I second the recommendation that you get Suzanne Ashworth's book Seed to Seed, and very strongly. As for tomatoes, for kind of instant input , go to the Tomato Forum,link above on this first page, click on the FA Q's and near the bottom you'll find a brand new FAQ on how to save seed from tomatoes. And yes, there are several white fleshed watermelons that have been around for a long time. ( smile) For any of us here to type out all that you need to know about saving seed for all those veggies is just not practicable in my opinion, so do consider getting Ashworth's book. Carolyn

BenJoe, if you cross Big Beefsteak Tomato "A" with Cherry Tomato "B" you will get an F1 tomato approximately equal in size to the square root of A x B.

I have to cut and paste so I have a reference point and don't have to go back up to your original post. &&&&& (This volunteer tomato grew in my garden close to an area where I had previously grown Sungold, Gold Medal, Chocolate Cherry, Black from Tula, Japanese Black Trifele and Riesentraube tomatoes. I'm guessing it is either a rare cross between two of those or, perhaps, a reversion of the Sungolds? I guess it could have been planted by a bird from some distant neighbor. I would like any input you might have. The skin is almost translucent, pineapple-y yellow. They are shaped like miniature Gold Medals.) If it were a natural cross between any of the dark colored ones or Riesentraube, the F1 could not have been light coloroed since the dark ones and Riesentraube ( red ) have colors genetically dominant to light colors. Anyone I know who has had volunteers from Sungold F1 or from saved F2 seeds of the hybrid have gotten orange or red cherries. Red b/c the gene(s) for the flat truss trait are red. So I don't think a reversion of Sungold, which has many parental inputs, not just two parents. Other than a low flying bird, that leaves Gold Medal and Sungold as a possible cross. Small fruit size is dominant to large fruit size. I'm judging the fruit size of what you have by looking at your finger, and fruit size is much smaller than what one would suspect for Gold Medal, yet larger than anything Sungold sized. The fruits you show have no coloration consistent with the gold/red bicolor of Gold Medal/ And since small fruit is dominant to large fruiit, it could have been a natural cross between Sungold F1 and Gold Medal. I don't know the genetics of such bicolors like Gold Medal, so I'll suggest that it might be possible that the genes for the coloration of Gold Medal were not brought forward. One way to tell is to save seeds of what you show, put out as many plants as you can next season and see what you get. Other than that there's always the low flying bird theory, as you know. LOL Carolyn

I have that Black Cherry also. It's a large, extremely vigorous plant. Most likely, a 10 gallon bucket would be better than a 5. Rotted bottoms are called blossom end rot (BER) and is due to uneven soil moisture that disrupts the transport of calcium to the blossom end of the fruit.