what percentage of new-to-you varieties do you grow?

[habitat_gardener]

I've accumulated a serendipitous assortment of tomato varieties this year. I started my seeds late, so only a third of my varieties are something I'd planned to grow. The rest came from nonprofit plant sales, plant exchanges, the farmers' market, or extra plants from neighbors or friends -- 2 or 3 plants here and there.

So, looking at my list, I was surprised to find I have 5 out of 32 varieties that I've grown before, and that only 7 are varieties I'd never heard of. Still, 84 percent are new to me.

Last year, 67% were new to me.
The year before, 72%.
Before that, 95%.
Before that, 72%.

My repeats tend to be a pink slicer (usually Pruden's Purple) and a cherry (usually Tommy Toe or Sun Sugar F1).

[Father'sDaughter]

I'm still new at this compared to most, so last year was 100% new varieties (I hadn't discovered this place yet and grew only a few hybrids the year before).

This year I'm growing 27 different tomatoes, and nine are repeats from last year. My goal is to eventually settle on eight or so reliable pastes for canning, which will leave me plenty of room to keep exploring new slicer/salad varieties, as well as an occasional new paste.

[jerryinfla]

This spring/summer I'm growing 12 different varieties and all are new to me -- so 100%. I'm only in my third year of Florida vegetable gardening and still looking for the perfect tomato to eat and grow here. My fall crop will probably consist of mostly or all repeats.

[SharonRossy]

All of mine are new to me as I decided to start my own seeds again. I've got about 12 varieties going, many of them the black varieties, which are doing really well. Lots of flowers starting, in spite of our miserable and weird weather!

[carolyn137]

When I fell in 2004 and severed all four quads in the right leg and ended up in a walker, and still today, I could no longer grow the hundreds of plants and varieties that I used to.

So since then my job is to get seeds of ones that will be new to all or most and they are grown out by the several folks who help me with seed production and a few are grown here at home as tended by someone else.

So I'd say since the summer of 2005 100% are new. But even before that most of the varieties I grew were also new ones as well.

How else could Ihave grown about 3,600 varieties to date?

Carolyn

[TightenUp]

this season i'm growing over 50 plants and have about 35 varieties

my repeats are
sungold f1
husky cherry
black cherry
kelloggs breakfast
gmg pink
cherokee purple
kimberley(grew 2 yrs ago)
rutgers(my father grew yrs ago but prob diff strain)
big boy(father grew yrs ago)

[Wi-sunflower]

Before I found Tomatoville I had about 120 - 140 varieties found at various commercial web sites. Quite a few from the commercial SSE catalog. Thru a post on the SSE board I stumbled upon a link to TV. I went nutz with trades the first couple of years.

So those years my new-to-me varieties were probably well over 50% of what I grew. My variety offerings on my own web site went up rather dramatically by 90 - over 100 varieties each year. for a couple of years.

It's gotten to the point that I now have seed for over 1,000 varieties, tho only about 1/2 are listed on my web site due to various issues with weather and poor seed.

So now that I'm trying to be able to replace seed every 3-4 years and have too many varieties to grow ALL every year, I'm growing about 2/3 varieties for replacement and 1/3 new-to-me varieties. This year we started with a bit over 300 varieties but lost a few due to poor or no germination or unfortunately die off due to a too crowded greenhouse.

Carol

[WhippoorwillG]

I usually grow about half new ones, but this year I cranked the tomatoes up a notch and grew over 100 varieties, about 80% of which is new to me. And yes, as I have done many times before, I blame Tomatoville and Tomatobase for this obsession. v

[tomatoguy]

I have been gardening since 1967 and growing almost exclusively heirlooms, since about 1995. At this point, I would say my garden averages about 60-70% new to me varieties, each year. There are several varieties that have become staples, in my garden. Some of these are grown just about every year, barring crop failure or a late killing frost. (I experienced a little bit of both, this year.) Here are the varieties I try to plant at least a few of, every year:

Clear Pink Early
Berkeley Tie-Dye
Bradley
Mong
Mark Twain
Anahu
Earl's Faux
Roger's Best Black
Black Krim
Delicious
Golden Queen (USDA Strain)
Gregori's Altai
Cuostralee
Neves Azorean Red
Tennessee Heirloom
Early Large Red

mater

[Qweniden]

In October we bought a new home so I went from 30 plants max to easily 80 this year. So just the context of my situation is that just to reach 80 plants Ive grown a lot of new-to-me varieties. Next year I suspect about 20% to 40% will be "new to me".

[sprtsguy76]

I'd say up until this year it had to be in the 70-80% range. This year it is only about 40%. Problem is I have become so fascinated with crossing tomatoes that a lot of my space is used for that. But in a way actually they are all new to me varieties because none of my crosses are stable yet. Hmmmm. But that could change this year as I'm close on one.

Damon

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[PaulF]

Generally it is between 70-80% new every year.

[KathyDC]

This is only my second year growing tomatoes, and last year I only grew one tomato (Aunt Ruby's German Green). This year I'm growing about 14 different varieties, not including Aunt Ruby's.

It was a good tomato for me, but I wanted to try some different things. With my somewhat limited growing space, I suspect I might pick one or two of my favorites from this year to grow again, with the rest new varieties next year.

Kathy

[barkeater]

6.25%!
I didn't realize until now that I've only got one new variety, Delicious, out of the 16 varieties I'm growing.

[Riceloft]

Something like 75% are new to me this year. I expect I'll eventually level out at about 50% new to me each season.