Moist, Warm, Disease-Free:
Starting Seeds
By saving only the best seeds from healthy plants, you already have a good start. Following the recommendation of the UC Davis Tomato Genetic Resource Center, I soak seeds that I haven't saved myself from disease-free plants in a 50% bleach solution for 30 minutes to decontaminate potential pathogens.
Then I rinse them and place them in a well-draining coir based soil mix, under full spectrum grow lights, with heat mats at 80 degrees. This is after 1 week, I went on to pot them up into 4 inch pots between 1 and 2 weeks.
After 1 month, these are ready to be set out and put in even bigger pots or planted in the ground after about a week or two of adjusting and growing outside. (The nighttime temp must be 50 degrees or above to avoid potential damage to tomato plants, so don’t start seeds more than a month before that if you’re planning on setting them outside then). I started them here in early-March, and set them out mid-April (partially covered as they adjust to sun exposure).