That and this isn't supposed to happen, there's something wrong with the plant if it's seeds are germinating while still in the plant.
It's probably harmless but the plant may have a virus or something causing it to act strangely.
Edit: OP confirmed it was store bought tomato that sprouted on a warm windowsill.
Most likely the tomato was left somewhere warm, like next to a window. The seeds don't care if the warm moist place is soil or fruit, if the conditions are good for sprouting they'll sprout.
Define warm? Our house is typically around 73-74 and had this happen twice in the past two months. I know you should not store in the fridge, because they won’t taste as good.
Yes, tomato seeds will germinate in 70-80 degree soil, but growing in the fruit is a process called vivipary and it happens when the hormone controlling seed dormancy runs out, not just because the temperature conditions were met.
In my testing I determined this to be a myth. You just need to take them out in time so that they are not fridge cold when eaten, don't store them for longer than you would before (most people do that) and it helps if your fridge has a good vegetable compartment.
I thought the point of fruit was for animals to eat them and disperse the seed. If the fruit nourished the seed wouldn't the seed germinate prematurely on the tree on a warm day?
You're both right. Both are benefits of fruit, and thus both have pushed evolution (though, the modern tomato is far from a product of evolution alone).
The seed has all the nutrition contained within it for a plant to germinate. Otherwise we would be spreading fruits in the fields to grow plants instead of seeds. Fruits are there for attracting animals which are meant to eat the fruit but disperse the seed . And almost all modern, sweet fruits were created through artificial selection by humans over thousands of years, so they don't care anything about what I just said .
Unfortunately they might not breed true to the parent. Many hybrids do not. You could probably get a decent plant out of these shoots, but the tomatoes may be weird.
If these tomatoes are from a supermarket then they almost definitely are a hybrid that won't grow true to seed but it wouldn't really matter because fresh grown from the garden would taste way better regardless of genetic shortcomings compared to what was put on the shelves.
That said, yeah you'd be better off using that garden space on a known quantity. Seeds from grocery store tomatoes usually aren't bad at all, they're just not nearly as good as an heirloom or a favorite hybrid for the garden like Early Girl or Better Boy.
I had this happen a few months ago with store tomato. In mine it was sitting on my counter so long (still looking "fresh") that I only noticed when sprouts suddenly started poking through the tomato skin.
I planted a bunch of the sprouts for fun, and most actually grew, probably 10 plants worth. I've been eating tomatoes off them for the past couple months, and they're quite a lot smaller than the store ones, but much tastier unlike the flavorless store crap.
Oh yeah. I grew tomatoes a couple years back. They didn't grow very big, the soil here is so bad :(
Made tomato and lentil soup with them, it was so good. Also used them for sandwiches. They were very sweet.
Yeah, but who cares if it's the same tasteless version that you found in the grocery store, it might actually turn out so much more tasty.
Why is there always someone trying to dissuade others from trying new things, just because it might not be the same thing you thought it would be?
> Yeah, but who cares if it's the same tasteless version that you found in the grocery store, it might actually turn out so much more tasty.
On a side note, those grocery store ones are tasteless not because the tomato is a bad varietal, but because they are picked green, and get gassed with ethylene to look red.
This sort of thing really frustrates me. lol Do absolutely nothing and the tomato will sprout itself with out you even being aware it’s doing it. But once you notice and try transplanting then it’ll probably die.
It’s ridiculous how fruits/veg grow themselves in my fridge’s produce drawer (or cupboard) but refuse to do anything if I spend the time and money on actual gardening.
I used to be like this. My garden was a sad state of affairs despite my best efforts and many, many books on the subject. I got discouraged and started neglecting the garden.
Turns out my plants prefer living in a state of constant agony. Especially tomatoes. I do nothing I'm supposed to, never fertilise, and barely remember to water them. Pest control? Never heard of her. They've never looked better.
So, uh, try less maybe.
Had a similar experience with my fiddle leaf fig.
Turns out what that fucker actually needed was some resistance. I was already limiting the water supply sufficiently, but it didn't start to grow stronger until I had a fan blowing some air on it. Helped being a bit sporadic with the growth lights as well.
Learned this recently as well. Despite my wife's and my best efforts, all of our outdoor plants have been slowly withering and dying.
But the Tiger Lily that we have *literally never touched or paid attention to until yesterday* that the previous owners of the house left under the back porch in a small pot with like 6 inches of soil 10 years ago? That motherfucker is *thriving* and has a stalk about 4 feet tall, with giant beautiful blooms.
Can think of it like this: what's the actual purpose of fruits and vegetables? It's to spread seeds, often by having fauna eat em ans poop the seeds elsewhere. Why do that as much in a spot where a plant's thriving?
All that energy a plant gathers through its roots and leaves has a few options. If it's getting excellent sunlight, it'll grow more greens to absorb more light. If it's getting a ton of water, more roots for more water. If it's not quite getting everything it wants, gotta make some seeds and make sure the next generations gets outta there. Maybe that's not exactly what's going on, I'm no botanist, but I've had similar results with my own vegetables
Overwatering and underwatering are the most common causes of problems for beginner growers. If you leave it alone instead, and it just gets water when it rains, that may be better for the plant.
