Hello and welcome to the TomatoPod YouTube channel
My name is Ben and today I'm going to talk to you about saving functions
For this presentation and for this video, we were saving certified functions
so I wanted to walk you through this and show some pictures to show you that
So, like many things these days, certain pod functions or functions in general
especially around October, you know, harvest season, Halloween's coming up, they get pretty expensive
So I was at a Big Box store the other day and I noticed they had a bunch of pie pumpkins
which are, you know, very similar to soda pie, I would imagine
and I walked up to see how much they were and I was kind of shocked
They were going for $4.98 each. Now, one plant that we grew of soda pie pumpkins this year yields seven good pie pumpkins
So from that one plant, you know, according to prices, we had almost $35 in purchase that we avoided by growing one plant
And it was pretty easy to grow. It just took off. But anyway, I wanted to show you this just to show you that, you know
growing one plant in saving this season more than the next season
it's a beautiful amount of money. So the first thing you need are your tools
So our vehicle, we had a cutting board. I think that's a chef's knife, I'm not a cook
A spoon, the pumpkin, and some kind of mesh screen. It's not super important what it's made of
You could use Windows screen, you could use a screen with Google
The important thing is that you have some kind of holes, as you can see
to spread the seeds out and let air flow get underneath the seeds where you're drawing them
The drawing is really important because you don't want the moisture to be trapped on the seeds
and then possibly be a moisture source for mold to grow in the future
or while you've got your seeds in storage. So first things first, you cut open the pumpkin
Now, with a small pumpkin like a sugar pie, it's pretty straightforward
As you can see, I just cut it in half. With larger pumpkins, you can always go ahead and cut a pumpkin in half similar to this
That actually works pretty well. It's going to be very easy access to all the seeds and all the air of the pumpkin
And once you have it cut open, you're going to want to take your spoon, put the spoon in
So you see on the left side, that's where most of the stuff is out
There's a little bit of goop in there, but all the seeds got out
And on the right side, we're just starting that process again. And once you have everything out in your bowl or in your tray
you want to pour out the seeds from the goop, the stuff that the seeds are being held up in by the pumpkin
And this is important. We're going to have to wash the seeds in a couple steps
And then, like I mentioned before, if you don't separate the goop
then we're going to potentially run into some load problems and storage problems down the road
So definitely get them as much separated as you can. You can see in the picture on the right, there's still some goop down on them
but that was them off in the minting process, so don't worry about that
Now, this picture got a little stressed out, but what I wanted to show here
if you see the seeds in the bottom right corner, they're all good, healthy, viable seeds
And then up in the top left, that's a good, healthy, viable seed as well
But you will find some pumpkins, especially if you harvest them a little earlier
you know, maybe they're starting to ripen, or maybe they haven't completely finished ripening when you pick them
which, you know, if you're throwing into the straw, you might want to pull that out
They're all going to be some seeds that either have not formed at all, or just aren't fully formed
So you can see on the right, there's one that there's nothing in its pupils, and it's not very rigid
And you can tell that's not a grow, that the seed is just not viable
And same with the one on the left there. It's partially formed, but just not fully formed
So try to separate those ones out. If you don't get them out, no worries, but go to plant using the seeds
And then next season, in a couple of weeks, I would not plant those because I don't think they will produce
So you can see here now, we've taken all of our seeds
We've removed all the shoots. We've washed them thoroughly. We've washed up all the stem ends and the end pieces of the seed
And now we've got them, like I mentioned before, spread out on this tray
Now they're spread out, and try to get them so they're not really touching each other
Get them as much space as you possibly can so the air can circulate around them and dry them off
So you can have some overlap. That's not usually a problem. What I see is they stick together a little bit
Not a problem at all. So when they're done drying, I'll usually go through and diffuse them in and stir them up and bake them apart before I put them in the bag
What I like to do is raise the tray up off the ground so you can see there's some good air flowing underneath them
You can see there's a couple pieces that seem like holes in the garage. And then I set the fan on lowest possible because you don't need a lot of air flow
You just need the air to be moving. You can only leave it here for a day, especially if it's warmer out
A day in the winter, it'll dry them out nicely. If it's colder, sometimes you need a day and a half
Just come out and test them and see how they're doing. You'll know pretty quickly if they need to dry a little bit more or if they're ready to pack it up
And after drying, you can take all your seeds and break them up with your hands, make them nice and loose
And then you put them in a bag. You put them in a jar
I put them in a baggie, a famous bag that I have
I wrote with a sharpie, and I just wrote sugar pop pumpkin. And then I'll go right back to date, harvest date in 2022
I will say, you know, long-term storage in a zip-lock bag like this is probably not the best idea
Especially looking at safety for a while, I would suggest going near something sealed with plastic inside to cool off your oxygen
My lock bags are a great option. There are more long-term solutions than a ziplock bag
And that's it. Thank you very much for watching. I hope this was helpful, and I hope you have a wonderful day
Bye now