[ID: Three images:
The first is of a white hand holding a large Tamarillo in front of a black background. The fruit is large, redish orange, and oval with a long green stem on one end.
The second image is of six Tamarillos all arranged on a paper plate.
The third and final image is of a paper towel labeled "Tamarillo XL" that has a small pile of a few hundred light brown seeds that have some orange flesh dried to them, and next to it is a clear seed packet labeled "Tamarillo Red, 2022, Solanum Betaceum, SBP fruit A" which is full of even more seeds, that are cleaner. A plant tag is sitting beside both, also labeled "Tamarillo XL Red".
Saving Tamarillo (Solanum Betaceum*) seeds!
All of the places I found on Etsy selling the seeds were either really fishy (stock images for the fruit instead of personal ones) with lower prices ($3-$4) while most of them were astronomical -- $11 and $13 dollars for 10 or even just 5 seeds. So, I figured since buying seeds directly costs an arm and a leg, why not see if anyone sells the fresh fruit online and save the seeds directly from the fruit?
Not only do I get to taste test it, but I can save far more seeds that the 5 or 10 most people were charging $10+ dollars for!
So, here we are! 6 red Tamarillos, one of which is XL , and the seller also included 15 or so Cape Gooseberries (Phydalis Peruviana) as a free bonus item!
These plants take a long time to fruit, so I will be starting seeds in containers tomorrow so they have plenty of time to get established in the current hot weather, through fall and then overwinter indoors on the rare days it gets before 40° here. There's a few articles out there about how you have to prune them heavily for good harvests, which I will of course be testing at some point in the future.
*Cyphomandra Betaceum is the outdated classification, but the more common name you see when looking the plants/fruits up online.
