Years ago I wrote a blogpost on how I save my own seeds from homegrown, shop bought or given tomatoes. I save my seeds the easy way, what others might call an unconventional way. For me that way works really well and I generally have better germination from my own saved seeds than from the seeds that I exchanged with people or even shop bought seeds. If you want to know how I save my own tomato seeds, please visit this blogpost, because today I’m not going to talk about that. Today I’m going to show you how I mark my seeds while they are still drying.
As you can read in the above mentioned blogpost, I prefer to leave my tomato seeds to dry on a kitchen towel for several weeks. During that period I continue to fill my towel with more seeds that I want to save. All seeds from different varieties, and they all get their little place on the towel. In the beginning of my seed saving adventure I thought I would remember which seed was which, based on the size and color of the seeds. I soon realized that that wasn’t the case.
So, after years of experimenting and ending up with a huge collection with a lot of seeds that only have a number – and not a name or description, I’ve finally found something that is practical enough to work with.
I’m sharing my trustworthy method here with you. It’s nothing special and super obvious. It’s just something to round-up my earlier tutorial on how I save my seeds.
How I mark my tomato seeds
Nowadays I make little pieces of paper that I can attach to my towel with (sewing) pins. On top of every ‘stain’ of seeds I pin this piece of paper on which I have marked what variety of tomato seeds I’ve saved there. I write down the names and/or the description. I write down a description if I don’t know the variety. That can be the case when I get tomatoes from someone or when I buy tomatoes somewhere.
After the drying period I move the seeds into an airtight container and mark the container with the name that was written on the first piece of paper.
I told you, it’s nothing special. Just a tried and true method. If you find pins in your kitchen a bit scary, you can also use sewing markers that disappear from your fabrics when washed or ironed. I am personally a bigger fan of pins, as I somehow always manage to fade away those kind of markings on fabric.
I hope this short explanation encouraged you to start saving your own tomato seeds. There is really no seed easier to save than a tomato seed!