[joseph]

Today I decided to start harvesting seeds from my tomatoes.

Descriptions are as follows:

Marble sized red cherry tomatoes from about an F3 cross between domestic tomatoes and a wild tomato (I suspect pimpinellifolium). The fruits dropped off the plant when they ripened. That could be a clever trait, because one of the worst things about picking cherry tomatoes is that it can be hard to detach the stem without damaging the fruit. I like to remove stems to avoid damaging the fruit during transport to market. Imaging a tomato that could be grown on a piece of plywood, and harvest consisted of shaking the plant... A bumblebee was visiting flowers on this plant while I was harvesting fruit.

A 1.5 ounce fruit from a similar cross. The plant is strongly dwarfed. I don't like the dwarf trait for growing in an open field. Doesn't work well for out-competing weeds. The slow growth also means that it doesn't compete well against flea beetles. They're looking quite bedraggled. Might try growing these indoors, in a pot, during the winter.

I have been growing an 'earliest tomato' for some years. It was also earliest this year, but I haven't been saving seeds from it because it's just putting out about 8 fruits and further growth is stalled.

Last year I saved seeds from a plant that I called 'Best of Jagodka' because the fruits were larger and earlier than typical for Jagodka. Today I saved fruits from two of her descendents, because they were likewise larger-fruited and earlier than the others. Fruit size averaged 2 - 4 ounces.

I saved seeds from a plant I call 'fern-like' because of it's wispy foliage. It is a determinate with fruits about 3 - 4 ounces. The green fruits on the same plant are closer to 6 ounces.

I saved seeds from two fruits of about an F4 plant descended from SunGold. They don't have anything going for them other than earliness and being orange. Fruit size is larger than SunGold. Taste is not up to SunGold standards, and the flowers were fully industrialized. A bumblebee was visiting flowers on this plant while I was harvesting fruit.

I saved seeds from another tomato that I have grown for years that is super early and produces about 1.5 ounce red fruits. It is potato leaved and indeterminate, so it produces until killed by frost. Even though I think that I want to move strongly towards growing determinate plants, I keep this indeterminate around because it grows so well for me.

I saved seeds from Chef's Choice Orange Hybrid Tomato. It was the best tasting tomato that I have harvested this year. It got planted in a sunroot weed patch, so it's really suffering. Nevertheless, it produced fruit. It is an indeterminate. If conditions permit later on I'd like to use this as a pollen donor perhaps to something from the [DX52-12 X Jagodka] family. In like manner, I'd like to use something descended from the Sun____ family as a pollen donor.

I've been buying SunGold and SunSugar at the farmer's market and saving seeds from them. I want to more fully explore the range of flower structures the offspring may contain.

I've collected perhaps 800 seeds from the F2 of [Hillbilly X Jagodka]. The children are likely to be yellow or red fruited, indeterminate or determinate, 2 - 12 ounce fruits. Flower type might be open or closed. So many possibilities for selection. Too bad I had so few seeds available this spring when I had to plant them. There are perhaps 20 plants that have survived so far and are growing strongly. Now it's just a race against the fall frosts.