I plant close � about 24" inches apart in a hex pattern. So far, I�ve not found a fluke cross pollination affect my saved tomato seed population � at least as far as I can tell. I grow up to 20 different varieties and 60-90 plants each year, and so far � each type of tomato seed I have saved has produced the same type of tomato for the last 3 years. I have been planting the open pollinated/saved seeds I started from trades at GardenWeb in 2010 and have NEVER bought commercial tomato seeds since that time.

In fact, last year I tried to hybridize two of my favorite tomatoes � the persimmon (the best flavor of all OP I have grown) and the pineapple (the most productive large tomato of all OP I have grown). Each of the buds I tried to manually pollinate with the other tomato�s pollen (3 times) ended up not taking and aborted without growing. Although that is probably more the fact that the process was done in the heat of the summer. Many of my tomatoes aborted their flowers during that same time, so that probably helped kill the experiment. Will try earlier in the season next year!

However, this is not the case for peppers � which I also grow quite close together, like 18". In that same time period � I have gotten two chance hybrids from my peppers.

The first was a case where I had planted green bell peppers, jalapeno and habanero peppers in one year. That year, I saved the seeds from the green bell pepper and planted the following year. I got a pepper that looked like none of the other 3! I called it Ciolek Hot Cross and have planted this out every year since (F4 by now). It produces very small conical peppers, hot like the Habanero, and very prolific, 50 or more per plant. I string them up and dry to make hot chili powder.

The second came from a sweet red bell pepper accidental cross, I am guessing with an Anaheim chili pepper which was right next to it. When planting the sweet red bell saved seeds the next year, the peppers were medium sized, like a small bell � but they were slightly tapered at the end (not pointy but thinning in cross section and rounding off to a blunt point unlike the relatively flattened sweet red bell peppers). They were sweet in the mouth like the red bell pepper � but had a very slight heat to them as an aftertaste. I named them Spicy Bon Bon � and will be planting the F2 version next year since 2012 was the first year this cross appeared. I hope to stabilize that one after a few years as well.

I�ve found the chance of accidental cross with tomatoes to be so slight � and the impact of a cross so exciting to see what turns out � that it is actually a welcome occurrence rather than a nuisance. Just watching the miracle of the genetics play out is pretty cool. The only problem I see is if you are growing a very few plants and a very few types that the impact of a cross could be devastating to your expected crop for an entire year. Just not the case in my garden.

I don't bag my blossoms and haven't noticed one happen in my garden yet in 3 years of 15-20 varieties and 50-90 plants per year -- but I realize that isn't much data.

I figured the most seed saving experience is monitoring this forum, but maybe this more belongs in the tomato forum?

Interesting about the vigorous comment though -- one of the reasons I was trying to hybridize the best OP versions I plant just to see what happens...

How did you know that it was a cross when you received the seeds in a trade? Did they tell you it was a cross or was it accidental?

I'm getting commercial Anna Russian seeds this year and will have to look into bagging so I can get some true seeds for next year.

Caryl