Interesting segment on Martha Stewart this morning

[lostinthewoods]

OK OK, before anyone hits me, let me explain.. Believe it or not my 3 year old likes to watch Martha Stewart in the mornings while we eat breakfast. Truthfully, I don't mind trying to glean something from her from time to time, and she can cook. ;)

Anyway, this morning she had on I believe it was the president of the seed savers community. Her thing was growing heirloom tomatoes. Her garden was something like 3 acres of tomatoes. All of the plants are basically touching. Wouldn't that be a pure seed savers nightmare? I thought that to keep your seed pure you really needed X amount of space between all of your plants in order to keep pure seed?

I just ordered a few different varieties of heirloom tomatoes and want to take this first season's seed to plant in the future so I will always have pure seed to fall back on. Should I be concerned about cross pollination if I grow them all in our garden? My current plan is to grow them all in 5 gallon buckets stowed at different places around the yard and at the neighbors to keep my seed pure.

Can anyone lend me any help with this mental delemna?


Thanks!

lost

[Deberosa]

Tomatoes are self polinators so you don't have to worry about cross polination. But to keep them pure I still would keep them separate... Then you have things like carrots where in the class I took you have to keep a quarter mile from other carrots and from Queen Anne's lace which is a form of wild carrot! That's when I gave up on the idea of seed saving...

Martha Stewart isn't all bad, she's got quite a few homesteading type of tips. She just goes yuppy in order to sell stuff which I think is bad. I always liked the way she took her lumps in that jail sentence. Many men get away with far more than what she did! My house and garden will never look like hers though - too many unfinished projects!

[AlchemyAcres]

If you want pure seed you should be concerned because some crossing is always possible.
The only way to ensure pure seed is through isolation or bagging. I use bagging. 4"X6" bridal sachet bags are available at Wal-Mart and other craft stores for about $5-$6 per package of 12.
Bag the flower clusters before the blossoms open, remove when the fruits have formed....the bags can then be washed and reused.

http://www.southernexposure.com/isolation-distance-tomatoes.p.html


~Martin :)

[lostinthewoods]

Thanks for all the help gang! Maybe I'll look for some of those bags next time I go to walmart. Is it difficult to bag all the blossoms on a tomato plant?

Thanks again!

lost

[DM]

My friend was on her show, and now i always tease him that he hangs out with a known fellon! lol

Deb, your garden will "never" look like her's, because you don't have a zillion dollars to spend on hireing help to take care of it like she does!

I always get a kick out of how she lost some decotareing contest in jail while she was in there... I'd say it's because she didn't have a staff in jail, to help her out and think everything up for her!

DM

[lostinthewoods]

I just had a thought. Rather than drive 20 miles to water tomato plants every other day this summer. Could I just plant all the different tomatoes in the garden. Once they get ready to bloom I could bag a few bunches of blossoms on each plant. Once the plants set fruit I could remove the bag tie a ribbon around the branch that I bagged and save those tomatoes for my pure seed. This would sure make things a lot easier.

Does this scheme sound like it will work to any of you?

Thanks,

lost