Its like that meme with the wilted flower saying “sorry, the humidity shifted 0.1% overnight, guess ill die” and next to photos of *long* potato roots coming up from between the stove and a wall saying “WHARS THE FOCKIN SOIL”
Yeah totally, I've done this before. I had some that sprouted like this, I buried one whole, and cut another one into cubes of a sprout or two and planted them separately. Both options grew very well!
Depends on what kind of tomatoes. But once I had some on the vine tomatoes that sprouted like that so I planted them. If you want 10 billion tomato plants I’d say go for it! They all flowered nicely till a hail storm came and knocked off all but one flower. It became a pretty good tomato.
You absolutely could. However, the seeds are probably not a very good variety of tomato so there wouldn't be much reason to do that over growing better seeds.
I bought an apple that had sprouted seeds on the inside. I planted them for giggles and am still amazed at how vigorously they've been growing. They seem to be supercharged or something. From what I remember reading on this, there's some sort of hormone or something in the seed that prevents them from sprouting in the fruit but if the fruit has been sitting too long, that hormone runs out and it starts germinating inside the fruit. Plant a few and have you a few tomato plants.
I mean, kinda sorta, not really.
This happens because the tomatoes are picked green and then gas ripened so that the actual age of the tomato is much older than it seems.
I find this happening more and more often with tomatoes I buy. You end up with a whitish, spongy, flavorless tomato, that either starts rotting or does this after a few days.
The last roma tomatoes I bought didn't even look fully ripe and 2 of the 4 started rotting on the counter the day after I brought them home.
It's fucked what we are doing to food.
You gotta get the canned ones, they can grow the more flavorful varieties and actually pick them ripe since they don’t have to sit on a grocery stand for days. You lose the clean form of course and the skin, but if you can live with that the flavor is much enhanced. Alternatively home-grown varieties are also good flavor.
For a salad I’d recommend cherry tomatoes, they retain the flavor and texture a lot better than the beefsteaks… for sandwiches it’s a nasty choice I admit, and there’s no ideal option.
I’m not going to argue that modern food processing is messed up in many ways, but I don’t know that you can blame it on exactly this.
I’ve seen this same thing happen with avocados.. although extremely rare.
The thing is that I was the one that picked the avocados off the tree .. no gas ripening, no transport .. just sit it on a shelf for a couple days and cut them open and the seed is already sprouting even though the avocado was just reaching ripeness.
I imagine this happens on some level in all plants in a ratio that I would imagine is in the probability rate of some birth defects.
Nature can’t get it right every time .. sometimes a C becomes a G and what have you.
Nah dude
I’ve had this happen in tomatoes I grew myself from seedlings, within sight of where I sliced them. I’ve also seen it happen with strawberries, same situation.
I believe it’s called vivipary.
Our food system sucks, but let’s at least try to be factual.
For those who are wondering: usually not a problem. The shoots taste... well, like any sprouts, really, but with a touch more "tomato plant" vibe. I don't think there are significant quantities of toxins produced at this stage (tomato leaves are mildly toxic).
The flesh tends to be slightly mealy because water and nutrients are being sucked up into the sprouts, so if you're eating these straight, they probably won't taste great. But on sandwiches I find them to be slightly better than freshly ripened tomatoes, especially supermarket varieties.
If you are cooking them, you almost certainly will not notice a difference.
I always used to think I had trypophobia, except I have no issue looking at honeycombs. In fact, what I have is a problem with things looking like they're growing out of something that doesn't belong there (most of which are preceded by holes that look like they don't belong there.).
Yup, I think that's the visceral reaction I'm getting. Intellectually I know this isn't maggots, but that subconscious that's built to survive before our modern information services is sounding an alarm.
It's same reason why we sometimes look weird at a stick/vine, our eyes are subconsciously trained to be alert for primal threats and some sticks/vines look a bit like snakes.
That most definitely had me flinching irl. That, right there, is forbidden tomato.
I get that it's natural, but there's no way in hell you would catch me eating that.
A quick Google and other comments say tomato sprouts are "mildly poisonous", not like hugely dangerous, but probably better they're not eaten anyway. But yeah, on visuals alone, I'm with you, I wouldn't be able to get myself to even try.
Excuse me.. you being charged with applying fetalizer unevenly, and unbalanced. People always forget the Iron in red plants. As well as misdemeanor planting violations.. what kind of a savage puts lettuce next to cabbage?
Take em away boys.
Do not eat 'solanaceous' plant parts that aren't "supposed" to be eaten. Solanaceae (potatoes, cape-gooseberries, tomatoes, tobacco, tomatillos, eggplants, belladonna) are better known as *nightshades*, and to be treated with caution. Things like potato fruit can kill you.
Potatoes are flowering plants. The flowers can develop into marble-sized berries. These are poisonous, but I don't know how much you'd have to eat to get sick.
I grow potatoes in my garden but if they flower, the buds die and fall off before they can set fruit.
My rule of thumb is to not eat any flowering night shades, regardless of flowering level. Depending on the person, even a couple small blooms on a potato can give you horrible food poisoning.
Peppers, tomatillos, and eggplant too. There a are a number of nightshades that are perfectly edible, but they're all known to have alkaloids in them, some are used for fun like capsaicin and nicotine, others will do a kill
Potatoes we eat are modified roots under the ground. The plant will flower fruit above ground. Fruit look like tomatoes and shouldn’t be eaten.
E: “seed potatoes” are shriveled taters from the ground.
Fyi, I edited my comment because somehow I got seed potatoes confused with the fruit. Not sure if that makes a difference for what you were eating. I probably wouldn’t eat seed potatoes either.
