Annie recently e-mailed me her mother’s method of selecting fruits and pods for saving seed, and I thought it might be of interest to other readers.
“My mother grew upon a farm in the south of Italy and she has always told me little gardening tips which I don’t always see written about. This summer that just went by for various reasons she left it too late to grow her own tomato seedlings, so she purchased them at great expense from a nursery. The plants looked healthy and grew vigorously until they were quite tall and we expected a bumper crop but the plants only produced flowers – near the very tops of the plants. She had some nice tomatoes but not many and they were all at the top of the plants. She then realised that these plants were grown from seeds from tomatoes that must have grown at the very top of the plant. Because her father always told her that the seeds should only be saved from the best tomatoes near the bottom of the plant. My grandfather said that if you keep the seeds from the tomatoes near the top of the plant the genes in those seeds only produce other plants that will grow tomatoes at the tops of the plants. This is the same for beans and other climbers.”

That is a good point, Annie. However, many gardeners remove the side (axillary) shoots on tomatoes until the plant gets close to the top of the stake, and the fruit forms on the side shoots – so they won’t have fruit forming low on the plant. Another point to remember is that warm night air has an effect on the amount of fruit set on tomatoes – have you noticed that they set little, if any, fruit as nights become cooler. In many parts of this country, warm nights only start to occur when the plants have reached a good size.
It is, though, long-standing gardening advice to try to save seed from the first fruits or seed pods to form, particularly corn, beans, broad beans, peas and tomatoes, so you will have to remember to leave some side shoots on your tomato plants if you want to save seed. Seed Savers recommend saving seed from the lower three hands of fruit, but add that you can save seed from anywhere on the bush. This relates to another important seed-saving adage: “Save the best and eat the rest“.
Consequently, when saving legume seed, I only select lower pods if they are well formed and full of seed. If lower pods are small, or have gaps between the seeds, we eat those; because seed from these pods could carry the characteristic of partly-filled pods. With corn, I only save the lowest cobs if they are a good size. Your corn and legume plants will probably need netting if you want to save seed because birds are very fond of seed left to mature on plants. Keep the netting well clear of the pods or cobs you want to save, as some birds are quite clever as hooking seed through netting.
Saving pea seed Click here
Saving tomato seed Click here