i can address "deadhead" :) I'll leave open pollinated to someone else! I know what it is, but I'm not sure I could explain it adequately.

As a flower gardener, I deadhead the flowers that are past blooming (think of a rose bush) , Usually the method is snapping the flower head off right below the head or you can use snippers. It cleans up the plant, but most importantly it helps the plant bloom more instead of putting its energy into making seeds.

Open pollinated means that the plant is pollinated by natural means such as bees or wind. It also means that the seed that are produced by the plant will produce 'after it's own kind'. The plant produced from the seed will be identical to the plant, and so will the fruit it produces, so the process continues.

Hybrid plants may produce seed, and may grow a plant, but the seed from a hybrid, when planted, will not produce a plant or fruit like it's parent. The process of producing hybrid seed is done under controlled conditions which is frequently done by hand. The result is that the seed will probably cost more, but it could be an improved variety and not as prone to disease. The idea is to get the best traits of both parents. These may be marked as F1 to show the first generation of the cross.

Many people plant heirloom tomatoes (which are OP) because the taste is great, but they may plant hybrid tomatoes for canning things like salsa or tomato sauce where taste is not as much of an issue as quantity. All heirlooms are OP, but not all OP are heirloom. I think an open pollinated tomato that has stood the taste of time and is 50 years or older is considered an heirloom.

Some seed companies, such as Baker Creek (www.rareseeds.com) sell only open pollinated varieties.

I plant mostly open pollinated seeds, but there are a few hybrids I like, such as Packman Broccoli and Sungold cherry tomatoes.

I hope this is clear enough.

open pollinated will produce like parent only if there is not any other varities of the plant to cross with.

you can't plant (example) a rutger in the same area with say a mortgage lifter and expect them to pruduce true to the parent plants. they will cross with each other and the seeds will be hybrid.

Tomatoes are self-pollinating and self-fertilizing, but insects can visit them and carry pollen from one to another, thus causing cross-pollination between different vareties of open-pollinated tomatoes, or between hybrids, or between hybrids and OPs. Many people who save seed from open-pollinated tomatoes report that they only get crossed seed a very small percentage of the time, but people who don't want to take a chance on getting crossed seed will bag their blossoms before they open in order to eliminate the possibility of insect-induced cross-pollination occurring. When the tomato flowers release their pollen, they usually do it even before the bloom opens up. Places that produce seed to sell commercially usually grow their plants either in isolation (by distance) from other varieties to prevent cross-pollination or they grow their plants inside isolation cages.

With hybrids, if you save the seed from a hybrid tomato and plant it, then the variety you may see in the resulting plants and the fruit they produce can be like a box of chocolates....you never know what you're going to get. Some plants and their fruit may resemble the original hybrid a great deal or maybe not at all. A person can dehybridize a hybrid by saving seed and selecting plants and fruit each year that have the traits of the original plant. Over a few generations of plants, you often can select out fruit and plants repeatedly that resemble the original hybrid until they are stable. Once they are stable, if the resulting plant and fruit greatly resemble the original hybrid, you have successfully dehybridized that variety. Some seed companies sell their dehybridized version of well-known hybrids. Some people think that the dehybrized version is the same as the original hybrid, but others do not (and technically, the latter group is correct). Even if the fruit from a dehybridized variety seems the same as the original fruit from the hybrid, the plant itself may lack hybrid vigor.

Dr. Carolyn Male dehybridized Ramapo in only about 8 generations or years back during the time after it had been dropped from commercial production. (The hybrid Ramapo now is back in production.)

To get the true hybrid, though, you would have to cross the parent varieties exactly the same way the original breeder did, and nowadays the parent lines of a given variety usually are not public knowledge because they are trade secrets.

I've grown dehybridized versions of some well-known hybrid varieties and some were impressively similar to the original hybrid but others were not. Just because someone can dehybridize a hybrid and get fruit that looks the same as the original does not necessarily mean it tastes the same or that the plant itself has the same hybrid vigor or disease tolerance.

As for deadheading, an attentive gardener removes the old flowers from flowering plants so that the plant will produce more flowers. Some years I do a good job of keeping up on the deadheading and some years I don't. My favorite kinds of plants are the ones that deadhead themselves!

Some additional thoughts on the issue of using hybrids. As a market gardener I use mostly hybrid varieties because they usually have better disease resistance and better production. Both of these things are very important if you are trying to make a profit. Of course I also take into account the taste. People who come to the farmers market do not want a tomato that tastes like it came from a grocery store. They want a home grown taste.

The best hybrids are the ones which have extra vigor and are more robust, but taste good too. They probably will not measure up to an heirloom as far as taste, but they can still be very good tasting and far surpass a store bought variety.

