WEDNESDAY: Graffiti Cauliflower and Rainbow Swiss Chard

Wednesday during lunch I planted the little Graffiti purple cauliflower seedlings and some Rainbow orange, fuschsia, red and yellow Swiss Chard. What happened to me??? I'm brazenly planting an F1 hybrid! I mean it's going to be beautiful, but have I sacrificed my gardening integrity?

F1 hybrid just means the first generation of seeds or plants produced by cross pollinating 2 specific parent plants. It just means first generation of a cross. People grow F1 plants because they often display stronger productivity and strength than either parent. This is why many conventional farmers plant these types of crops. However, if you try and plant another generation of plants from seeds you've saved from the F1 crop, the next generation will be a genetic crapshoot- the genes are scrambled and you'll get plants that display a wide variety of genetic traits. All open-pollinated seeds basically started out with a first generation of plants and were eventually stabilized over many years. I'm not going to get into open-pollinated varieties right now, but I'm sure you know there is a big debate over open-pollinated VS hybrid.