Spice up your baked chicken with basil and sun dried tomato. It looks elegant, but uses only 4 ingredients! http://www.foodonthetable.com/recipes/364212-gril…
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Question by erickuribe: Can I plant a whole heirloom tomato in the ground in order to garden such a plant?
I have a few heirloom tomatoes that I picked up from the local farmers market and I was interesting in growing my own tomato plant from these specimens. What is the best way to do so? Should I extract the seeds and if so, then what and how?
Or is it possible to put the whole tomato in the ground and grow it from that? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Best answer:
Answer by ratter_of_the_shire
No, the goo in the tommato has germination inhibitors in it. You need to remove th goo with the seeds by letting the goo ferment.
See the source for detailed instruction.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
cut the tomato up and smear the seeds and goo on a paper towel. Once they dry store them in an envelope or something. It’s what I do every year.
You can certainly save those tomato seeds, as heirloom tomatoes are open-pollinated and (mostly) self-pollinated and therefore grow true to parent. I’ve actually been doing that very thing all autumn.
A quick run-down of the procedure (more detailed steps in the link):
1. Cut open the tomato equatorially (it’s easier to access all the chambers inside).
2. Fish out all the seeds and throw them into a jar.
3. Add a bit of water (roughly the same volume as all your seeds and pulp and juice).
4. Put a lid on the jar — ventilation is good, but make sure the holes are small so you don’t get fruit flies congregating around it.
5. Stow the jar in a warm place for about five days.
6. Carefully pour off the seeds and pulp that are still floating — those seeds are not viable.
7. Pour the seeds that sank into a metal sieve, and rub the seeds against the mesh of the sieve under running water to get rid of all the remaining pulp.
8. Dry the seeds thoroughly, stick in an envelope, label correctly (this is the part I always forget), and save them until spring!
Planting the whole tomato wouldn’t be recommended, as you’d then have a thousand little tomato-lings crowding each other, and you’d have to yank them out of the ground.