Tomato seed saving

As now it’s harvest time for some plants grown here in London. It’s also a good time for seed saving and definitely will be my yellow cherry tomatoes (it’s orange paruche). Fingers crossed it’s not a F1 hybrid type of seed. As if a seed is classify as F1 seed then the regrowing from the seed saved will not be the same as the original fruit.

I got an idea on seed saving after watching a programme on telly. This programme was on big commercial companies are trying to manipulate the way how farmers are farming.  It sounds very bleak the outlook not unless we start saving seeds and grow our own food this would help to stop it from happening. As the vegetable and fruit we get from the supermarket wil be full of chemicals!!

F1 seed or not

This is because it is a cross breeder between two different type plant which will not happen again second time. When once one tries to replant the seed from F1 hybrid the taste will be different. So it benefits the planter not the gardener for seed saving. However the gardener gets a nice lovely, tasting, disease free fruit in return. A packet of Orange paruche F1 tomato seed (10 seeds) from Mr Fothergills on ebay is retailing around £4.10 (plus  postage). this versus £2.15 (plus postage) for 25 seeds of Orange paruche tomato seeds from no name brand. I got the no name brand last year it just same in a clear plastic nothing said about it being a F1 seed or not. Time will tell.

How to save seed

To save the seed I just choose the most ripen fruit, get the seeds out and leave it to dry on a kitchen towel. Put them somewhere nice, cool and dark till next year early April and start sowing them/ Another life cycle that carries on…
Here is a link to some of my recipes using tomato Courgette salad recipe Stir fry baby courgette

Of course it is possible to save other types of seeds. Just some plants seem to harvest/ produce seeds better than some. Some seeds are just better off buying from small organic producers. As I am not a commercial farmer the way I am seed saving will never be quite ever be in commercial market at all.