It's that time of year again ...

[Odsox]

If those new toms taste good I'll volunteer for the North Scottish trials

That's OK, but the problem is do you want cuttings that will be true to the parent, or saved seed that could turn out very different.

[Green Aura]

Seed will be fine, thanks. We've had some very nice results from growing seed from shop bought toms.

[Odsox]

Well today was the taste test for the "new" tomato.
It has a very full tomato taste, with sweetness and a touch of acidity, very nice given the time of year and the total lack of sunshine for ages. One useful trait is that it seems it will stay on the plant for some time after it ripens without over-ripening.
I see from the photo that it was almost ripe on the 9th of December and it has seemed to be ripe, but firm, for nearly 2 weeks while the SFT fruit that ripened at the same time has gone soft and had to be eaten.
Oh, and there's very few seeds, just 9 in the one in the photo. (saved)
I'll leave the 2nd fruit until it goes really soft to see how long it will stay in good condition.

It is probably from one of these new breed of commercial tomatoes that has the whole truss ripen at the same time.

I will definitely keep it going and take cuttings later to grow during summer.

[Green Aura]

Sounds very nice, worth keeping going. Try cuttings and compare to the seed grown to see if they come true.

I'll wait until you've refined your product.

[Odsox]

My goodness this tomato really does want to grow.
I put the saved seeds in water to ferment off the coating and I admit they were left one day (actually half a day) longer than they should, but when I went to dry them this morning, every one had/has a 1/4" root shoot.
So I shall be potting 4 of them up later, a wee bit earlier than planned

[Green Aura]

Starting to look like either the perfect tomato or a tomato triffid.

Keep us informed - if you go quiet we'll know you've sprouted something out of the little shop of tomato horrors.

[Odsox]

Here's a photo of one of those 4 sprouted seeds.
They have been in my unheated potting shed since I moved them out of the propagator when they emerged from the compost.
I'm calling the variety "Caroline" after my daughter who almost certainly bought the original fruit.

Tom.jpg (177.82 KiB) Viewed 17809 times

[Odsox]

As it appears I can't reliably post more than one photo until John fixes it, here is the 2nd photo.

If you look closely you can see a tiny flower truss starting to grow.
Hopefully these are going to be a nice early variety.

Flower bud.jpg (84.62 KiB) Viewed 17809 times

[Weedo]

For me, it is time to pull out the tomatoes, capsicums etc.; the last of the fruit is ready and anything that attemps to come from now will not finish. I got 4 plants from a friend who saves his seed every year. they produced late fruit, good size and flavour but did not keep more than a couple of days either on the bush or in the fridge. I think I will start again with named varieties next year.