If you haven't noticed any out-crosses, then you aren't doing it right, or you aren't very observant. I can pretty much guarantee that even the tomatoes that are least likely to outcross will do so at least 5 percent of the time (though admittedly, some smaller tomatoes with small fruit produce so many of their own blossoms they often don't outcross). But one trouble is that many tomatoes look like each other, especially for the F1 generation (the first generation after the cross), so they aren't noticed. Here are things you can do to increase the likelihood of finding outcrosses: 1. Know a bit of tomato genetics. Plant tomatoes that are RECESSIVE in some of their obvious characteristics and look for progeny that revert towards normal. For instance Red is usually dominant, so a recessive type, such as a yellow or green tomato tends to be noticed more when it outcrosses. Plant more yellow and green tomatoes and look for strange red progeny in the grow outs. 2. Potato Leaf is recessive to regular leaf. Plant potato leaf tomatoes and look for any progeny that have regular leaves. 3. Cherry tomatoes (in my experience) will often be relatively dominant compared to larger tomatoes, so if you have LARGE tomatoes and suddenly the progeny are smaller, you probably had an outcross. 4. F1 tomato plants are often very unspectactular. They tend to look more AVERAGE in general. Often smaller (medium sized) smoother and rounder, frequently fairly productive and often of unspectacular flavor. 5. Try to plant different tomato plants next to each other. Mix them up on the rows, so large tomatoes are growing next to small tomatoes on each side, or green tomatoes, orange tomatoes and yellow tomatoes are surrounded by red tomatoes. Or the same thing with potato leaf, surrounded by regular leaf. 6. Green Zebra is "a storehouse" of recessive genes and it will frequently be noticed to have outcrossed, when planted next to other tomatoes. That is why there are so many types of plants out there like: Red Zebra, Giant Zebra, Black Zebra, etc etc. Give some of these techniques a try and let us know. Just remember that the F1 plants are often so amazingly non-descript and "average" that they are often overlooked. It isn't until you get to the F2 and F3 generation that you will start to notice a lot of differences. (Of course this "Average" does NOT apply to certain planned F1 crosses, such as MOST of the "Hybrid" plants we grow, such as Big Boys, Better Boys, Big Beef, etc. In these cases, certain carefully selected lines of tomatoes that blend well together, and produce better than usual results, are deliberately cross bred to produce the F1 HYBRID seed. Growing out some of these is not necessarily a waste of time, since you sometimes get surprising results from the F2 and F3 and beyond for a lot of commercial hybrids. And, as far as I know, no one has YET been able to come up with a line from growing out Big Boys that resembles one of the proprietary, "hidden" ancestors of Big Boy, which is a large, spectacular pink tomato. But if you could do it, people would probably be very thankful to you.) This post was edited by fcivish on Mon, Jun 10, 13 at 19:42

i can offer any of these veggies to trade. plus some yellow tomatoe seeds.... # california wonder green pepper # big dipper green pepper # iceburg lettuce # cabbage late flat dutch # honeydew cool green # okra clemson spineless # long island brussel sprouts # broccoli waltham 29

I just got my seeds in the mail today ... THANK YOU!!! The variety is astounding and I got just about all of my "really wants" for next summer, wow! Thank you to everyone who send in seeds and participated, it helps make this one of the best swaps around ... and a HUGE TREMENDOUS thank you to Heather. The amount of time and effort that you put into this is amazing, taxing I'm sure, but so much appreciated by all of us. Thank you for organizing this swap again and for taking the time to help make sure that we all get some of the seeds that we really really want, and a great variety of new ones to try as well! I wish I could send you something off your wishlist as a thank you, but I took a look and don't have any of them ... your wishlist in much the same as mine in some respects, lol! But I did want to let you know that they arrived, and to thank you for all the time and effort you have put into this!

I have envelopes packed and will be mailing seeds to the following individuals tomorrow morning: * dirtdaddy * phpete * roadkill * roper2008 * sambo725 * sproutshonor That's it for envelopes to be mailed back. Thanks everyone for your participation and for sending in such a great variety of seeds. Have a Merry Christmas everybody! ....Heather