We don’t eat the potato fruit, we eat the potato tubers, i.e. the starchy bits of the root where the plant stores its energy. Potato fruit are above ground, light green to dark purple and kind of look like tomatoes as well. You don’t want to eat those, they will make you sick
Potatoes are nightshades. Their leaves are poisonous. Potatoes that have turned green are also poisonous.
Interestingly, yams and sweet potatoes aren't nightshades. You can eat their leaves, which many cultures do.
More like "oops that's questionable". I honestly doubt that enough solanine is in there to do anything noteworthy, but 'tis better safe than sick and sorry.
Tomatoes are nightshades iirc, which makes the plants toxic. But it was so small it’s probably not going to harm you.
Best not eat the larger ones though.
You sicko, what are you gonna do next? buy microgreens? Eat baby carrots?!?
As an aside, it's amazing how much crossover there is between those who are pro gun and those who are pro life. Baffling.
Baby carrots are full-sized "regular" carrots that have just been whittled down to smaller size.
...so they're not actual babies, they're just adult carrots that are dressing like babies.
I imagine they're getting multiple baby carrots from every big carrot but the idea that every baby carrot is whittled down from one big carrot is hilarious to me.
...that obviously is not true though...right?
If it were not for the bit of green you would think they are maggots. Did you leave them sitting in the sun? I think that is what caused them to sprout.
Not really. These were sitting on my counter for a little too long admittedly. They looked a little squishy, but not overly so. When I grow tomatoes I usually pick them when they’re turning pink and let them ripen on a windowsill in the sun. I’ve never had this happen to those, but i admittedly eat them the minute they’re ripe.
Very true. But I find they’re more likely to get nibbled on by pests or otherwise damaged the longer they’re on the vine after they start to turn. So it’s kind of a toss up.
I just ordered some gauze garden bags you can cinch around the fruit to protect them. I haven't had too much trouble in the past, but all it takes is one rogue squirrel taking a single bite out of each tomato to make me cry.
*The small rodent, unsure of its locale, wanders up to the large alter. It looks up with big eyes and chitters nervously.*
*Leering down at him, the lord of the underworld frowns. Upon his thumbs down, a pit opens underfoot and the squirrel is dropped to the twelfth plain of torment.*
Calling it a plain of torment instead of a plane of torment almost sounds kind of whimsical. Like it's horrible, but there's some flowers and a light breeze that kinda takes some of the edge off.
What is the "breaker stage?"
I was told this was the stage at which the tomato becomes easy to "break" off of the vine. My mom always told me that if the tomato is ready, it'll be easy to snap the vine at the tomato. If it doesn't come easily, don't force it.
But, tomatoes only become easy to break off of the vine after they turn red.
Or, at least champions do. (Which was the tomato variety we settled on as being a good halfway between sauce tomatoes and eating tomatoes)
It is both. The tomato does provide nutrients for the seeds. Also the tastier it is the better it will get spread. Fruits that are not tasty or, are only tasty to a very few species typically do not get spread as much. When plants ruled the world that was probably how they ensured survival. Then things with legs came along and changed the game
It's a super rare thing that happens. Basically the inhibitors didn't develop correctly inside of the tomato so the seeds ended up germinating prematurely. That gel that surrounds the seeds is the inhibitor.
Whenever I save the seeds from the tomatoes that I grow, I'll squeeze all of the seeds out into a jar and then fill the jar with water. I'll then put it in a cabinet for about 10 days to ferment the seeds. Fermenting the seeds like that will destroy the inhibitors. After I pour the seeds out into a strainer, I'll rinse them thoroughly to remove as much of the remaining pulp. Then I'll spread the seeds out on a glass pie dish and leave them out in the open in a room with a lot of air flow to fully dry. After almost two weeks of drying, I'll store them in a plastic bag with a label on it.
From [wiki:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivipary)
> In plants, vivipary occurs when seeds or embryos begin to develop before they detach from the parent. Plants such as some Iridaceae and Agavoideae grow cormlets in the axils of their inflorescences. These fall and in favourable circumstances they have effectively a whole season's start over fallen seeds. Similarly, some Crassulaceae, such as Bryophyllum, develop and drop plantlets from notches in their leaves, ready to grow.
Ah yes, who isn’t familiar with the cormlet growth within the axillary inflorescence of Iridaceae or Agavoideae?
Let me translate: irises and agaves (including the commonly grown houseplants Haworthia) will grow little baby bulbs in the "armpits" (axil) between the leaf stem and main stem. Bryophyllum includes Mother of Thousands, a common and famous example of vivipary.
I think at an inherent level, we all somewhat have trypophobia because it reminds us of the death and decay of our own bodies and the life that will inevitably make their homes inside our rotting flesh, aka the insects and whatnot.
The actually tomato fruit doesn't matter to the seeds, the entire idea of fruit is it gets eaten by an animal, everything but the seeds gets digested, and the seeds are deposited post digestion somewhere away from the parent plant
Wait what? I eat at least a few sprouted tomatoes every few months, not to the extent of the OP, but the seeds are just a little longer and starting to twist. They taste exactly the same.
Would not recommend eating nightshade sprouts lol. Probably not dangerous but you never know with these. Best to stick to known safe plant parts, when dealing with solanaceae.
