Growing seeds from supermarket fruit

[rubywoo]

Hi guys,

I grew my first tomatos last year with quite good success.

My mum has asked me to grow her some this year, but a specific type she loves and buys from Marks and Spencer's! Santini. I've tried to do some research and found it's likely if you try grow the seeds from the shop bough fruit, they might be hybrid.

I'm still going to have a go for her - what's the worst that could happen right! She has some santinis in the fridge now - any advice of best method??

Thanks

[Alison]

Tomatoes are really easy to save seed from, there are some good instructions at the bottom of this link Vegetable Seeds : Vine Tomato Seed - Smaller but to be honest if you're sowing straight away then you can just squeeze the seeds out, give them a bit of a wash and sow - I find that I get self seeders in my compost at times and they definitely haven't been prepared properly.

What you will actually get though is anybody's guess, they may or may not bear any resemblance to what your mum has in the fridge but won't kill you. The worst case scenario is that they won't be very tasty or productive. Give it a go, sow a few of the seeds and then save from the one you like the best. Repeat a few times over a few years until you get something you're happy with and seems stable (ie the same every year) but this may never happen. I suppose the seeds could be sterile and not germinate at all but in my experience this is unlikely. Personally I can't be bothered with all this as there are so many varieties available and over the years I've picked ones that suit me and then saved those but I know some people get real enjoyment from the experimentation.

[Kristen]

I think your Mum would prefer a non-Supermarket variety ... but its personal preference & taste of course

Supermarket varieties are, generally, grown to have high yields, keep well, and not bruise easily when being transported and "tipped" onto the supermarket shelf. "Not bruise" is usually achieved by "thicker skins"

You could grow a variety with outstanding flavour which has (relatively speaking) poor yield, and really thin skins, and as such a commercial grower wouldn't touch with a bargepole!

That said: your tomatoes, picked fresh and given to your Mum immediately, without a couple of days of storage and travelling, will taste better than Supermarket ones anyway ...

However ... finding your "killer" variety is not easy. I have grown varieties that all my mates [all of them keen vegetable growers] raved about, and thought they were nothing special ...

If the Supermarket variety (Santini) is an "F1" then I would not bother attempting to grow seeds from it. It might be OK, but usually children of F1 varieties come up "all sorts" and you will spend all season growing it, and gambling whether your time will be well spent, or not.

If it is not F1 then as Tomatoes are self pollinated (and every plant in a commercial greenhouse - i.e. "nearby" - would be the same variety anyway) then the ones you grow from saved-seed should turn out "the same"

This rather enthusiastic threads suggests you are in with a good chance
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ted_50841.html

Santini is either a variety bred and grown for sale to supermarkets, and the seed is not shared with any seed company, or it is a name given to the fruit, which is not the same as the variety name, and is just a marketing name (hence you cannot find it in the seed catalogues). Jersey Royal potatoes are not sold as seed potatoes for you to grow yourself, but are in fact the variety International Kidney - Jersey Royal is just a marketing name (and grown with lots of seaweed on Jersey, so you won't reproduce the flavour by just growing International Kidney yourself - in fact most of the people I know who have tried International Kidney said they didn't like the taste of the crop)

I turned up an article in the Independent (31-Mar-2011) which I thought was interesting - it suggests that maybe there are even better varieties than Santini But ... either way ... for me I would want to grow them alongside the varieties I normally grow to see if they are actually better than those, or not, because just being "fresh from the greenhouse" will make them taste fabulous - relative to shop-bought ones.

"Marks & Spencer is finding that our taste in tomatoes is getting "sweeter". We tend to use the larger varieties for cooking, and the smaller ones with a more intense flavour in salads. Its biggest seller is a small plum tomato called "Santini", which has a delicate thin skin and lovely just-picked aroma, while its "Piccolini", a large on-the-vine cherry tomato is deliciously sharp and a little firmer. But it is the "Tomalini", a fabulously juicy and fragrant midi plum, that caught my attention, a variety the store says is "walking off the shelves", unsurprisingly. I also loved Waitrose's "Piccolo" Sicilian cherry vine tomatoes that come in a pleasing array of miniature sizes and look as though you grew them yourself, and its "Red Choice", which puts my faith back in the potential for a good "classic" tomato, perfect for that weekend brunch with bacon and eggs."

Simply red: The best varieties of tomatoes on the vine - Features - Food & Drink - The Independent

[MrsCordial]

Hi Rubywoo. Perhaps you could find out what your mum likes so much about the Santini (eg sweetness, sharpness, particular overtones) and see if there's a seed variety available that has similar qualities? If you tried out a few you would at worst end up with a selection of nice home-grown tomatoes

[Bill HH]

The trouble with descriptions in seed catalogues is that they say every variety has "Outstanding" flavour or "superior sweetness". They also pinch descriptions from each other and you can read them word for word in several seed companies blurb. (Hey Jim what do these whizzo tomatoes taste like? I dunno mate nick the description from Unwins catalogue") So the only thing you can really do is grow a range and decide for yourself.

[solway cropper]

I agree with the above. It's best to try as many varieties as possible and find those that you really like and stick with them. I try at least 4 or 5 new tomato varieties each year and most I never grow again but some are just so good you really can't live without them.

Personally I've never understood why anyone would want to grow anything that tasted like the stuff you buy in shops.