Six years ago, I visited Burpee’s Fordhook Farm in Pennsylvania as part of the International Master Gardener Conference. We toured their trial garden, and one of the crops I noted was a direct-sow tomato plant. This is an exciting innovation to vegetable gardeners, because it means not having to start seeds indoors and raise your tomato plants under lights until it’s time to transplant them outdoors. You could just plant the seeds directly in the ground and still harvest your tomatoes at the same time as conventionally grown ones. I decided I had to try this when the seeds were available.
Well, it’s 2025, and the seeds have appeared in Burpee’s catalog, so I bought some. Here’s the lineup: two tomatoes and three peppers. I got seed for the Rain Drops tomato, a cherry (claims 70 days to maturity from sowing), and the Sow Sweet snacking pepper (60 days). Here’s how growing them went for me and what I thought of the results. (Note: this is nothing like a real field trial, but rather one small-scale gardener’s experience in one year.)
If you thought growing tropical plants like ginger couldn’t be successful in Maryland, think again! Ginger (Zingiber officinale) can be grown throughout the state, including Garrett County! Although it takes a long season to grow, starting it indoors and moving it outside will allow you to have a plentiful supply of ginger to use in savory dishes, baked goods, sweets, and beverages!
Ginger is a tropical plant that requires warmth, humidity, and a growing season of 8 to 10 months. Since winters are too cold and ginger dies below 50°F., it needs to be treated as an annual, and gardeners have even successfully overwintered the plant indoors.
To start growing ginger, make sure you are choosing the correct ginger, culinary ginger rhizomes. They can be purchased from a nursery or grocery store. However, some ginger can be treated with a growth inhibitor at the grocery store. When purchasing the rhizomes, look for nodules along the rhizome where the root is actively trying to grow shoots.
After purchasing the correct ginger, sprout the rhizomes indoors in late winter or early spring. This time period is around 6-8 weeks before the last frost. However, I have found that starting earlier and using a grow light will allow the plant to mature faster. To sprout the rhizomes, soak them overnight in a shallow tray and then place them in a shallow tray or pot with loose, well-draining soil in a warm (70-80°F.) area. Using a warming mat helps speed up the propagation process. Once the ginger has sprouted, transplant it into a large container, at least 12 inches deep. Ginger rhizomes grow horizontally, so the width of the pot is more important than the depth. Using 5-10 gallon grow bags has been very successful in my garden throughout the years I have grown it!
Visible eyes sprouted after several weeks. These will now move into a deeper container under a grow light. Photo credit: Sarah Llewellyn Shoots started in late winter, growing with help from a grow light until warmer weather arrives. Photo credit: Sarah Llewellyn
Once all threats of frost have passed, slowly acclimate the ginger to outdoor conditions. The ginger can remain in the pot, allowing for a longer season because you can move the plant indoors in the fall on cooler days. You can also plant directly in the soil. However, using pots or grow bags does make harvesting the rhizomes much easier at the end of the season.
Throughout the season, keep the soil moist but not soggy and fertilize with a balanced fertilizer (contains roughly equal percentages of nitrogen, Phosphorus, and potassium) monthly. Ginger grows slowly, but you will be able to see leafy growth throughout the summer. It will likely not have a long enough season to flower, but the plant will still produce usable rhizomes. Ginger can be kept at room temperature for a few days, or it can be kept in the refrigerator unpeeled for a month or more. It can be frozen whole, sliced, or minced for long-term storage. It can also be dehydrated for extended storage.
Ginger at season’s end, attempting to grow flowers as it dies off due to cold weather in late October. Photo credit: Sarah Llewellyn
Harvest usually occurs in the fall before frost, typically in late October in Allegany Co. To harvest, use a garden fork to gently lift the plant to separate the rhizomes. If the plant is in a pot, turn it over to remove the whole plant and spray off excess soil. Plants can be overwintered inside, but will become dormant. During dormancy, keep the soil moist and maintain temperatures around 70 degrees. During this dormant period, the plant may lose its leaves, or you can cut them back to the soil level. Growth should resume in early spring when you move the plant back outside after the last frost. Ginger harvested from the garden in late October. These were grown in a 5-gallon grow bag. Photo credit: Sarah Llewellyn
Overall, ginger is a long-season crop, but it can be grown throughout the state with early-season sprouting and can also be prolonged in a greenhouse or brought inside. So, the only thing left is to decide what recipe you will want to use with your fresh ginger!