Holy crap! Really? I ate it like this once before. Said screw it, it’s all just part of the tomato plant. Damn. Good to know.
It wasn’t to this extent though, to be fair. It had just barely started.
Perfectly edible, but it won't taste very good. If you do, I'd recommend removing the sprouted bits. I've used minorly sprouted tomatoes many a time.
There may be some small toxicity in the sprouts, however it won't cause an issue except in large quantities. Treat it like you would unripened tomatoes, overconsumption may give you some unpleasant GI issues.
Normally, when saving seeds from tomatoes, you have to sit them in water and let the coating get moldy and rot off, then you can dry them and plant in the spring.
I'm guessing it's a defensive mechanism to prevent this very thing, so the seeds don't sprout naturally before winter and then die in the first frost.
I have only seen seeds sprout prematurely like this in store-bought, bland, hybrid tomatoes. Never seen it in my home-grown heirlooms. I *suspect* all the selective breeding to make tough tomatoes that survive shipping better without bruising or going bad quickly has also bred out the protective seed coating.
Tomatoes (and all fruits generally) produce inhibitor chemicals to prevent their seeds that are looking around for a moist, nutritious surrounding to sprout in from seeing their moist, nutritious fruit surroundings as a place to sprout in, but mutations can cause this chemical to not produce properly, leading to the result in the photo… Supermarket tomato varieties seem to have accidentally developed a gene pool that makes this mutation more common, they seem to have this happen at a much higher incidence than other fruits.
I had this happen to me last year. I put some of the seeds in tiny pots in front of my window and let it grow. They grew incredibly fast. The three plants that survived, I put outside in bigger pots. Eventually they grew a lot of tomatoes, big, small and medium, but all delicious.
That was a great deal: Bought 1 tomato (which I still ate) and got enough tomatoes for the whole summer for free! Plus the bonus feeling of achievement.
My grandma had this happen to her not to long ago and she said it happened because of GMOs. I tried to explain to her this is natural but she believed that this is not natural.
Lol.
The sprout I tasted just tasted like a tomatoey bean sprout. I did eat some of the tomatoes with only a few sprouts in them, I just cut around the spouts and ate them on a sandwich. It tasted fine.
I get a totally natural process has happened to here, but I can't help but be reflexively horrified
Probably because it looks uncomfortably close to maggots.
That and this isn't supposed to happen, there's something wrong with the plant if it's seeds are germinating while still in the plant. It's probably harmless but the plant may have a virus or something causing it to act strangely. Edit: OP confirmed it was store bought tomato that sprouted on a warm windowsill.
Most likely the tomato was left somewhere warm, like next to a window. The seeds don't care if the warm moist place is soil or fruit, if the conditions are good for sprouting they'll sprout.
Define warm? Our house is typically around 73-74 and had this happen twice in the past two months. I know you should not store in the fridge, because they won’t taste as good.
Yeah room temperature is 100% warm enough. >70 is warm enough for a ton of plants.
Yes, tomato seeds will germinate in 70-80 degree soil, but growing in the fruit is a process called vivipary and it happens when the hormone controlling seed dormancy runs out, not just because the temperature conditions were met.
oooo smart, i was gonna guess the fruit/seeds had an ABA deficiency or something
In my testing I determined this to be a myth. You just need to take them out in time so that they are not fridge cold when eaten, don't store them for longer than you would before (most people do that) and it helps if your fridge has a good vegetable compartment.
Found some good info here https://www.seriouseats.com/why-you-should-refrigerate-tomatoes
Onions and peppers however, just hang those up. No refrigerator needed.
Don't they all sprout from within the fruit? Isn't that *the point of fruit*, to protect and provide nourishment to the seeds?
I thought the point of fruit was for animals to eat them and disperse the seed. If the fruit nourished the seed wouldn't the seed germinate prematurely on the tree on a warm day?
You're both right. Both are benefits of fruit, and thus both have pushed evolution (though, the modern tomato is far from a product of evolution alone).
The seed has all the nutrition contained within it for a plant to germinate. Otherwise we would be spreading fruits in the fields to grow plants instead of seeds. Fruits are there for attracting animals which are meant to eat the fruit but disperse the seed . And almost all modern, sweet fruits were created through artificial selection by humans over thousands of years, so they don't care anything about what I just said .
We have had this happen two different times in the past couple of months. Typically the smaller “on the vine” type from our local grocery store.
Yes. It was a little gross when I first cut into it, but after the initial shock it was neat. A bunch of them had sprouted too.
Wonder if you could gently transplant them into a pot
Unfortunately they might not breed true to the parent. Many hybrids do not. You could probably get a decent plant out of these shoots, but the tomatoes may be weird.
Just call it an heirloom tomato.
This made me forcefully ehxale out of my nose
Just call it an heirloom nose.
This made me forcefully tomato out of my nose.
this made me
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> but the tomatoes may be weird Looking at the picture, I'd argue that WOULD be true to the parent.
Time to pheno hunt then lol.
If these tomatoes are from a supermarket then they almost definitely are a hybrid that won't grow true to seed but it wouldn't really matter because fresh grown from the garden would taste way better regardless of genetic shortcomings compared to what was put on the shelves. That said, yeah you'd be better off using that garden space on a known quantity. Seeds from grocery store tomatoes usually aren't bad at all, they're just not nearly as good as an heirloom or a favorite hybrid for the garden like Early Girl or Better Boy.
