Because you mentioned this, I checked our 99¢ Only store just now, walking up and down the aisles and found they had some. Yes, they were bedraggled, but I got a couple anyway -- they are soaking in a bucket. One is labeled Lovely Fairy, which is a nice polyantha, and the other is a hybrid tea of some sort, supposedly lavender in color. We shall see if they live and what they really are. Thanks for the heads up, and keep checking because your store may get another shipment.

Thessaloniki & BB would be very different parents, Jali! Both do just fine in my garden, however. I'd be worried that I'd have trouble sorting the characteristics out in later generations. Like, it would take me years! Mostly, I wanted the experience for the 1st time around. Secondly, I wanted it simple. If the offspring have regular leaves, I'd know that I managed to do the crossing. Then, if I save their seed and get a potato leaf F2, I can claim that whatever other characteristics it has is as I've planned it. The potato leaf F2 plant can go on to be the grandparent of a whole new variety! Now, stabilizing it might still be difficult if it can't make up its mind whether it wants oblate fruit or ones with that little nipple on the end . . ! Howsomeever . . . if it does turn out that the F1 has characteristics that I can claim were as hoped for & intended, I don't really need to go on to an F2, F3, etc. I can just grow my F1's every year! Monsanto might be interested!! Steve

Trudi, the bad thing is that I don't have any "well stocked" nurseries near me! I may end up trying more than one variety at the beginning. But, I want to end up with only one. It's only me and my wife. And, I can't see growing a bunch more than we will use. I know I could can them. But, I already have full size tomatoes that I use for canning. I know there is a plethora of online seed cats with cherry tomatoes. But, I don't trust their descriptions near as much as I trust the opinions of members here! ;>) Hoosier, as far as what I'm looking for, you nailed it... right between the eyes!!! I thank you for the Gardener's Delight name and for the T&M source! The description sounds like what my grandmother grew. And, your approval has sealed the deal! I'll definitely be placing an order for them on Monday!!! ;>) Thank you again for your help!!

Yes Bill, I'm the upstate NY person who distributed seeds for Polish C RL, actually here at GW, with the comment that it should be PL and that I would ask folks NOT to share seeds of the wrong leaf form. At that time that variety was not being sold commercially and I had depleted my store of PL correct ones and decided to let folks enjoy the fruits anyway. I'm delighted that so many like it, as well they should, even with the wrong leaf form. For me the correct leaf form is the one that was present when the variety was originally discovered, described, and made known to others. Dr. Carolyn Pink was not a wrong variety or bad seed. It was a mutation from the original Dr. Carolyn sent to me by Robert Martin, an SSE member, in 1999, and he had already named it. AS I've said many times, it does give some plants with fruits the size of Dr. Carolyn and some plants give fruits that are larger. I prefer the smaller fruited ones, but others seem to like the larger ones as well. The title of your thread is bad seeds, but then you go on to show how many wonderful varieties arose from natural cross pollinations, such as Lucky Cross, OTV Brandywine and others. Not really relevant to bad seeds at all. Just varieties that arose as the result of X pollination and the hybrid dehybridized to a stable OP. No bad seeds at all. For me bad seeds are when I or others purchase seeds commercially and what we're sent is not what was ordered, whether it was another variety, stray seed, or crossed seeds. And the same comment holds for bad seeds re seeds received in trade. Sure, a stray seed in a commercial pack can be a real bonus and an example of that is the variety Orange Strawberry which Marjorie Morris grew out from a commercial pack of Pineapple seeds. And sure, if someone gets something they didn't expect , as in "bad seed", what they get may also turn out to be great if it was a X pollination and they want to take the time to genetically dehybridize it. I don't think you were posting during those years when each year I started a thread here at GW titled Wrong varieties. Now there we had documantation of wrong varieties received from commercial sources. But bad seed to me, in a larger sense, means just that.......seeds that are not what they are supposed to be for a specific variety as originally described. Carolyn