I spoke with a guy recently who suggested that nearing the end of the season I pick my best producing Tom and Cucumber plant and let the last of the fruit 'go to seed' :o
He said that I should use these seeds for the next season as they will be aclimatised to the local temperature and soils and will therefore do much better than packeted seeds. 8)
Later that day I spoke to another guy who said that the first guy was talking b#####s ???
What does he mean by "Go to Seed"? and is what he said true? or indeed a load of b#####s? :P
Sigsy, It is fine to save seeds from NONE F1 plants these remain true to the original plant unless they have been cross pollinated.
Seeds from F1 plants revert back to one or the other original plants.
Sounds like twollocks all round to me-non F1 varieties come true from saved seed-in the case of a tomato let one or more fruit get fully ripe,squish out the pulp and seeds add a drop or two of water. Leave them until a mould grows-them rinse, clean and store in a cool dry place until next season
Over time saved seed will develop local characterisitcs... HSL refer to these as Landraces... as you take from best plants.. these are the ones that did best in your conditions... but it takes decades...
;D
Sigsy, If like me you want uniform heavy croppers then you grow an F1 Hydbred. I grow these for shows not for taste, compared to heirloom Tomato,s ( non Hydbred ) they are bland. When you get a heirloom you like IE good cropper, taste and size then take the seed from them.
Like a lot of others on this site we take our own seed from heirloom tomato,s for our own reasons, mine is because i don,t know if they will be available the next year.
A person who grows heirloom Tom,s will loose on average 3 plant species per hour.
Saving seed is really easy, and non-F1 toms will come true. I haven't tried cucs, but aquashes in general tend to hybridise easily, so you may get some interesting results, but it's definitely worth trying. Most of the seed will probably come more or less true.
saved some cucs seeds for the first time last year - the plants are developing well - will have to see if they fruit well. I have saved cherry plum and cherry tom seeds for yaers and they do well very year
I saved Crystal Apple cucumber seeds last year and I had 100% germination and now can see true-to-type fruits forming. ;D I did hear cucumbers cross pollinate easily so I grew it in a pot in my garden where no other cucumber was grown.
I also save tomato seeds every year. I think they are the easiest thing to save seeds of.
Someone sent me some of these seeds, I don't know what are growing but they are not Crystal Apple!! XX Jeannine
Lol! Strange name isn't it, if you think about it. Apple maybe but crystal? No! :D
I didn't get many fruits last year but got enough to sample. I found the flavour totally different from normal cucumbers. It tasted familiar to something but I couldn't tell what it is. When I let one of fruits overripe to save seeds it looked more like a squash or melon than a cucumber. It's a pretty variety but I prefer other cucumber for flavour.
Tora you can use the overripe ones as a summer squash XX Jeannine
I didn't know that. I chucked the flesh in compost after I scraped the seeds out. :-[ Will try it as a summer squash if I get a chance. ;)
talking of compost - I have got some lovely toms growing from home made compost and a pumpkin - its amazing how thw seeds survive