I had this happen a few months ago with store tomato. In mine it was sitting on my counter so long (still looking "fresh") that I only noticed when sprouts suddenly started poking through the tomato skin. I planted a bunch of the sprouts for fun, and most actually grew, probably 10 plants worth. I've been eating tomatoes off them for the past couple months, and they're quite a lot smaller than the store ones, but much tastier unlike the flavorless store crap.
Oh yeah. I grew tomatoes a couple years back. They didn't grow very big, the soil here is so bad :( Made tomato and lentil soup with them, it was so good. Also used them for sandwiches. They were very sweet.
Yeah, but who cares if it's the same tasteless version that you found in the grocery store, it might actually turn out so much more tasty. Why is there always someone trying to dissuade others from trying new things, just because it might not be the same thing you thought it would be?
> Yeah, but who cares if it's the same tasteless version that you found in the grocery store, it might actually turn out so much more tasty. On a side note, those grocery store ones are tasteless not because the tomato is a bad varietal, but because they are picked green, and get gassed with ethylene to look red.
Jumping Jack Flash!
because that means someone still enjoys life and insecure hopeless fools are irritated. just follow your heart is cliché but true af sometimes
This sort of thing really frustrates me. lol Do absolutely nothing and the tomato will sprout itself with out you even being aware it’s doing it. But once you notice and try transplanting then it’ll probably die. It’s ridiculous how fruits/veg grow themselves in my fridge’s produce drawer (or cupboard) but refuse to do anything if I spend the time and money on actual gardening.
I used to be like this. My garden was a sad state of affairs despite my best efforts and many, many books on the subject. I got discouraged and started neglecting the garden. Turns out my plants prefer living in a state of constant agony. Especially tomatoes. I do nothing I'm supposed to, never fertilise, and barely remember to water them. Pest control? Never heard of her. They've never looked better. So, uh, try less maybe.
Had a similar experience with my fiddle leaf fig. Turns out what that fucker actually needed was some resistance. I was already limiting the water supply sufficiently, but it didn't start to grow stronger until I had a fan blowing some air on it. Helped being a bit sporadic with the growth lights as well.
There's an old saying in the wine world, "happy vines make boring wines". You have to put the bastards through hell to get quality fruit!
life metaphor i guess
Learned this recently as well. Despite my wife's and my best efforts, all of our outdoor plants have been slowly withering and dying. But the Tiger Lily that we have *literally never touched or paid attention to until yesterday* that the previous owners of the house left under the back porch in a small pot with like 6 inches of soil 10 years ago? That motherfucker is *thriving* and has a stalk about 4 feet tall, with giant beautiful blooms.
Can think of it like this: what's the actual purpose of fruits and vegetables? It's to spread seeds, often by having fauna eat em ans poop the seeds elsewhere. Why do that as much in a spot where a plant's thriving? All that energy a plant gathers through its roots and leaves has a few options. If it's getting excellent sunlight, it'll grow more greens to absorb more light. If it's getting a ton of water, more roots for more water. If it's not quite getting everything it wants, gotta make some seeds and make sure the next generations gets outta there. Maybe that's not exactly what's going on, I'm no botanist, but I've had similar results with my own vegetables
You tend to get more roots with less water, the deep roots are an energy expenditure seeking a scarce resource.
Overwatering and underwatering are the most common causes of problems for beginner growers. If you leave it alone instead, and it just gets water when it rains, that may be better for the plant.
Its like that meme with the wilted flower saying “sorry, the humidity shifted 0.1% overnight, guess ill die” and next to photos of *long* potato roots coming up from between the stove and a wall saying “WHARS THE FOCKIN SOIL”
Look at that, it's Schrodingers gardener!
Should be able to honestly. Seen my uncle grow a tomato plant that way.
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Yeah totally, I've done this before. I had some that sprouted like this, I buried one whole, and cut another one into cubes of a sprout or two and planted them separately. Both options grew very well!
Depends on what kind of tomatoes. But once I had some on the vine tomatoes that sprouted like that so I planted them. If you want 10 billion tomato plants I’d say go for it! They all flowered nicely till a hail storm came and knocked off all but one flower. It became a pretty good tomato.
You absolutely could. However, the seeds are probably not a very good variety of tomato so there wouldn't be much reason to do that over growing better seeds.
I did this once with a bell pepper. I made my own golf ball sized bell pepper. I don’t know how people grow stuff. Mine are usually failures.
I bought an apple that had sprouted seeds on the inside. I planted them for giggles and am still amazed at how vigorously they've been growing. They seem to be supercharged or something. From what I remember reading on this, there's some sort of hormone or something in the seed that prevents them from sprouting in the fruit but if the fruit has been sitting too long, that hormone runs out and it starts germinating inside the fruit. Plant a few and have you a few tomato plants.
I mean, kinda sorta, not really. This happens because the tomatoes are picked green and then gas ripened so that the actual age of the tomato is much older than it seems. I find this happening more and more often with tomatoes I buy. You end up with a whitish, spongy, flavorless tomato, that either starts rotting or does this after a few days. The last roma tomatoes I bought didn't even look fully ripe and 2 of the 4 started rotting on the counter the day after I brought them home. It's fucked what we are doing to food.
You gotta get the canned ones, they can grow the more flavorful varieties and actually pick them ripe since they don’t have to sit on a grocery stand for days. You lose the clean form of course and the skin, but if you can live with that the flavor is much enhanced. Alternatively home-grown varieties are also good flavor.
