Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Question regarding saving heirloom tomato seeds. If there are 10 plants of all different varieties next to each other in a row and I save seeds from some of the tomatoes, what prevents cross pollination? Can we save these seeds with confidence? Or should we be placing these plants a good distance apart?

They sure look good in a nice row in the garden!

Blair

Blair & Group:

Many varieties of plants will cross-pollinate very easily if planted close to each other. Corn is probably the easiest, and squashes are close behind.

Tomatoes do not cross as readily because their flowers are "perfect", containing both male and female parts. However, they CAN cross pollinate, especially if a bee or other pollinator gets involved. And having a row of ten different heirloom plants close together as you do, I believe your chances for SOME cross-pollination are fairly high.

Therefore, if you expect to save your tomato - or other - seeds, I recommend you plant them at some distance from ANY like-kind plant with which they could cross.

Jim Kennard

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