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Re: Tomato grapes

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

At 03:48 PM 3/9/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>Hi all,
>
>My wife bought a pint sized container of these little tomatoes the other
>day. I have never heard of them before,

Yes they seem to be the New New Thing in the produce dept. here on the East 
Coast.  They have fairly good flavor, too (this based on the purchase of 
just one box of them).

>  does anyone have any experience with
>growing these? Are they determinate or indeterminate?

Not me, YET.  I wonder if "grape tomatoes" are the same thing as the class 
known as "currant tomatoes" (or so described in my Seed Savers' Exchange 
materials this year).  One can definitely purchase seeds for various kinds 
of currant tomatoes.

Try my pal Chuck Wyatt's heirloom tomatoes homepage
www.heirloomtomatoes.net
and see if he has any grape toms amongst his 489 separate varieties.  All 
are for sale for $1.50 a packet plus a single $1 shipping charge no matter 
how many packets you buy at one time.

>  Can I just cut one open and let the seeds
>inside dry out or is there a different way of going about it?

Seed-saving of toms is easy, but if what you got from the grocery was a 
hybrid (no way to tell by looking at it), the plants grown out from its 
seeds will not necessarily run true to type.

Take a tomato that's fully ripe or even on the way toward rotten.  Remove 
the gloppy mess of gel that contains the seeds.  Put the glop into a 
drinking glass and fill with water.  Leave the glass sit uncovered and 
untouched for about 3 days.  Now it's really stinky, but that's because 
fermentation is taking place and this is an important step in seed-saving 
tomatoes.

Most of the seeds will have sunk to the bottom of the waterglass.  Some 
will remain floating on top, in the now-decayed gel mass.

The seeds that sank are alive.  Throw away the floaters, which are dead, 
and the glop.  Pour out the waterglass contents slowly onto a paper towel 
or very fine sieve to catch the seeds.

Immediately transfer the seeds off the paper towel and onto a sheet of 
waxed paper, separating the seeds whenever possible (they like to clump 
together).  Let them dry a few days on the waxed paper in the open air on 
an out-of-the-way shelf where they won't be bothered.

Pop them off the paper with a table knife and voila--you're in business for 
next season.

Let us know how your seed-saved grape toms work out later this year.

--Janet
[tomato maniac]


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