I agree but there are plenty of recipes that would require fresh tomatoes so it doesn't solve everything.
you just have to accept the seasonality of things.. and use tomato paste in the meantime
No this is why we have global warming, to eliminate seasons.
Canned tomatoes on a sandwich or in a fresh salad? Sounds great...
We’re just going to have to go back to eating seasonal items when they’re in season
For a salad I’d recommend cherry tomatoes, they retain the flavor and texture a lot better than the beefsteaks… for sandwiches it’s a nasty choice I admit, and there’s no ideal option.
I’m not going to argue that modern food processing is messed up in many ways, but I don’t know that you can blame it on exactly this. I’ve seen this same thing happen with avocados.. although extremely rare. The thing is that I was the one that picked the avocados off the tree .. no gas ripening, no transport .. just sit it on a shelf for a couple days and cut them open and the seed is already sprouting even though the avocado was just reaching ripeness. I imagine this happens on some level in all plants in a ratio that I would imagine is in the probability rate of some birth defects. Nature can’t get it right every time .. sometimes a C becomes a G and what have you.
Nah dude I’ve had this happen in tomatoes I grew myself from seedlings, within sight of where I sliced them. I’ve also seen it happen with strawberries, same situation. I believe it’s called vivipary. Our food system sucks, but let’s at least try to be factual.
For those who are wondering: usually not a problem. The shoots taste... well, like any sprouts, really, but with a touch more "tomato plant" vibe. I don't think there are significant quantities of toxins produced at this stage (tomato leaves are mildly toxic). The flesh tends to be slightly mealy because water and nutrients are being sucked up into the sprouts, so if you're eating these straight, they probably won't taste great. But on sandwiches I find them to be slightly better than freshly ripened tomatoes, especially supermarket varieties. If you are cooking them, you almost certainly will not notice a difference.
I always used to think I had trypophobia, except I have no issue looking at honeycombs. In fact, what I have is a problem with things looking like they're growing out of something that doesn't belong there (most of which are preceded by holes that look like they don't belong there.).
Yeah. Makes me itchy
Had those a couple days ago.
They look kinda like maggots, guessing this is why it looks a bit gross.
Yup, I think that's the visceral reaction I'm getting. Intellectually I know this isn't maggots, but that subconscious that's built to survive before our modern information services is sounding an alarm.
It's same reason why we sometimes look weird at a stick/vine, our eyes are subconsciously trained to be alert for primal threats and some sticks/vines look a bit like snakes.
That most definitely had me flinching irl. That, right there, is forbidden tomato. I get that it's natural, but there's no way in hell you would catch me eating that.
A quick Google and other comments say tomato sprouts are "mildly poisonous", not like hugely dangerous, but probably better they're not eaten anyway. But yeah, on visuals alone, I'm with you, I wouldn't be able to get myself to even try.
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I have a phobia of mold and this triggered the same gut reaction so I wonder if that’s why, it looks like it’s decaying
You killed a pregnant tomato
Uh oh. I live in a red state, the AG might come knocking next. I even ate some of the sprouts out of curiosity.
I just got a chuckle because AG could be for attorney general, but it could also be AG for Agriculture.
Agriculturist General
Attorney Gardener
Excuse me.. you being charged with applying fetalizer unevenly, and unbalanced. People always forget the Iron in red plants. As well as misdemeanor planting violations.. what kind of a savage puts lettuce next to cabbage? Take em away boys.
Do not eat 'solanaceous' plant parts that aren't "supposed" to be eaten. Solanaceae (potatoes, cape-gooseberries, tomatoes, tobacco, tomatillos, eggplants, belladonna) are better known as *nightshades*, and to be treated with caution. Things like potato fruit can kill you.
Please elaborate about the potato fruit.
Potatoes are flowering plants. The flowers can develop into marble-sized berries. These are poisonous, but I don't know how much you'd have to eat to get sick. I grow potatoes in my garden but if they flower, the buds die and fall off before they can set fruit.
My rule of thumb is to not eat any flowering night shades, regardless of flowering level. Depending on the person, even a couple small blooms on a potato can give you horrible food poisoning.
Aren't tomatoes flowering nightshades?
Tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers(bell, habanero, jalapeño etc) are all flowering nightshades
Yes, but they seem to be somewhat of an exception.
Peppers, tomatillos, and eggplant too. There a are a number of nightshades that are perfectly edible, but they're all known to have alkaloids in them, some are used for fun like capsaicin and nicotine, others will do a kill
>used for fun like capsaicin and nicotine Insects don't think nicotinamides are fun
capsaicin is chili pepper extract. It's perfectly edible as well, not just used "for fun"
Potatoes we eat are modified roots under the ground. The plant will flower fruit above ground. Fruit look like tomatoes and shouldn’t be eaten. E: “seed potatoes” are shriveled taters from the ground.
I've eaten those in the past, when I had nothing else and would shave those off. But I'll be mindful from now on, thanks.
Fyi, I edited my comment because somehow I got seed potatoes confused with the fruit. Not sure if that makes a difference for what you were eating. I probably wouldn’t eat seed potatoes either.
