Saving Tomato Seeds

Hello everyone. This is Alex Sanders, Grow Appalachia Site Supervisor at Project Worth Outreach located in Menifee County in northeastern Kentucky. Hope everyone is having a great gardening season.

 

Today, I would like to tell you about some tomatoes that were grown by our Director, Gail Mills and her husband, William Mills.

 

 

These tomatoes were grown with seeds saved from last year and seeds have been saved from these tomatoes this year. I believe there is something special about eating vegetables from seeds you do not have to buy. It seems they tend to taste better. Gail and William have been gardening and saving seeds for many years.

 

 

Through Grow Appalachia Gardening they have a platform to educate others about the benefits of saving seeds. This is our third year with Grow Appalachia Gardening and each year I hear and see more evidence that people are taking notice and are saving more and more seeds. It is interesting to listen to people talk about how easy it is to save seeds after they had argued about how difficult and time consuming it would be to save seeds. It takes longer to reach some people but Gail and William are making a difference in reaching these people.

 

While preparing this post I decided to ask Gail Mills to take a moment out of her busy schedule and write a statement about tomatoes and the saving of tomato seeds. The following two paragraphs is her statement.
Tomatoes-vegetable or fruit is a most wonderful food. It can be used in dozens of different ways in recipes or eaten fresh. My favorite way to eat a tomato is go to the garden and get it while it is warm, wash it, then slice it. Waiting for the first tomato of the season to ripen takes a great deal of patience if you enjoy tomatoes as much as I do.
Tomatoes come in different varieties and many different colors and flavors. Hybrid tomatoes are a one year seed crop. While heirloom seed can be grown year after year. There are several ways to preserve the tomato seed. When getting seed ready to store until the next growing season, be sure they are completely dry. This can be done by placing seeds on a napkin, paper towel, paper plate, etc in a cool, dry place until completely dry.   Then store them in a air tight container.

 

Please find below this week’s recipe.  Hope everyone has a great week.

 

Swiss Steak
2 lbs. steak {round or sirloin}
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cups tomatoes {put through sieve}
1 garlic clove
1 /4 cup bacon drippings
Wipe steak with damp cloth, trim edges off; rub with garlic. Mix flour, salt and pepper. With a mallet or edge of plate, pound flour mixture into meat. Saute` onions in bacon drippings, sear steak in the fat. Bring strained tomatoes to a boil, cover and place in a slow oven {275 degrees} for 2 hours or more. Serve hot and enjoy.
Gail Mills