If they are a cross you have a hybrid. When you plant the seeds you will get three types. Two of those would be like the parent plants and the third would be the red tomato you prefer.By careful selection you can "set" the qualities of the red but it will take several garden cycles to do it.

Hi Susan, A tomato is ripe for seed saving when it is ripe to eat. (Some things must be over ripe, eggplant and cucumbers are examples of that.) It is best to wait until a tomato is fully ripe to save seeds. A bit over ripe is fine. If really under ripe, you will get no viable seed. If a bit under ripe, you may not get as many good seed, but will still get some that are usable. It is easiest to think of the fruit as a womb, and waiting for the seeds is like a pregnancy. You want to go full term for the healthiest babies. Tomato crossing rates are very low. It does happen though. So it is best to save seed from multiple fruit. The chances of all the fruit being crossed is very low so you know you'll have true seed. Hope this helps, Remy

According to a research review on the origin of San Marzano around 1960, there is no real one San Marzano variety. No one source can truly claim they have "the San Marzano". At it's origin, San Marzano was a "type", never a single variety, that was grown in Italy. Plants and fruit varied. Seeds of these different types were widely distributed from different sources in Italy throughout Europe, the US and South America and by 1960 there existed many different ones based on regional preferences. So many different lines are called 'San Marzano'. Those claiming they have the original are probably doing so for marketing purposes or to somehow claim it is theirs. So if it's something you like go ahead and save it. If it wasn't a hybrid and didn't cross it should come back to that type.

OK, what kind of differences havc I seen between plants grown from seed saved from the same fruit: 1.) First, I agree that the condition of stabilization certainly has a lot to do with it. Rutgers is pretty much going to be Rutgers. However, friend Charlie (who lives over there by Whatsienutsie) might offer you a magic giant oxheart that you just have to grow. "You're gonna love it!" This actually happened to me this year; I grew 6 plants for the dude in exchange for some seed. They were neither oxhearts, prolific, or magic in any way I could see. I kept two plants--one grew 2" reds while the other grew a medium sized globe shaped red with thick skins and a lot of size variability. 2) Yes, quite often heirlooms will throw different leaf types. Not at all uncommon. 3) Plant a row of 6 or more in soil you feel is pretty darn consistant, in a location not likely to be influenced irregularly in the row positions by light, wind, traffic, etc, variables. You are likely to see what I feel are more than subtle differences in individual plant yield, fruit quality and size consistancy, desease, plant height and limb developement. It has never been hard for me to decide which plant to save seed from! Having said that, there is absolutely no way for me to be absolutely sure I selected the best plant for seed source or the best fruit(s). And, over the years, I have had varieties cross or somehow mutate or whatever and go bad on me. Right now I am working on a project to save a lot of seed for a variety that about went extinct--Mozark. Carolyn, I selected seed from 5 fruits on one nice plant, have also got seed being generated in the Toledo area, and some cross town in Spike's garden, (over there by Whatsienutsie)! We are definately trying for diversity here! 3) This year, my daughter and I had a unique experience. She had traded for and grew in her garden a single plant of a variety called Northern Lights. It made strikingly beautiful large bicolored fruits, with an apple like gradation of colors on each fruit rather than a stripey difference in colors. We each took a nice sized fruit for seeds. Hers, she claimed, was delicious and there were not too many seeds inside. Mine was gelatenous on the interior, a bezillion seeds and little if any meat! Now there is an example of some diversity from the same seed, & same plant! Larry