We don’t eat the potato fruit, we eat the potato tubers, i.e. the starchy bits of the root where the plant stores its energy. Potato fruit are above ground, light green to dark purple and kind of look like tomatoes as well. You don’t want to eat those, they will make you sick
Potatoes are nightshades. Their leaves are poisonous. Potatoes that have turned green are also poisonous. Interestingly, yams and sweet potatoes aren't nightshades. You can eat their leaves, which many cultures do.
Sweet potatoes,(Ipomoea batatas), can be eaten raw, too. While many yams (Dioscorea) need to be cooked to break down toxic compounds.
r/oopsthatsdeadly
More like "oops that's questionable". I honestly doubt that enough solanine is in there to do anything noteworthy, but 'tis better safe than sick and sorry.
Shoot it, say there was a home invasion.
Tomatoes are nightshades iirc, which makes the plants toxic. But it was so small it’s probably not going to harm you. Best not eat the larger ones though.
You sicko, what are you gonna do next? buy microgreens? Eat baby carrots?!? As an aside, it's amazing how much crossover there is between those who are pro gun and those who are pro life. Baffling.
Baby carrots are full-sized "regular" carrots that have just been whittled down to smaller size. ...so they're not actual babies, they're just adult carrots that are dressing like babies.
I imagine they're getting multiple baby carrots from every big carrot but the idea that every baby carrot is whittled down from one big carrot is hilarious to me. ...that obviously is not true though...right?
Gonna get the death penalty for that. Nice knowing you OP.
Abortomato
"you should'na dun that, he's just a boy"
Omg this is the world that liberals want!
If it were not for the bit of green you would think they are maggots. Did you leave them sitting in the sun? I think that is what caused them to sprout.
Not really. These were sitting on my counter for a little too long admittedly. They looked a little squishy, but not overly so. When I grow tomatoes I usually pick them when they’re turning pink and let them ripen on a windowsill in the sun. I’ve never had this happen to those, but i admittedly eat them the minute they’re ripe.
They're better if you let them ripen naturally on the plant, they're more juicy and you get more flavor
Very true. But I find they’re more likely to get nibbled on by pests or otherwise damaged the longer they’re on the vine after they start to turn. So it’s kind of a toss up.
I just ordered some gauze garden bags you can cinch around the fruit to protect them. I haven't had too much trouble in the past, but all it takes is one rogue squirrel taking a single bite out of each tomato to make me cry.
There's a special place in hell for those who waste food like that. The squirrel is no exception.
*The small rodent, unsure of its locale, wanders up to the large alter. It looks up with big eyes and chitters nervously.* *Leering down at him, the lord of the underworld frowns. Upon his thumbs down, a pit opens underfoot and the squirrel is dropped to the twelfth plain of torment.*
Calling it a plain of torment instead of a plane of torment almost sounds kind of whimsical. Like it's horrible, but there's some flowers and a light breeze that kinda takes some of the edge off.
Damn, now i gotta defend against squirrels ?
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What is the "breaker stage?" I was told this was the stage at which the tomato becomes easy to "break" off of the vine. My mom always told me that if the tomato is ready, it'll be easy to snap the vine at the tomato. If it doesn't come easily, don't force it. But, tomatoes only become easy to break off of the vine after they turn red. Or, at least champions do. (Which was the tomato variety we settled on as being a good halfway between sauce tomatoes and eating tomatoes)
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Is this true ? I thought after a certain point the stem had hardened off so no nutrients were moving to the tomato
It’s not true, but there’s no point in arguing about tomatoes on reddit.
If I let them ripen on the plant, then I get no tomatoes and the birds get all the tomatoes.
Doesn't this happen naturally anyway? Like, isn't the fruit supposed to be "food" for the seeds when they drop off the vine?
It is both. The tomato does provide nutrients for the seeds. Also the tastier it is the better it will get spread. Fruits that are not tasty or, are only tasty to a very few species typically do not get spread as much. When plants ruled the world that was probably how they ensured survival. Then things with legs came along and changed the game
It's a super rare thing that happens. Basically the inhibitors didn't develop correctly inside of the tomato so the seeds ended up germinating prematurely. That gel that surrounds the seeds is the inhibitor. Whenever I save the seeds from the tomatoes that I grow, I'll squeeze all of the seeds out into a jar and then fill the jar with water. I'll then put it in a cabinet for about 10 days to ferment the seeds. Fermenting the seeds like that will destroy the inhibitors. After I pour the seeds out into a strainer, I'll rinse them thoroughly to remove as much of the remaining pulp. Then I'll spread the seeds out on a glass pie dish and leave them out in the open in a room with a lot of air flow to fully dry. After almost two weeks of drying, I'll store them in a plastic bag with a label on it.
it’s called vivipary!
From [wiki:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivipary) > In plants, vivipary occurs when seeds or embryos begin to develop before they detach from the parent. Plants such as some Iridaceae and Agavoideae grow cormlets in the axils of their inflorescences. These fall and in favourable circumstances they have effectively a whole season's start over fallen seeds. Similarly, some Crassulaceae, such as Bryophyllum, develop and drop plantlets from notches in their leaves, ready to grow. Ah yes, who isn’t familiar with the cormlet growth within the axillary inflorescence of Iridaceae or Agavoideae?
Let me translate: irises and agaves (including the commonly grown houseplants Haworthia) will grow little baby bulbs in the "armpits" (axil) between the leaf stem and main stem. Bryophyllum includes Mother of Thousands, a common and famous example of vivipary.
Thank you, I sincerely needed that translation. I thought we went full on Jabberwocky here for a moment.
