Yes, you are missing a couple of steps that will ensure germination next year. Here's what I learned as a newbie to heirloom seed saving (as far as I know only tomatoes need this treatment). Green tomatoes are not ripe and therefore neither are the seeds. You need a tomato way past prime for viable fertile seeds. If you picked the green tomatoes and let them ripen inside the house, the seeds will still not be viable. Can you leave a tomato or two on the vine to hope that they turn red and mature? Are there any rotten ones on the ground you can collect seeds from? To dry tomato seeds to plant next year you will need to ferment them so that the nearly invisible coating is removed. Put seeds and the clear pulp from around them in a small cup. Add a little water and let them sit at room temp for 3 days. You will see scum on them. Rinse the seeds in a very fine sieve like you'd use for loose tea. Put the seeds back in the rinsed cup and pour in a little fresh water. Wait another 3 days. If you still see scum, repeat rinse steps for another 3 days until no more scum appears. Now lay them out on a sheet of paper towel and let them air dry for a few days. Scrape them off the paper towel and into a zippered sandwich bag, or snack bag. Make sure you label what is in the bag with the name of the heirloom tomato along with the date. To make sure the seeds stay dry, make a packet by stapling a small piece of paper towel filled with some instant powdered milk. Put the stapled packet in the bag with the seeds. Any moisture will be absorbed by the milk powder not the seeds. Store the seed bags at room temp someplace dark. It takes more time to type the instructions than it does to actually do it. Nancy the nancedar - who has more than 100 little seed bags waiting for next year.

Hi riceke, thanks for the response. I have never grown tomatoes from seed (on purpose anyway). I was lurking in the greenhouse forum since my greenhouse is getting close to being put into use and saw this wonderful thread complete with photos on someone's success in growing Better Boys from seed and then training them as vines along a suspended cattle panel in their greenhouse which looks very similar to mine in approximate size, shape, etc...It looked like a real space-saving technique. I have always done well with Better Boys in the garden and just wanted to get some additional takes on growing them from seed, preferably from folks in my neck of the woods. I have also been conversing with that thread's original poster too and have alot of info to work with. I didn't even know hobby gardeners could grow named market hybrids from seed until I saw her post. Now I'm a little more knowledgeable about F1 and F2 seed generations. Still would love to hear about anyone else's experiences growing Better Boys from F1 (first generation) seed. Specifically tips on germination rates, success and care of young seedlings. I've grown melons, cukes and some flowers from seed so I'm not a total seed growing noob but I am when it comes to starting toms from seed. Danielle

Martin, From a strictly technical viewpoint, the aerobic reaction is an oxidation reduction. Oxidation because the sugar is combined with oxygen, reduction because the sugar is reduced to carbon dioxide and water. From this perspective, it is not accurate to refer to the process as "fermentation". Still, given that there are lots of webpages that refer to "aerobic fermentation", there is an argument of common use that can be made. We also know that alcohol is produced and that the only possible way for that to happen is if part of the process is anaerobic. We also know that the liquid is more acid after 5 days of fermenting than it was at the start. The only way for it to increase acidity is through anaerobic fermentation. Please note that I am neither attacking you nor defending Carolyn. My only purpose is to try to get to the truth of this question. I don't care whether the process is aerobic or anaerobic or some combination of the two. I have no axe to grind nor cud to chew. I do care that the process works and that it is fairly easy to do. Yeast does not "break down H2O" Breaking H2O into its components requires a huge energy input. It normally occurs only in chlorophyll containing plants that use the suns energy as a pump to cause that separation. You can do a search for photosynthesis and chlorophyll if you want to see the mechanisms that make this possible. Since yeast does not normally contain chlorophyll, and since yeast is extracting energy, it does not separate water into its components. Re flipflopping, I make it a point to change my opinion promptly and completely when evidence is presented to indicate that I am on the wrong path. I have not flipflopped at all since doing some real research about the process of fermenting tomato seed. Clear evidence including a few references has been presented that many statements you have made are incorrect. Have you changed your position as a result? If not, why? The oxygen barrier in an open fermenter used in producing beer is a layer of carbon dioxide that accumulates above the fermenting vat. A lid is placed over the open fermenter which tends to trap the CO2 that is produced by the yeast. So long as that CO2 layer is minimally disturbed, a very effective oxygen barrier is produced which causes the beer fermentation to be anaerobic. All of the information I have at this point indicates that tomato seed fermenting is composed of an early aerobic process followed by an anaerobic stage. Most important to me is that BOTH stages are required to achieve the desired end result. It doesn't stop there though. There appears to be a bacterial stage after the yeast has run out of sugars to digest. The bacterial stage is the point at which the acidity increases and is the point at which pathogens are probably eliminated from the seed. Fusion

Sucker got that name because of the old belief that they suck energy from the plants. What they actually are are lateral branches. No, most of them do not grow too late to have enough time to bear ripe fruits before the end of season. Maybe for you but not for most of us. Lateral branches begin developing from the day of plant out and on some varieties they are the primary source of fruit - even for folks in TX and CN and WA. It has been widely believed that pruning the "suckers" can result in bigger fruits and can hepl the fruit ripen faster. Widely believed? No. Argued, maybe but proven? No. Thinning of blooms in a truss will often result in bigger fruit but faster ripening is merely an unsubstantiated claim. Well, nobody has claimed that it IS. Ahhh if only that were true. The claim that someone read somewhere that it is required or that someone's neighbor or cousin or great grandma said it is required comes up here almost weekly. Not to mention all the youtube videos and blogs that claim it is required. No one ever says you cannot prune or even that you shouldn't prune for some reasons. But there sure are many folks out there you claim you are required to prune. Dave