I was sitting here reading some of my gardening notes from 2015. I made a lot of mistakes last year. Hopefully, the notes will help make this year's gardening more fruitful and with less work.
I am a member of the neighborhood association for the ward in which I live. Yes, we have gardens. We have lots of gardens. With the exception of corn, just about any vegetable is grown in these plot gardens, even watermelon.
At the close of the growing season, 2014, I helped myself to a small watermelon someone had grown. I was lucky to spot it as the gardens were being raked over for fall and winter.
The melon was quite delicious. Good enough to persuade me to save the seed. I'm sure someone planted hybrid seed. I knew planting seed taken from this melon would not result in the same melon, but I was curious as to just what I would get.
Early 2015, I planted the seed taken from that crisp and very sweet melon. The results are shown in the attached picture. This melon was just as good, if not better than its parent. Its parent was a hybrid, but this offspring from that hybrid parent, is not. So? My taste buds, my stomach, and my eyes, don't care!
Scattered about in ThriftyFun's archived posts are many references to the pros and mostly cons of saving and planting seed from hybrids. These references are sort of after thoughts added to a different main subject. This is why I thought it a good idea to submit a post making seed saved from hybrids the main subject.
It all boils down to this: Making a hybrid requires the 'crossing' of two parents. If you just plant the seed taken from a hybrid fruit, be it a melon, or whatever, you are not crossing anything; the fruits from that seed will not be a hybrid.
The big question is: Does it matter? Yes and no. If you are a commercial grower and your customers demand an exact item, a hybrid fruit, then yes, it matters. If you love the unadulterated taste of a Celebrity tomato, then each year, you will buy new Celebrity seed, because you know seed saved from the hybrid Celebrity will not produce a true Celebrity.
But, if you are not uptight, are a bit curious and adventurous, and like to experiment, do save and plant at least a few seeds from hybrid fruits. What will you get? You won't know til you harvest. If you saved and planted 10 seed from a hybrid watermelon (and all bore fruit), you would end up with 10 different watermelons.
Most won't be as good as the parent, a couple may. There is a chance though, that within that 10, one could be the best watermelon you ever tasted. So good that the word 'patent' comes to mind. So good that you are besieged with offers from top breeders from around the world. OK. I got carried away (but it could happen). Anyway, playing around with seed saved from hybrids is just another way to add more interest and fun to your gardening.
One year, I grew the hybrid dianthus 'Cherry Magic'. I saved the seed and planted them the following year. Lo and behold, I must have had 50 new and different dianthus. And yes, there was one, just one, that to me was prettier than the original Cherry Magic.
Happy Hoeing, Y'all!
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Very interesting! That melon sure does look tasty! For some reason, I thought that seeds from hybrids are infertile. I guess I'm mis-remembering something from high school biology. This makes me want to plant some veggie seeds from supermarket produce and see what happens. Please keep us posted on your experiments, likekinds!
Pixie
You have roused my curiosity. Some plants do produce sterile seed. Maybe hybrids do, sometimes. I know they don't, always. If I'm going to post on this subject, I need to be better informed. I'll let you know what I find.
Thanks.
I like to take chances in my garden, and save seeds from store-bought peppers and other produce. Sometimes the results are even better than what I bought.
Interesting! I love hybrids. (Maybe because I'm a mixed kid!) Thanks for sharing. Now I want to grow watermelon.
Miz Toosa
Last year I planted green bell pepper seed that I got from a pepper I bought at the grocery store, the year before that. I planted three plants each in 5 five gallon buckets. The plants were so heavy with peppers they kept breaking. I couldn't give them all away. I still have lots I chopped and froze. Don't know if the pepper from the store was a hybrid or not. And the sweet baby in the picture came from a store bought melon. I saved its seed, too. Going to try them. again. It was delicious!
One thing you can be sure of. If you have hybrid strawberries and plant the runners, you will have a clone, an exact copy of the hybrid parent.
See my beautiful Earliglo strawberries?
And the prettiest tomato I ever grew, was from seed from a tomato I got from from Food Lion.
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Interesting that you say you're a mixed kid. I'm sure you are. We all are. Years ago, some anthropologists did some studies and some math. They determined that everyone on the earth was kin, from thirty-second cousin on down. That finding must have ired a lot of people. I'm OK with it. There is but one race of Humans. That makes all of us Likekinds.
Thanks, Cuz!
That reply made me so happy! And I love that it ended in your username! Amazing!
AND, that is the most beautiful tomato I have ever seen. Wow.
I loved this article. I always throw spaghetti sauash seeds in my little garden and they are so awesome :) We get wonderful spaghetti squash. They are great with butter and sea salt.
I have never tasted spaghetti squash. I must make room for planting some, next year.
I saved seed from a hybrid parsnip that had seeded and got the biggest tastiest ones ever. Trouble is it only worked the first time. As you say, it all adds interest.
I love to garden, too! I had great tomatoes and peppers from seeds I saved from produce I got from the grocery store. The book, Square Foot Gardening, has a chart that says how long you can save seeds.
Length of viability varies greatly amongst different seed. Some seed are best used the following year, while with some, the older, the better.
50 years ago, I watched the TV show 'I've Got A Secret'. The panelists were given a citrus drink. The secret was that the drink was made from fruit grown from a seed that was discovered in an Egyptian tomb. The seed had been buried with the deceased 2000 years, ago.
Very interesting! That melon sure does look tasty! For some reason, I thought that seeds from hybrids are infertile. I guess I'm mis-remembering something from high school biology.
Sorry my post appeared twice. When I first posted it, it did not appear with this article for several days, as I kept checking to see if you replied, likekinds. I then copied it from my feedback archives and posted it again. Wouldn't you know the first copy would show up along with the second!
Those are, indeed, beautiful strawberries and a beautiful tomato. I remembered that I saved some green pepper seeds a few years ago from peppers I was using; I'm going to try germinating them and see what happens, although they might be too old. I too am a mix, as you have rightfully pointed out we all are. That was a very interesting finding the anthropologists made. It makes sense, as the human race originated in sub-Saharan Africa and spread out from there. What's also interesting, is that we came close to extinction there about 70,000 years ago!
If you ever have trouble with the feedback duplicating or not showing, let me know and I can fix it for you. You should be able to see it in your account always. I hope the recent feedback troubles are all fixed now. :)
I am so glad Thrifty decided to show this article again as I missed it when first posted and I have been watching for a new posting from you.
I really like this idea and since this is really something I have never "intentionally" tried I will start looking for "new" seeds today as lunch is on its way.
Thanks again for such useful and interesting articles.
How long will it take to stabilise from self pollinating varieties with seed saved from F1 plants (I'm trying with sweet bell pepper plants.)
The F2 generation I have just grown has a wide variety of plants but a couple have produced equivalent large healthy fruit. I will of course be saving seed from these.
When I grow these next year, can I expect further wide variation in form and vigour, or will the majority be closer to the F2 parent?
If I keep selecting the best (bearing in mind that peppers are usually self pollinating), how long should it take to get a reasonably stable variety?
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