Julia,

To save the seeds I cut the tomatoes open and carefully scrape the seeds onto a paper towel to dry. I then will eat the pulp of the tomato. YUM! After a few days of drying I nudge the seeds loose from the towel and bag them into a teeny zip top bag along with a printed label saying what the seeds are. I store all my seed bags in a plastic container (like a little tupperware tub) in my freezer to keep the seeds viable and fresh for years.

I hope this helps,
Lou

Most seeds you can simply pick fully mature fruit and let the fruit dry out then take the seeds or cut the fruit and harvest the seeds. For tomatoes I open them and drop the seeds and pulp in to a bit of water in a jar and let them "rot" for several days until a scum forms. At this point rinse the gunk off the seeds and dry them and store in a cool dry place sealed in paper, not plastic.

I believe sweet 100 is a HYBRID variety so if you save those seeds and if they germinate they will not be the same as the parent plant. If you want to grow a hybrid you will have to buy those seeds. There are many types of tomatoes that are not hybrids and you can save that seed year to year though if you grow them with other tomato cultivars the types will mix due to cross pollination.

bamboo rabbit,

You are correct that SS100 is a hybrid, I completely missed that... my mind being focused on seed saving and since I save seeds for my own use I use a paper towel, if I were saving seeds for another persons use I would use the normal process that gets rid of any unwanted pathogens.

Thanks for catching that,
Lou

I grow my maters in big pots, and some drop down, I leave them there and they will sprout on their own.... mostly Yellow Pear and a small red one, don't know the name.... but the Yellow Pear is very prolific, I throw rejects over in the main garden and they sprout, sooner or later... there are dozens out there now coming up.... don't know how they will do because I usually just go and buy more in the Fall and plant other stuff in the main garden, but some do survive and grow... and don't you know, the whitefly gets them ! yikes......sally

Lou,

I take it from your screen name you are in Floral City? If so (waves) from just down the road In Inverness, live almost on the Inverness Floral City line.

I figured you missed that, is why I just told the poster my opinion and did not state you were mistaken.....well that and the fact I was not 100% sure Sweet 100 was in fact a hybrid:)

bamboo_rabbit,

Howdy Neighbor, I'm just north of the Hernando/Citrus County line east of Hwy41 on one of those many many little farm/ranches. I'm on ten acres here and slowly pushing the jungle back and planting my orchard. When I tried planting a garden out in the open I just ended up feeding the myriads of Florida bugs. So I built my 50 foot long by 40 foot wide, 15 foot high screened garden area. Being retired I did the work myself with my Grandpa's old cast iron hand-me-down cement mixer which will serve another three generations after me. It has saved me plenty $$ and took me over a two year period of time to complete. I now enjoy bug free gardening. I have chickens which supplies me with eggs & meat for the table and poop for my composting. My next project to start this fall is building another greenhouse for my tropical trees.
Lou

Lou,

Wow that is a lot of screening.....I am also retired and have just about finished pushing the jungle back but on 4 acres on the lake. Have added lemons, grapefruit, oranges, tangerines..I guess a dozen or so citrus in all. Blueberry bushes total almost 50 and in many different types. Bananas, black raspberries, blackberries and two gardens as well as about a dozen types of bamboo and I have no idea how many rabbits at the moment but they feed us as well as the plants. Add in weekly grouper fishing trips and it may not be paradise but you can see paradise from here:)

Sally,

I get some mater plants that come up in the cracks in my cement screenhouse floor from the drops. I let them grow and they end up being the best producers because of their aggressiveness. I suppose the feeding/watering spillage and pot drippings has made the dirt under the crete cracks very fertile.

Wintertime I pressure wash the crete floor and spring time all kinds of plants pop out of the cracks from the dropped seeds of plants that wedged themselves in the cracks. LOL

Lou