Hi seed experts, I'm very much NOT a seed expert but I'm trying to learn. I have some heirloom tomatoes and I want to harvest and plant the seeds right away. I've found directions for fermenting the seeds to remove the growth inhibiting goo but it then says to dry them completely. I'm wondering if I can skip this step since I want to plant them straight away? I'm planting them in rock wool to put into hydroponics if that matters.

Hi Jonna, I'm doing the same thing but in the garden. My plan is to save the seeds, ferment them as I normally do, clean and spread the seeds to dry. Then after 10 days of drying, dense plant some of the seeds in a seed starting tray on a heating pad set to 75 - 80 degrees. If the seeds aren't breaking through the soil after 4 days, I'll take more of the seeds which have been drying and repeat the process on day 15 and continue at 5 day intervals until I run out of seed or have plants. Apply your normal techniques in this manner and you should be good to go. Claud

You probably already know but I'll mention it anyway. Give yourself a better chance to succeed by saving seed from ripe fruit. That should decrease the number of floaters in the fermentation stage.

I do not think that you would need to dry them if you are going to use them right away, but I would rinse them really well to make sure all the inhibitors are removed. I place seeds in a tea strainer and hold them under running water.

OK, I'll give it a try. I plan to plant some now and save some so I hopefully will have 2 ways to succeed. These are small cherry type tomatoes, one is a dark purple and the other is gourd shaped and yellow. I got them from the farmer's market so I know they grow in this area. I hope they are ripe, they are sweet.

Thanks for the help Claud and Caroline.

Also you could pull as many suckers as you want and root those to make new plants for later. Just wrap them in a wet paper towel as you pull them off, then stick them in a pint mason jar with fresh tap water filled about an inch from the brim. Set the jar in a sunny window until roots at the base are about 3/4" long and pot them up until you are ready to plant them outside.

That's cool. I think I'll root some and put them in dirt as a backup. I'm using hydroponics because of the nematodes that are everywhere in the soil here. However, I've heard that cherry type tomatoes are resistant so they might do ok in soil. Good to know they are easy to root as that gives me more options.

If you plant them in the ground, plant some Mexican or French marigolds around them. It's supposed to work wonders for nematodes. But I understand Russian marigolds are invasive.