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Re: SQFT: Open-pollination and tomatoes

To answer Rob Loach's questions:
>
>2. In this part of the country, we have *lots* of trouble raising
>tomatoes that aren't disease resistant. I've had the best success with
>Celebrity and with Sweet Million tomatoes. Since we can much of our
>harvest for use the rest of the year, we really don't want to have a
>small harvest. Could I continue to raise Celebrity and Sweet Million but
>still have a variety like Brandywine? I figure that I couldn't save the
>seeds from the Celeb. or from the S. Million, but would they affect the
>Brandywine? I could put them about 50 yds apart, but from I've read, that
>may not be sufficient.

Refer to the post I made yesterday about wrapping cages in Reemay and
harvesting the bottom tomatoes for pure seed.  If you did not see this post,
email me and I explain again.

>3. Because of our problems here with disease (our climate in the summer
>is very hot and very humid), would Brandywines even make it? If not, what
>heirloom variety might and what would be a good source for it?

I, too, garden in the hot, humid south.  Brandywine is a rough-shouldered
potato leaf tomato, and its flowers are irregular.  Irregular flowers tend
to split their anther cones in hot weather and extend their pistals beyond
the cone.  Hence--no fertilization.  A better bet for your area is Purple
Cherokee or Cherokee Purple, depending on which seed catalog you see,
Mortgage Lifter (one of my favorites), German Johnson, any of the black
Russians such as Southern Night or Black Krim and any of the smaller
heirlooms like Green Zebra, Gurnsey Island or Gardener's Delight, which is
the parent of Sweet 100's and Millions.
>
>I know that some of you are really experienced in all of this and I would
>appreciate any advice, and probably others would too. I know that I've
>talked mainly about tomatoes, but that has been one of our main garden
>crops, which last year I grew successfully in a kind of sqft method. I
>caged the tomatoes, but in groups of ten cages -- two rows of five cages,
>but all right up against each other. I hope that my description of it
>makes sense to you. :-)

I plant my tomatoes three feet apart, but they end up being right up against
each other, too, in practically a hedge.  That's why it's important to wrap
cages to save seed.  You are right about saving seeds from Celebrity, etc.
They are hybrids and will not produce the same tomato when replanted.  Hope
this helps.
Doreen Howard
Zone 9b, 50 miles south of Houston, TX, along the Gulf of Mexico

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