growing heirloom veggies

[setter4]

I am fairly new to heirloom veggies. I would like to plant more this year but I have a question.
Since they are open pollinating do you only plant 1 heirloom variety of each vegetable to prevent cross pollination?
How far apart would I have to plant 2 different heirloom tomatoes to prevent crossing? I have 3 gardens but the farthest I could seperate them would be about 80 feet.
I think I accidentally did this last year...I couldn't figure out why my yellow squash looked more like little pumpkins than squash...

 

[patandchickens]

It depends entirely on the kind of vegetable -- some things crosspollinate over fairly significant distances, others you're prettty much fine with them side by side as long as you don't *deliberately* crosspollinate. Tomatoes are closer to the second category; corn and peppers closer to the first category. Things that are bad for crosspollinating you can often "bag" and hand-pollinate a few blossoms, for collecting seed from.

You might want to look at online resources, or library books, on seed saving, because they usually talk about how to ensure non crosspollination for the different sorts of plants.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[setter4]

Thanks Pat. I have looked at a few resources on-line and I seem to get more and more confused. lol I have ordered a couple of books too so hopefully that will help.
I guess I just have to keep reading. lol

 

[meriruka1]

You could always start one variety as plants early, then direct seed another variety, that way they would flower at different times.