I bought a tomato at the store and squeezed the seeds onto a paper towel. After they dried, I cut the paper around the seed and planted them in good potting soil. Keep damp and you will have tomato plants in about a week. I tried planting seeds immediately after squeezing the tomato and they did not grow, so you must dry the seeds.
By Donna J. Cole from Independence, MO
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I did the same thing with red peppers a few weeks ago and now I have pepper plants growing in containers in my back yard. Now I am going to try cantaloupe seeds from a melon I purchased a few days ago.
I have saved seeds from fruits I bought but if they did not stay on the bush till they get ripe the seeds are no good,will not come up,you need to buy local fruits to have any good luck or grow them at home, good luck.
Unless the tomato was an Heirloom tomato you will not get the same tomato as the one you purchased at the store.
I was going to comment similarly to georgegobble. If the parent plant is a hybrid, the fruit from its seeds might not be true, OR the seeds might be sterile.
I'm no seed saving expert, but I do dabble in it. I think tomato seeds need to be fermented, this mimics what mother nature does. There's info on this process all over the net.
Be sure to put some eggshell underneath when you plant tomatoes, this prevents Blossom End Rot (which is a Calcium deficiency).
I put some pumpkin seeds in my mulch pile.
I have to agree with some of the other posters. I doubt if they will produce the true fruit. I you want to go to the work, then give it a try but to weed them and water and fertilize, I would rather go with something I bought and make sure it would produce.
I have never tried this with tomatoes but I did find a very fat and colorful lemon seed in a grocery store lemon. I planted it and I had a very nice little lemon tree for several years. No lemons but pretty white flowers.
I'm a master gardener. This not recommend because everything is a highbred so you don't know what you are going to get if the seeds grow at all.
I did this with a tomato from 2 years back. I had an abundance of seed which in turn gave me an abundance of plants and again, an abundance of tomatoes. They were awesome.
Got the seed from my dad's funeral wreath. Don't laugh or gasp. He loved to plant tomatoes so we had some beautiful tomatoes put on his casket wreath with woodsy cuttings rather than flowers. We are still enjoying the tomatoes.
Dajavooi
Tomato seeds fresh from the tomato are encased in a gelatinous sac. This sac contains properties which prevent the seed from germinating inside the tomato. Those same properties can prevent the tomato from germinating outside the tomato. This sac can be removed by various means, including drying, fermentation, and soaking in a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution.
As for the naysayers....the tomato you bought from the store might or might not have been a hybrid. If it was, the fruit you get from it's seed will not be the same as the original fruit. So what? It might be inferior to the original. It might be superior.
I have grown tomatoes for years, both hybrids and heirlooms. The absolute best tomato I ever grew was from seed I collected from a store bought tomato. Granted, it wont work that way every time.
What the heck. The seeds are free. If you have room for a few 'trial' seeds and enjoy the anticipation of not knowing what you'll get,
Go for it!
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