Can You Save Seeds from Green Tomatoes?

Tomatoes are truly a staple for new gardeners and experts. Many say if you can grow your tomatoes you can grow anything. Tomatoes aren’t just a staple for gardeners but in your daily kitchen. Making your favorite pasta, pizza, or curry everything can taste divine with the touch of freshly grown tomatoes in your backyard. Tomatoes have quite a few varieties but among them, one variety stays green even when it is ripe to be eaten, whereas other varieties become red when ripen and stay green when until that.

Tomato plants can easily be grown from their seeds. For that, you just have to collect the seeds, save them and put them in the soil. But before you can actually put them in the soil you must be aware of what variety and stage of tomato you have, so that you can avoid the possibility of saving unripe tomato seeds. If you are unsure, let’s see how, when, and why can you save the seeds from green tomatoes.

Key takeaways

Preserving Green Tomato Seeds

To answer the question of saving seeds from green tomatoes I will say you can save them but cannot grow them. This answer might confuse you but there is nothing to be confused about if you have all the details necessary, about which we will be talking about.

Tomatoes come from the nightshade family Solanaceae. Tomatoes are a great source of vitamin C and the phytochemical lycopene. Generally, most variety of tomatoes becomes red when they ripen but there is one variety that does not turn into a vibrant red color when ripen. Green tomatoes turn slightly paler green when they are ripe for easting. For gardeners, it is very common to save the seeds of a plant for it to grow other time. But many do not understand the right time to harvest seeds from tomatoes. When tomatoes start to ripen they deteriorate very fast that is why it is very important to save the seeds as soon as possible but you cannot risk saving unripe seeds or rotten ones that would not grow. Also, you can always wonder does harvesting seed from green tomatoes means you are going to have unripe seeds if it is that then why? Well as we said seed saving from green tomatoes can be tricky and need proper understanding, so fill yourself in with the necessary information.

Possibility of Preserving Seeds from Green Tomatoes

You can save the green tomato seed as normally you would save other seeds by storing them and drying them. But since they do not have the necessary component mostly they would not grow but there are exceptions to those and saved green tomato seeds can also grow into a plant.

Tomatoes flourish at the time of summer as the weather turns into cold tomato plants start to not do that good, which is why many gardeners become anxious about their tomatoes not growing fully and having any seed left for them to plant next time. This is the reason many gardeners want to harvest their green tomatoes and have their seeds saved. Well good news for you, you can actually save the seeds of tomatoes that have not become red yet. Some signs you would want to look for if you are to save the seeds of a green tomato.

• If the tomatoes, have been paler green this means it is perfectly fine to harvest for you to save those seeds so you can use them next time.
• If the seeds of those green tomatoes have a gel-like outer shell and slip away as you try to poke them with a knife this also means they are in the ripen stage.
• Seeds having a paler color, not being fully green means they are perfectly ripe seeds and it is possible for those seeds to grow before the tomatoes develop color or the outer skin.

You can save the seeds from green tomatoes for replanting because this is possible that the seeds have become ripe before the outer color could come out. Also, green tomatoes have a 7 to 10 % possibility of growing into a plant. Seeds maturation is a gradual process. This partially supports the fact of delaying the signal in the tomatoes out layer.

Green tomato seeds that are in the mature stage and have a dark green colored body are viable to germinate at this stage. That clearly supports your green tomato seeds harvesting. Another reason is that if the tomato is a green variety, these tomatoes will be green no matter how much ripe they are. The pale green color of this variety of tomatoes indicates they are fully ready to be harvested and ready to have seeds that will grow into plants. So now the question may arise if that is so, what are the odds of saving green tomato seeds for planting?

✨ You May like: How Long Does Peyote Take To Grow?

Odds of Saving Green Tomato Seeds

It is very common and traditional to harvest tomatoes when they are fully ripped and grown in a red vibrant color. In the process of collecting seeds from the green tomato, it is necessary to understand if the seeds are ready to harvest or not, by cutting them open and analyzing them. If you mistake understand the signs no seed will grow into a plant. Because immature seeds saved from green tomatoes will deform and rot once they are planted in the soil.

