it is estimated that over 90% of tomato varieties have been lost in the last century since farmers stopped saving their own seeds in favor of mass-produced seed because saving your own seed was standard practice back in the day tomato varieties have become adapted to local conditions because of this automatic artificial selection how would that work it is simple suppose a farmer lives in a place pounds tomato blight if he grows Tomatoes year after year and select seeds from the best tomatoes in his lot the showed resistance to blight over a few generations and perhaps through crossbreeding of other varieties a new blight resistant variety would appear losing these locally adapted varieties was in reality a waste of precious information in time but we can reverse this and celebrate diversity by saving our own tomato seeds I'll show you how I'm silhoue oliveira and i'm discovering new flavor while I rediscovered heirloom varieties in my suburban homestead heirloom tomatoes are all the rage in rightly so they exude unparalleled flavor that has been long ago lost in conventional store-bought Tomatoes these family treasures thus the name heirloom were prized varieties passed from parent to child bred specially for flavor because of this many of these varieties happen to be less Hardy and show exotic shapes and colors saving tomato seeds is easy all you need is a fully ripe open pollinated tomato cut the tomato and scoop out the seeds and the jelly-like liquid they come surrounded in into a container unlike other seeds that are merely collected and dried tomato seeds need to go through a stage of fermentation in order to be viable tomato seeds are encased in the gelatinous sac that inhibits sprouting without this coating the seed would germinate while inside the moist conditions of the tomato center add a bit of water to the container and let it sit rotting at room temperature for about 7 days this mimics the natural process of a tomato folly and overripe and rotting on the soil don't let the liquid dry out if necessary add more water after a week using a sieve and a spoon wash the seeds under running water until all of the junk is washed away and you're left with clean tomato seeds this part of the process is a bit smelly due to the rotten liquid but it quickly goes away once you wash the seeds selecting the right tomatoes to save seeds from is a big part of the equation if you want to continue a variety true to seed that is without crossbreeding you need to isolate your tomato plants or plant only that variety if you have more than one variety growing together chances are they will crossbreed crossbreeding may be fun however you might end up creating your own variety this way spread the seeds into a paper towel or napkin and leave them to air dry remember to label and keep track of the seed variety select the best tomatoes to save the seed from if you want bigger Tomatoes select biggest or make your choice based on flavor or color I believe that selecting for local disease resistance is really smart by selecting the strongest plants year after year or crossbreeding them with disease resistant varieties you may end up with a more resistant variety altogether and most importantly you will be encouraging biodiversity which is essential for more stable system that's it away quick question for you when I'm putting my seedlings in my seedling trays and I get to the point where there's a bit of competition how early is too early to start thinning those could I take one of these five right here my wife planted these and they seem to be pretty close proximity to each other anyway thanks for your response thanks for the postcard question Ian that's a great question it seems that your wife was a bit overzealous when sowing the seeds to ensure of course that at least one of them would survive now there's a bit too much in each cell there's about what five and that's way too much competition I would suggest that you thin them immediately and leaving the shortest one of course usually people want to send seedlings when they reach the second set of leafs the first true set of leaves and that's when you usually do it but in your case because there's so many of them I would do it immediately it seems that your seedlings are going a little bit leggy and I love the the contraption you have there it's kind of steampunk and I'm sure you scavenged it from bits and pieces you had around and built it I'm wondering if you have those fluorescent lights under or near a sunny window also to kind of help complement the light spectrum but it seems that your plants are maybe not getting enough light I would suggest that you raise up the seeds two to three inches from the lights at least that might give them a better fighting chance to develop into strong seedlings I personally usually don't even prick out seeds or thin them out partially because I personally don't even like thinning thinning a seedlings it seems like it's something wrong I know that's ridiculous because I use my plate termination method which in a way I think it's convenient because as soon as they terminate I just transplant them I put them once in a cup that way I know that there will be only one in each of them and I don't have to worry about they need it'll grow strong and they will have less transplant shop so that's how it works for me now there are many ways of doing this and certainly that's another method of doing it and I would advise in your case do it as soon as possible so hope everything goes right with the brassicas near you're growing join me next time remember to send in questions comments or tips to seed of choice at gmail.com and don't forget to subscribe to suburban homestead