The time has come to deal with the tomato plants. We have made as much soup as we can cope with, though I accept that we will run out by January. All jars are filled with chutney (or jams). We will use whatever ripe fruits are left, if we can’t give them away, and that will be the last fresh tomatoes we will eat for a while: I hate buying hard, dull tomatoes with no taste. Once the plants are pulled up and composted I will change the soil in some beds in the polytunnel to help avoid soil problems. I am already planning the crop for next year and have the seeds ready. I am growing fewer beefsteaks because they just take too long to ripen in our climate, even under plastic, and do not crop well enough. ”Vintage WIne’ will be the one exception because I like the colour and taste. I will grow more ‘plum’ tomatoes because they cook well. I will save some seeds of the Heirlooms ‘Vintage Wine’. ‘Amish Gold’ and ‘Golden Sunrise’ (above).

Tomato seeds are easy to save because the flowers tend not to cross pollinate even if you grow several kinds. You can easily collect enough seeds for your needs from one fruit even if it is over-ripe and past its best. But because F1 hybrids do not breed ‘true’ you should not collect seeds of them. You can, but the plants your raise will not be the same as the parent. You could spend a lot of time, and money, raising inferior plants and after all, even with F1 hybrids, which can cost 50c a seed, that initial cost is small compared to the cost of all the compost, growing bags, fertiliser and time. Don’t save seeds of supermarket tomatoes you bought to eat because they will probably be F1 hybrids and possibly not even ripe so the seeds not developed.

Take a tomato that is typical of the type and very ripe. Scoop out the seeds and gel, avoiding too much flesh.

Put this in a jar of water. The jar can be small and half full of water. A lid is handy so that you can shake up the contents now and then.

Leave them in the water for three days, shaking once a day. In theory the good, fertile seeds are heavy and will sink and the infertile, light seeds will float. You can scoop off the floating seeds but do this after shaking the jar (above) because as the gel around the seed ferments it will produce gas, lifting the seeds to the surface.

After three days pour the contents into a sieve.

Rub the seeds very gently with the back of a spoon to dislodge the gel on the seeds and rinse well with water .

Then put the seeds on paper kitchen towel to dry off for a day or so at room temperature.

Once dry the seeds can be picked off and stored in paper envelopes, labelled, for sowing in March.

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