Please note that when we talk about hybrids this is not the same as a plant created using genetic modification. These are two very different issues.

In my opinion, folks new to gardening should probably use hybrids the first few years as they are learning how to garden. As noted above, hybrids are more disease resistant and usually produce more. They are usually more forgiving of mistakes by the gardener and better able to endure the vicissitudes of the weather. Then, as the gardener becomes more proficient then she/he can begin growing the heirloom varieties, saving seeds from them, and enjoying the more nuanced aspects of gardening. In my opinion, a new gardener is more likely to become discouraged if they stick strictly to heirloom varieties.

Before the purists jump on me and deride me for the statements above, please understand that I believe in using heirlooms also. Each year I plant heirloom varieties as well as hybrids. I have multiple varieties of heirloom seed stored away just in case I have to at some point fall back on them and keep seed from year to year as our forefathers did.

Something else I have learned along these lines is that it usually is best to plant multiple varieties of what ever you are growing. Last year I planted one variety of bell pepper. After it was up and growing in the garden real well it acquired some type of foliar disease. I immediately purchased some additional plants but it was still very disappointing that the ones I started from seed did so poorly. This year I have four different varieties of bell pepper. The lesson from this is that diversity increases your chance of success in the garden. I market garden but I do not practice monoculture. I grow a very wide range of types of vegetables. What I have found is that in the years that one type does very well, another type does poorly. So diversity in types of vegetables, diversity in varieties, and diversity in using hybrids as well as heirlooms all increases the chance of success. And in market gardening, you need to succeed year after year if you wish to continue as a business.

Ultimately, we all have different growing conditions, different knowledge levels, and different goals/aspirations for our gardens. Decide for yourself what you want and need, but realize there are usually trade-offs in every decision. My experience has led me to decide to introduce diversity where ever and when ever I can. I believe this makes for a more successful garden.

Scott, Your comments about tomatoes are right on and I agree with virtually every word you said. I grew up in a family of gardeners who grew both hybrids (my dad thought Better Boy and Big Boy, and later on Merced and Celebrity, were the best things ever because of their vigor and disease tolerance) and OP varieties and even from a pretty young age, I kind of understood why we needed to always grow both kinds. While the flavors of the OPs often were superior, the hybrid vigor and heavier production of the "latest hybrids" was essential in the heat-shortened tomato production period in zone 8 Texas.

So, you'll get no argument from me here. In a year when I expect the weather to be very tough...like it was in 2011 and 2012 I'll plant a lot more hybrids. However, I still plant enough OP varieties to keep me happy. If the OPs perform well enough, I give away the fruit from the hybrids or mostly use it for canning. We use most of the OPs for fresh-eating. My garden generally has both in it and that is my policy....I hedge my bets by planting multiple varieties of everything, including multiple varieties of simple things like parsley and cilantro. In our climate, the more varieties of a given veggie, herb, fruit or flower....the better the chance of a great harvest. The weather, disease and pest cycles here just give us so many reasons to plant a diversified garden. Last year they all produced well, which led to the Great Summer of Canning, Drying and Preserving of 2012. I hope I never "have to" preserve as many tomatoes in a year as I did last year, but I am smart enough to know that in a year when you get that kind of harvest, it should be appreciated and used.

I had a friend who started a garden one year. It was his first garden ever and he planted first and then asked questions afterwards. Ooops! Well, he learned a few things....including learning that one family does not need two entire rows of zucchi and crookneck squash plants, and that any tomato you grow yourself is better than anything you find at a grocery store. He planted one hybrid variety and thoroughly adored every tomato those plants produced. This is the kind of experience that can turn a person into a lifelong gardener. I hate to think what would have happened if he had planted Brandywine, and I don't mean to diss Bwine, but it is so erratic here that he might not have gotten a single fruit, and that would have been an awful experience for a first-time tomato grower.

Dawn

Right on, Dawn and Scott. I will always have Early Girl, Better Boy and Sun Gold (Thanks, Carol for that one) and each year 2 or 3 other varied hybrids--last year Big Mama did great for me. But I'm hooked on several OPs as well. Love Black Cherry (Thanks, George for that one) Arkansas Traveler, Cherokee Purple, and several others.

What is it with people who plant first and ask questions later. Last year dear SIL planted his first garden. Daughter was covered up in cucumbers and cantaloup. (She told him that with a homebased daycare and 4 of her own she wouldn't have time to make pickles, but he hoped...) This year, he started tomatoes 2 or 3 weeks ago. Daughter said, "That's ok, dear, Mom has started all the tomatos we have room for." Luckily they inherited great (Great) soil. Previous owner hauled loads of sand and horse poop to amend the soil. So of course stuff grew very well for them.

Thanks all. I appreciate the answers.