Stop by your local farmers market and look at all the produce. See a purple tomato? Maybe a yellow and green striped one? There are so many different kinds. Buy a couple to taste, and dry the seeds for next year's crop.
By Vi Johnson from Moorpark, CA
Excellent tip, GGVi!
That's a good idea! Especially since some heirlooms are harder and harder to find.
This is a great idea! It will work with heirlooms. Saving tomato seeds is a bit of a process, but it's easy. There are many websites and books that will take you through it, step by step.
Saving seeds from produce you buy at a farmers market may or may not get you the results you want because not all plants grow "true" from their seeds, particularly hybrid types, but it's certainly worth a try. But here's another idea: There are groups of folks on the Internet who gather and swap seeds. I suggest you start with the very valuable and useful website, davesgarden.com/
It will cost you nothing to join up and it's a fine site for many things (like, for example, identifying a plant) as well as for swapping cuttings, seeds and plants.