Please see my two posts on March 30, 2014. Only the earliest of hybrids released had two parents,and both parents are known for some of them. Later hybrids can have up to 4 parental inputs in each breeding line,as I explained in a previous posts I mentioned above so 8 parental inputs in each line.The last one in each line is crossed with the last one in the other line to make the stable F1 hybrid. Yes,there are many companies that breed F1 hybrids,mostly in the Netherlands and Israel and Japan and China,some still in the US such as Petoseed,which does custom breeding for Burpee although Burpee now has some breeders back in PA but I don't know of any releases yet,and do so since commercial farmers want F1 hybrids and preferably determinate ones to facilitate machine harvesting and those in areas want ones with tolerance,no such thing as total resistance,where soilborne diseases are found,which is not in all places of the US.. Companies don't breed OP heirloom varieties, for that would be the antithises of the word heirloom and let us NOT get into a discussion of what an heirloom is or is not,I mean you can,but there are many threads here already about that,no one definition,and I'm out on that subject.,LOL. Heirloom tomato varieties are sourced from many places and most of them,well maybe some,end up being listed in the SSE Annual Yearbooks,where they are then available to SSEmembers. To date I've grown about 4,000 plus heirloom varieties and have in introduced close to 300 new ones from various sources myself. And if you look at Tania's superb data website she has individual pages for about 5,000 now and taking all the ones that are in seedbanks in different countries there are probably close to 20,000, I should live so long being 77 this June.LOL

Hi, Yes you are right with your drawing on the right. The pups will grow up and have pups of their own. Sans seem to benefit from growing in colonies like this, versus being separated the into separate plants. Not a silly question.

jnjfarm I have not heard of Green Giant broccoli. Google search only brings up images of pre-packaged broccoli with the big green guy on the package. If you meant to say Green Goliath then I think the 76 DTM might be too long for the OP to start from seed now in Indiana to get a harvest before winter sets in. I agree with Wayne that an early variety like Pacman or Early Dividend would be a better choice for the OP at this point.

Laura Whole point of using gravely mix is to provide good drainage - just as plants would have in their habitat. Excess water will drain out, but some of it is held by the substrate - how much, it depends on type of it. I would rather 'waste' minute amounts of ferts in fertigating solution than have plant sitting in waterlogged soil. There shouldn't be too much fertilizer applied either, otherwise one would have plants that may not look even close to what they really look like naturally. They are not supposed to be overly fed, too big, growing too fast, almost like on steroids, haha. Most of recommendations are to use 1/2, 1/4 or even 1/8th of recommended dose, depending on frequency. And not everyone is fertilizing succulents, or only once, maybe twice a year. That would be very small amount of fertilizer even with many plants. You are very right saying that some adjusting is best according to growing conditions. And some products are more difficult to find, or could be expensive if lot is needed. I find perlite everywhere I look, but is much more difficult to get pumice. Bark of suitable size is also difficult to find - so I don't even use it in gritty mix.