Yeah I have an aversion to growing things I don't like to eat. I like your idea of letting customers mix their own baskets. How much do you charge for them? 170 varieties! Wow that is a lot of maters! I'm limited to one half of an acre to grow on so I have to be very selective of the varieties I grow. At the moment I'm planning to grow around 120 tomato plants total and around 60 of those plants will be the artisan variety from Johnny's.
The rest have turned out to be very hard to narrow down considering things like beauty of the tomato, production, taste, and rarity. The only thing that really concerns me about my specific market is that the population here is a blend of the older generation and college age students, and as you could expect their wants vary greatly. Most older people want a red tomato that they have heard of like Rutgers and the younger generation prefer colorful heirloom varieties and seem to be much more willing to try new things. Luckily we do have a mobile market that just recently started going around to local colleges which I think will greatly improve to demand for colorful heirlooms. Thanks for your post, it makes me a little less trepidacious in going full heirloom/cherry.
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