomato plants and you’ll get to reap a 100% home-grown harvest!
