There has been some discussion on sowing seed taken from bought tomatoes here viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9615
and here viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3985&start=0

Tomatoes I have liked recently are Jack Hawkins and Moruno.
Jack Hawkins is a very large slicing tomato and Moruno is a medium to small dark plum variety, much vaunted as having higher levels of vitamin C and lycopene than other tomatoes.

I have saved seed from both of these and will give them a try next year.

I know Tony Hague is going to try some seed he saved from a French tomato viewtopic.php?p=97787#p97787

Anyone else fancy trying something?

A couple of seasons ago I grew some seed from shop bought toms. Completely unknown variety so the plants were labelled UV. They produced a decent crop, good sized well flavoured fruits.

If anyone asked the variety, I said, "Oh, they're called UV new a strain from Norway" - nobody questioned this!!

a-a

I have grown seed from shop bought peppers before - standard bell peppers, the long red pointed ones (Ramiro), and the baby orange ones, and habanero chillies from a Jamaican grocers, all with reasonable success.

Next year will be my first go at growing tomatoes from self-saved seed, although last year I grew one named simply "Iowa" which came from an old lady in Iowa, via Heirloom tomatoes (quick plug for them because they have been so friendly and helpful to my old dad !) and my father. It was a beefsteak type, a bit low on flavour early in the season, but came good later on.

Jack Hawkins, Moruno and Temptation - all shop-bought and saved - due to be sown in propagator tomorrow, along with the rest of my tomatoes and peppers/chillies. Fingers crossed.

About three years ago I saved the seed from some very tasty mini plum tomatoes purchased from a supermarket and produced some very nice fruit. Sadly I have no idea what variety it is, but I save some seeds every year and they haven't failed me yet. I have also successfully savedthe seeds or yellow & orange bell peppers bought from a market stall & successfully grown plants from them.
When you look at the price of seed packets these days, it's a good way of saving money.

Many years ago I simply could not resist saving seed from a supermarket Melon. I duly grew the melon the following year, knowing full well the melon I had bought was from F1 seed. The net result was a whole lot better than the original melon bought.
To me that was a total fluke and I have not repeated the experiment when perhaps I should have. Stupidly I didn't even save any seeds from my grown melons.
The supermarket Tomato I would most like to grow is Aranca which is the size Gardeners Delight used to be which is about 1.25 to 1.5" diameter. I find the taste and texture of Aranca very much to my liking.
I am afraid that most growing is out of the question for me this year but maybe next year ------
JB.

I grew a selection of Jersey heritage tomatoes purchased as a mixed punnet in the supermarket for 99p, they were all delicious and grew very well indeed,one that surprised me was a green striped one it was very productive and quite delicious. i have since tried melons and peppers, hot, bell, ramiro and other varieties, nature is vey generous ..... i notice seed packets have risen in price and declined in quantity so have been busy saving all sorts of seeds lol. i actuallly saved seeds of moonlight last year so will see if that works, will be planting them soon, I also saved some wisley magic so it won't be a disaster if the moonlight don't perform

Well, if anyone's interested, the seeds I saved from an orange tomato (looking rather like Orange Russian 117) bought in the market in Quimper have come up, with 100 % emergence.

They were sown 10 days ago into a compost of leaf mold, grit sand and perlite, steam sterilised in a biscuit tin with a few holes in the lid set on top of a camping stove.

Just checked this morning, and the other (unknown) variety I saved seed of in France have all emerged now too.

The overall emergence so far is 81%.

So, as far as germination is concerned, I would conclude that seeds saved from shop bought tomates fare no worse, if not better than bought seed (probably they are fresher).

I'd also say that, as far as tomatoes go at least, a homemade leafmold based seed compost seems to do pretty much OK.

Ah but we all know where Tomatoes germinate best!