I wouldn't offer a refund to someone who may not
know how to grow a tomato. What you could do
instead is offer a bundle, your mid-season round
red (or pink) and something else that you have lots
of seedlings of for the price of a single seedling
(two for the price of one) to people that ask for some
well-known red hybrid that you do not have.
Mule Team and Jetsetter (one mid-season op, one early hybrid)
are two reds that both have a reputation for
better-than-average heat tolerance.
Laurel (Laurel's Heirloom Tomatoes, or something like that)
flags Rutgers in her catalog as doing well in most climates,
but not as exceptionally heat-tolerant. Jet Star is recommended
in an Iowa State Univ. publication as a good cultivar for Iowa
farmers growing for fresh market (it gets pretty hot in
mid-summer there, too, but I do not know whether they try
to keep Jet Star growing all summer). I find a lot of kudos
for Marmande for flavor and production, but no mention
of how it does in 90-100F temperatures.
One that you already have listed, Arkansas Traveller,
might outperform any of those in the kind of mid-summer
heat that you have in the California central valley. It is
actually a pink, but people who simply ask for BetterBoy
or something like that may not notice the difference between
a true red and a ripe pink once the tomatoes are ripe.
The tomatoes will be smaller, but there will be more of them,
and most people will find that they have better flavor.
Maybe Jetsetter instead of Early Girl and Mule Team or Arkansas
Traveller instead of BetterBoy?
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