Recycled Tomato Plants

[ephemeralcas]

thank you! I have had pretty good success in the past but this year is the first time I've tried to grow a few plants from seed and they seem to be doing pretty well! Not as big as the ones that I bought starts for, but still. I'm proud of them.

 

[digitS']

You are likely to be justified in being proud of them, @ephemeralcas !

I know saving seed from hybrids is a waste of time, But any chance of producing a better fruit from hybrid ?

I'm comparing @marshallsmyth 's General Mischief to Lemon Boy this year. It may have been an easy "dehybrid" ... in other words, the parents may have had similar characteristics. So, a gardener might be happy with most of the offspring. Or, Marshall may have had to squint long & hard at 'em, and make wise choices. Anyway, I was happy with Mischief last year .

I think disease resistance is important but I wonder if just the fact that some are hybrids gives them that vigor we learned about in junior high. I'd like to have my own hybrids ... if handling the flowers wasn't so dag nab difficult! My idea was two varieties that I'm happy with anyway, how are their offspring different or better?

It isn't like I'd have to do tons of work to do hybridizing each year. Tomato seeds last for several years. It's just those little boy parts and little girl parts are so tiny! And, you can't leave it to chance. Tomato plants live very, very cloistered lives ...

Steve

 

[ephemeralcas]

I will admit I have no knowledge on hybridizing whatsoever. Does anyone have an article or book they recommend for beginners in this sense?

 

[digitS']

My lack of success probably doesn't qualify me to even answer that question, Ephemeralcas.

Carol Deppe's "Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties" is often recommended to the home gardener. I found it in the library.

Keith Mueller: www.kdcomm.net/~tomato/Tomato/xingtom.html has fairly clear instructions and illustrations.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

@ephemeralcas
Carol Deppe wrote a book called "Breeding your own vegetable Varieties" which is a great book.

 

[so lucky]

@digitS', are you going to save seeds from General Mischief this year? I'd like to try a few next year, if possible. @marshallsmyth could have his creation growing in the Midwest.

 

[digitS']

I think I still have some '14 seeds but I'll do my best to compare with Lemon Boy (very popular ... despite its name ), report on TEG, and save seeds.

Immediately, I have a challenge ... where did the plants go? I've behaved as usual out in the tomato patch: put a label close to each plant, added a little fertilizer and did some hilling. The plants have grown ... now, where are the labels?

At least, it wasn't like one year when I decided to use tree tags on bamboo stakes beside some of the plants. The wind blew the tags away!

Steve

 

[Smart Red]

Do everything right and you're still likely to have someone move a few stakes just for fun. I still say a garden journal is a good idea. Folks would have to dig and transplant my 'maters for me to wonder what went where. . . . or hide my notebook.

 

[so lucky]

Here I thought I was doing well by writing down when I planted seeds and transplants.
This year I won't have the tomato confusion that I had last year, when my labels faded in the sun before I even got them planted out in the garden. That was a rotten tomato year all around.
I limited my round red tomatoes to one kind, yellow to one kind, paste to one kind. I do have 4 odd balls, but they are all different from each other, too, and they have "factory" labels.

 

[Smart Red]

I try to have double and triple safety nets in the garden. First, I keep a detailed notebook of each variety. Second, I plant alphabetically from the garden shed out. Third, I use numbers instead of names when planting. (ex. Amish Paste = 1, Big Boy = 2) Numbers seem to stay legible for me longer than names do. Finally, I can match the garden space with the varieties in the notebook (after 3 #1's I have 2 #2's) that way I know what tomatoes are where.

If I plant 3 varieties of beets or carrots, or radishes, they are planted alphabetically as well.