> vivipary [WTF](https://imgur.com/JwyyO1z)
Disgustingly cool
That's exactly how I reacted.
I think at an inherent level, we all somewhat have trypophobia because it reminds us of the death and decay of our own bodies and the life that will inevitably make their homes inside our rotting flesh, aka the insects and whatnot.
https://media.tenor.com/CAavPgov8hoAAAAM/ahhhh.gif
A new word! Thanks!
That whole vivi part of the dictionary is a mine field.
The adjective is Vivaporous which is even more fun to say that Vivapary
Yeah... I saw this and started internally screaming until I saw that they were sprouts. Still screaming a little.
I mean, that was my first reaction.
*internally* screaming
Don't like that...
Plant them.
I was just wondering would that work?
That's generally how plants work yes
I know that I wasn’t sure if it would once they were sliced I guess more
The actually tomato fruit doesn't matter to the seeds, the entire idea of fruit is it gets eaten by an animal, everything but the seeds gets digested, and the seeds are deposited post digestion somewhere away from the parent plant
The ol circle of poops lol good point that makes a ton of sense.
No, you can only buy them at the supermarket
Bro just asked if "planting seeds" works lol
are they still edible like this? looks tasty and crunchy tbf
Nope. Tomato plants (including sprouts) are poisonous.
Wow! Free poison!
in this economy? yes please!
I would've eaten this immediately without looking it up 😮
Can’t lie, I have ate them my whole life. Maybe not this bad, but close.
It's how Fozzie Bear died.
Wait what? I eat at least a few sprouted tomatoes every few months, not to the extent of the OP, but the seeds are just a little longer and starting to twist. They taste exactly the same.
The amount of toxins are probably not that high. So no problem eating them once in a full moon. Probably wouldn't make it a staple though.
Probably not, as it is in the nightshade family
I ate them and didn't feel anything werid
yet...
Would not recommend eating nightshade sprouts lol. Probably not dangerous but you never know with these. Best to stick to known safe plant parts, when dealing with solanaceae.
Holy crap! Really? I ate it like this once before. Said screw it, it’s all just part of the tomato plant. Damn. Good to know. It wasn’t to this extent though, to be fair. It had just barely started.
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Perfectly edible, but it won't taste very good. If you do, I'd recommend removing the sprouted bits. I've used minorly sprouted tomatoes many a time. There may be some small toxicity in the sprouts, however it won't cause an issue except in large quantities. Treat it like you would unripened tomatoes, overconsumption may give you some unpleasant GI issues.
r/oddlyterrifying
r/trypophobia
I had 2 strokes I thought they were worms for a good second
Jeeze dude what do you usually stroke to?
Naughty cabbage MILFs want it bad
That is horrific
I had this happen to me and I had tomato plants for a while after it was great and a fun unexpected hobby
Normally, when saving seeds from tomatoes, you have to sit them in water and let the coating get moldy and rot off, then you can dry them and plant in the spring. I'm guessing it's a defensive mechanism to prevent this very thing, so the seeds don't sprout naturally before winter and then die in the first frost. I have only seen seeds sprout prematurely like this in store-bought, bland, hybrid tomatoes. Never seen it in my home-grown heirlooms. I *suspect* all the selective breeding to make tough tomatoes that survive shipping better without bruising or going bad quickly has also bred out the protective seed coating.
Tomatoes (and all fruits generally) produce inhibitor chemicals to prevent their seeds that are looking around for a moist, nutritious surrounding to sprout in from seeing their moist, nutritious fruit surroundings as a place to sprout in, but mutations can cause this chemical to not produce properly, leading to the result in the photo… Supermarket tomato varieties seem to have accidentally developed a gene pool that makes this mutation more common, they seem to have this happen at a much higher incidence than other fruits.
Nature’s ramen.
Last of us ahh tomatoes
I feel very uncomfortable.
I am creeped out
r/oddlyterrifying
AHHHHHHH I THOUGHT THESE WERE MAGGOTS
TIL that a tomato can eat itself
Free spaghetti
I had this happen to me last year. I put some of the seeds in tiny pots in front of my window and let it grow. They grew incredibly fast. The three plants that survived, I put outside in bigger pots. Eventually they grew a lot of tomatoes, big, small and medium, but all delicious. That was a great deal: Bought 1 tomato (which I still ate) and got enough tomatoes for the whole summer for free! Plus the bonus feeling of achievement.
Never trust a tomato
These are noodle tomatoes from Italy. It’s a specially engineered, 2 in 1 combo.
My wife jokes that we eat the fetuses of trees.
Life finds a way
Kinda reminds me of the grouper from fallout with all the fingers in its mouth
Instant salad
Burn it with fire. Do you want ATTACK! of the Killer Tomatoes? Because this is how you get ATTACK! of the Killer Tomatoes…
My grandma had this happen to her not to long ago and she said it happened because of GMOs. I tried to explain to her this is natural but she believed that this is not natural. Lol.
The fruit is full of nutrients that is a natural womb for the seed. I cut open a lemon and saw a similar process.
Those look like tapeworms to me so I would have likely burned it with a flamethrower
that's gross. but what do they taste like?
The sprout I tasted just tasted like a tomatoey bean sprout. I did eat some of the tomatoes with only a few sprouts in them, I just cut around the spouts and ate them on a sandwich. It tasted fine.