Another experiment.

First off, I would like to introduce our newest family member. He's not been named yet, but I'm leaning towards Bonzer. Tim has always been fascinated with bonsais and is trying to make one out of a maple seed he planted. Well, yesterday we had to take Patchy to go get groomed and we were going to hang out in the book store while we were waiting. Tim found a couple of bonsai books that he was interested in but then got an emergency call from work and I had to take him home to deal with it. Connor and I went back to get Patchy and I ran into the book store to get him one of the books and when we were driving home we noticed a stand set up selling bonsais. It was weird. So I picked him one up. The guy had mostly juniper trees and a couple of maple trees and then this one. It was tagged with the kind of tree it was, but I was so excited that I didn't really notice it. I think it started with an "E". I guess I'll have some research ahead of me. I'm considering it his early birthday present. Now I hope we can keep it alive!

yet to be named bonsai

Did you really care about that? Probably not. Sorry. On to the experiment. Last Monday we made a tomato pie. It was basically phyllo dough with mozzerella and feta cheeses and then just topped with sliced tomatoes and fresh basil. It was yummy. Anyway, I bought some heirloom tomatoes and Tim and I got to thinking that we should figure out how to save some seeds to grow some next year. This is what we have done:


Find a tomato that you really like the taste of.


Cut the tomato in half at it's equator.


carefully squeeze out the goo with the seeds. This was easier than I thought it was going to be.

seeds and goo ready for water, ready for plastic wrap

Then you take the bowl of seeds and add two tablespoons of water and cover it with a piece of plastic wrap and use a knife to put a tiny cut into it for air to come in and out. The article we read said that it's a fermentation process to get the seeds ready for growing. I thought I had taken a picture of the bowl wrapped with plastic wrap, but didn't see one. I'll have to look again. Every day you are supposed to open it up and stir the water and tomato goo around. I just kind of shook the bowl when I remembered it.

When you see it get kind of gross and scummy on top, it's ready.

film of grossness on top. mine had mold growing on it and a fruit fly. I'm not sure if I should be really grossed out by that or not.


Put the seed goo into a fine sieve and rinse the heck out of it. And then you are going to try and get as much water off of them as possible.


Then you lay the seeds out on wax paper to dry. It says that it will probably take a few days to dry completely. I'll know they are dry when they move easily across the wax paper. I will then store them in a paper envelope until January when I plant them and hopefully start some seedlings for the garden next year. I hope it works. I will report on them later and let you know.

I haven't really been out in the gardens much over the last couple of days. I have to get out there and do some tomato tying up and some weeding. I have been procrastinating something terrible with this. It's hot out and the mosquitoes are vicious. But, I am getting a lot done inside the house so that's better than nothing.