This comes up for discussion on the Growing Tomatoes forum often and as Ken said, unless it is one of the varieties that normally has green seeds (several of those) then the fruit just wasn't ripe. Normally tomatoes ripen from the inside out but cherry varieties will sometimes redden outside before they are ripe inside. You could post over on the Tomato forum since your question is more related to their focus than the focus of this forum and be sure to include the name of the variety. They can tell you there if this is a common problem for your variety. Dave

Hi Cher, I would not soak the seed in water, that will make them want to germinate. The dry fruit, just crumble them and get the seeds the best you can. Bits of dried tomato won't hurt them. The ones that are still mushy, I don't know about, but I would not bother with them if you have enough seed from the dried fruit. Remy

Some very nice pictures there, I am growing some Roma too and those pics may give me some help as to when they are ripening, they seem to go from a lighter to a darker green first. Cannot really off any advice on the toms though, at least not expert advice. All I can suggest, on the positive side is the that the plant knows best and decided to drop those fruits, perhaps because it had such a big crop? Too may mouths (tomatoes) to feed? But why would it drop them? Well maybe if they rotted on the plant the whole plant might become diseased? Sacrificed for the greater good? I am just guessing of course, I am a novice grower, just trying to apply some tomato logic. I guess it remains to be seen how the plant will get on. There is picture of my Roma in the linked blossom end rot thread. I am just wondering how long that big one has tell it ripens. I think some of mine fell off last year too, but they were all hit by disease. I would consider ripening ones falling off a success, none of mine got that far before disease set in!! I'm in the UK though and they are outside, so I was never expecting much, I started earlier this year and am hoping things will be better this year as the weather has been better (sunnier) too. All my plants are twice the size as well, it's like a jungle out there!!! Best of luck with the rest of them!! Here is a link that might be useful: my pic in blossom end rot thread

Thanks everyone for all the input and advice! I wanted a lot of seeds because I hoped to offer them to the people on seed savers forum who donated seeds to a program with people who have profound disabilities where I work. These are probably a named tomato but I don't know the variety. The Swartzentruber Amish family I buy them from doesn't know the type. They just call it a low acid tomato and have been saving the seeds for "a long time". The plants produce an amazing yield of large to very large tomatoes. The fruit is meaty and most are round or oblong, rarely lumpy and excellent for slicing. They have good old fashioned flavor. I actually like the flavor of the brandywine and better yet, Cleota Pinks a little more, but these are very worthy tomatoes. From the road or vegetable stand I can't tell if the plants are potato leafed or not. I did save seeds from several nice tomatoes that weren't blanched. Instead of fermenting them the way I usually do, I placed them in a tupperware sandwich container with pinholes punched all through the lid (from different project). They got moldy!!!!!! Don't know if I'll have any to share or not. Might go buy a few more. They sell individually for .50 a piece. So.. that's the story behind the seeds! Linda Renee