First tomatoes - without seeds

[igenlode]

The first of my towel-tomatoes are ready to harvest, about a month earlier than last year thanks to the warm spring. On the other hand, just as happened last year, these first fruits are all seedless. Very tasty, with an intense burst of tomato flavour, but useless in terms of reproduction. However, the plants did eventually begin producing fertile fruits last year, so I'm not panicking at the moment.

(These plants are of course the linear descendants of those same 'seedless' tomato bushes, so the genetic potential is inevitably there; I was hoping that by having chosen to save seed from fruits that were bursting with them I would avoid inadvertently 'selecting for' seedlessness, but evidently not. Of course if one could only produce a reliably seed-free tomato it might be of commercial value for the picky eaters of this world... if only you could find a way of breeding from it!)


The coriander and pink Linaria that I sowed last week have both now germinated -- a considerable relief in the case of the Linaria, which really was black dust from the bottom of the envelope.

Comments

[watervole]

But the seeds are the best part of eating them!

[igenlode]

They put some people off, like tapioca... (I haven't been able to get tapioca for years; it's hard enough to get semolina or pudding rice these days, and the local supermarket only stocks a single remaining flavour of jelly cubes, strawberry. 'Nursery' puddings are out of fashion.)

[watervole]

I used to like tapioca! Haven't seen it in decades.

[igenlode]

I like tapioca -- I like the feel of it. But unfortunately it has just disappeared.

Still available online as an Asian specialty ingredient, apparently, if one is really desperate...!