How To Prepare Tomato Seeds For Planting

Before you begin planting and figuring out how much water your tomato plants need in a day, you need to prepare your tomato seeds for planting. This is one of the ways to ensure that they germinate properly.

If you’re looking for an article that informs you how to prepare tomato seeds for planting, then you’ve come to the right place. We’ll be reviewing the process involved in preparing your tomato seeds for planting, and by the end of the article, you’ll learn

• How to prepare tomato seeds for planting
• Store tomato seeds the next year
• Prepare tomato seeds without fermenting.

Are you ready? Great, let’s begin!

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How to Prepare Tomato Seeds For Planting

To get started, you can either gather seeds from your own tomatoes or purchase the variety of seeds you would prefer to plant. Once you have the seeds in place, follow the process below to prepare your seeds through the favored method of fermenting.

• Start with placing the bowl of tomato seeds with gel on a warm counter for a period of five days; stir the jar of seeds at least twice a day. As the tomato seeds sit on the tomato gel pulp, it will begin to ferment, causing the worthwhile seeds to sink to the end of the bowl while the worthless ones float to the top.
• Use a spoon to remove the worthless tomato seeds from the bowl alongside the fermented matter; throw these away. Add a quarter cup of tepid water to your bowl with tomato seeds, and the good seeds will once more sink to the bowl’s bottom while the seeds which would not germinate will end up floating to the top of the bowl.

After the seeds settle down, remove the floating seeds and pour the water and remaining seeds into a sieve. Rinse it out with a cup of lukewarm water and then set out the seeds on a paper towel to dry out in one layer. When it is dried up, you can store them until you’re ready to plant them.

How to Save Tomato Seeds Without Fermenting

Saving your seeds is not as complicated as one would think; there is more than one process for saving seeds even though the preferred process is fermenting. Below is a breakdown of how to go about preparing your tomato seeds without having to ferment them.

• Smear your tomato seeds on a paper towel and leave them to dry out for a week. Once they are all dry, you can store them up till you’re ready to use them. The downside of preparing seeds with this process is that your seeds might not germinate fast.

• You could also choose to let some tomatoes rot in your garden, which allows the tomatoes ferment naturally outside without a need to harvest the seed. By springtime, you would begin to notice some tomato plants sprouting up. You don’t get to control how, when, or where your tomatoes grow with this process.

How to Store Tomato Seeds For Next Year

If you store your tomato seeds properly, it could stay that way for up to five years. You can store up your tomato seeds in paper envelopes, the common storage method for tomato seeds. You can also make use of prescription bottles that have been emptied out or simply make use of a small jar. Make sure it is saved up in a cool, dry place till you’re ready to use it.

Stored tomato seeds will germinate quickly after three years of storage, but after three years, you might begin to take note of a decrease in the germination speed.