Cross pollinating?? Tomatoes/squash/melons

[jhook1997]

Last year I had some problems with planting two kinds of tomatoes in the same raised bed. I planted 4 Romas and 4 Grapette's, which used the same verticle support. When it was time to harvest, all I had on all 8 plants was bigger than usual grape tomatoes

Is this normal?

Should I put all the different kinds of tomatoes separate from each other?

What about winter squash?

How about melons?

I have purchased several kids of each just trying to find out what does well here and what we really like. I don't want to mess them all up if I should keep them separate.

Help!

 

[hoodat]

Tomatos and many other crops will cross pollinate but it doesn't affect the fruit, only the seeds, should you save them. The cross pollination will show in next years crop if you plant the saved seeds.
The only exception is corn. Because of it's unique genetic makeup and pollination method field corn cross pollinated with sweet corn will affect the sweetness of that corn. It will have more starch and less sugar.

 

[digitS']

With corn, we are eating the offspring (seeds) of the cross-pollination.

About the squash and melons, same as what Hoodat says about the tomatoes. Except, they must cross more easily than tomatoes.

If you want to save seeds: Check Wikipedia for squash (plants) and you should be able to select at least 3 different winter squash species that should not cross in your garden. Just make note of their Latin names and choose 1 from column A, 1 from column B . . .

Melons must cross readily but watermelons are a different species from muskmelons. There are a few of the muskmelon species that are considered "cucumbers" but they aren't really . Nearly all of what we call cucumbers are Cucumis sativus.

So, 1 from column C, 1 from column D . . . .

digitS'

 

[raabfarm]

Heres a short but sweet site with some info on this subject

www.seedsave.org