Although it is possible for the seed to ripen faster than the color of tomatoes come, for someone who just has started gardening it would not be easy to identify this kind of seed. It is just safe for gardeners to wait until tomatoes have grown color in their bodies. Some gardeners believe in the collection of saving green seeds because of the possibility of consuming green or unripe tomatoes. Even though green tomatoes can be consumed it is much more likely they have green seeds inside. The green seed does not grow any outer shell that would protect the inner embryo but the ripe seed develops a buff, beige, or off-white colored outer shell that protects the inner embryo. Since green tomatoes are not ripe perfectly yet do not have the capacity to save their outer embryo.

When some gardeners talk about harvesting all green tomatoes and saving their seeds to grow new ones, there is a huge possibility they have harvested the green tomatoes and let them ripe at home. Fully green tomato seeds do not have any embryo developed rather it’s like a baby growing in the womb that has not grown fully yet. So when you harvest the seeds of green tomatoes and intend to plant those to grow tomato plants it just does not happen due to the absence of the nutrients or full-grown components that can grow new plants.

Now that you know what seeds you can collect and what not you need to know how can you save tomato seeds by planting them in the soil to have a new tomato plant.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Harvesting Tomato Seeds

In the previous sections, we have discussed how can you know if you can actually save the seeds of green tomatoes, well now that you know if you can or not, you might be wondering how you save the seeds or even harvest from tomatoes. Here we are with a step-by-step guide for you so you can have an easy-peasy way to save those tiny seeds.

Step 1: Harvest the seeds

First, you need to harvest the seeds from the tomatoes. You must have a tomato that is fully ripped. If you have the green tomato variety then look for the tomatoes that have paler green color. You can also look for the seeds that have ripped before the tomato have color. Harvest the seed with your hand or with the help of a spoon. Scrape out the inner part of the tomato where you will see a lot of seeds. Save the scrapped-out seeds for steps coming ahead.

Step 2: Fermentation

After you have successfully harvested seed from the tomatoes then you would want them to ferment for a certain amount of time. Put the tomato seeds in a jar or a bowl if there is enough tomato juice in the pot then you can let them sit if not add some water and cover the pot with cloth or plastic. You would have to let sit for 2-4 days for the fermentation process. This process really helps the tomato pulp to separate from the seed. Here cautions to be taken because it will smell really bad when fermentation starts.

Step 3: Keep an eye on the fermentation process

Keep a close eye on the fermentation process. You would not want them to rot in this process. As the fermentation goes the tomato pulp will be separated from the seeds. As the fermentation is done bubbles will start to form on top of the jar. These bubbles are pulps separated from tomato seeds.  If you want to save the seed, then you should remove them from the mixture at this stage.

Step 4- Separating the tomato seeds

The pulp and mold mix from tomato seeds can be separated by washing them thoroughly. Add some water to the seeds and shake them vigorously for the tomato pulp to be separated from the seeds well. You can continue this process 2 to 3 times for the seeds to be completely free of any tomato pulp.

Step 5: Dry the seeds

Now that you have separated the seeds from tomato pulp you need to dry them for any excess water to be removed. You would never want to dry the tomato seeds in the tissue or paper towel because they will stick to them and it would be very difficult to remove. Put the tomato seeds in a dry place or put them under the sun. they should be completely dried within 2-3 days given the perfect condition.

Step 6: Store the tomato seeds

After the seeds are completely dried and have pale color on them, it is the perfect seed. You have to collect them in a dry, cool place. You can save the tomato seeds in a box or in an envelope. From there you can use the tomato seed whenever you want to seed them.

FAQs

Final Thoughts

Tomatoes are known for their versatility and ability to make everything test better. As for the green tomatoes you can eat green unripe tomatoes too in different ways. The green variety of tomatoes is juicy and known widely. Saving the seeds of green tomatoes is possible with some conditions. You just have to look for the right time and stage of the tomato. We have discussed some signs to look out for, so you know when you can save the seeds of green tomato. Also why it is widely known as not possible is really understandable too. Well, you might not want to miss the step-by-step guide to save tomato seeds if you are a gardener. Check it out.

✨ Next Attraction: Can You Smoke Aloe Vera?