By Sarah Llewellyn, Agent Associate and Master Gardener Coordinator, Allegany County, University of Maryland Extension.
Q: I found a group of caterpillars on my blueberry plants. Some branches were completely stripped of leaves. I have several plants around my yard such as milkweed so hope to ID these before taking action to eradicate.
Yellownecked caterpillars feeding on a blueberry bush. Photo credit: Ask Extension
A: These are Yellownecked caterpillars, a native species that can feed on azalea and various other host plants. They won’t cause severe damage to the plant, even if it’s defoliated, by chewing leaves this late into the growing season. However, if you want to remove them, just pluck them off by hand or knock them into a container of soapy water to kill them. (Or, just knock them off into a dry container and toss them elsewhere for birds and other animals to eat. Yellownecked caterpillars are preyed upon by various insects and other animals, so some will be eaten before they mature.
No pesticide is needed in this case, but if they cause problems in a future year, young, smaller caterpillars can be treated with Btk (Bacillus thuringiensis variety kurstaki), a derivative of naturally- occurring soil bacteria that kills caterpillars without harming other insects. Older caterpillars are not as vulnerable to Btk, so if you miss that life stage and only find them when they’re larger (as pictured here), they can be managed with a spinosad application instead. Spinosad is a relatively low-risk insecticide derived from a soil microorganism and approved for use in organic farming. Follow all product label directions for use, and ensure the chosen product can be used on edible plants.
By Miri Talabac, Horticulturist, University of Maryland Extension Home & Garden Information Center. Miri writes the Garden Q&A for The Baltimore Sun and Washington Gardener Magazine. Read more by Miri.
Have a plant or insect question? The University of Maryland Extension has answers! Send your questions and photos to Ask Extension. Our horticulturists are available to answer your questions online, year-round.
Last year, I accidentally introduced bacterial leaf spot into the pepper beds in my own community garden plot and the Derwood Demo Garden, probably through infected seed. BLS is a common disease of peppers that spreads quickly in warm, humid weather (a.k.a. our summers) and can be devastating to an entire crop, especially in small gardens. Lesions on leaves expand until the foliage drops; lesions on fruits make them unattractive though still edible. Cooler, drier weather (the kind we mostly don’t get) can slow or even stop the disease, but otherwise, the only solution once it really gets going is to pull the plants. Trash them, don’t compost them, because while the disease doesn’t linger long in soil, it can last quite a while in plant debris. This also means that garden cleanup is important. Read more about BLS and how to prevent and manage it here.
Q. I have this “something” growing on my basil and some flowers in my garden. At first, I thought it was eggs from an insect, but when I scraped them, they appeared to actually be part of the plant. Did some kind of bacteria create these nodes? I was hoping you would be able to identify them and perhaps give me a solution.
A. Fortunately, these “bumps” are not a problem and don’t require any solution. They are adventitious roots that sometimes grow along the stem of a plant. They are not part of the actual root system but would grow into roots if covered with soil. They often appear in very wet or humid conditions, and we definitely have had higher than usual humidity! The following University Extension link will provide additional information. https://extension.umd.edu/resource/bumps-or-swelling-vegetable-stems/
Have a plant or insect question? The University of Maryland Extension has answers! Send your questions and photos to Ask Extension. Our horticulturists are available to answer your questions online, year-round.
No, I’m not talking about my fellow Master Gardeners here. (Though, hurray, go us!) I’m talking about plants (specifically edible plants) that “volunteer” or spring up unasked in your garden. What are they, how did they get there, are they worth keeping? Your questions answered!
Are gardens and landscapes ever finished? Completed? Done?
Of course not. Gardens are in a constant state of change. Some of them (vegetable gardens, for example) we plant anew each year. Other areas we might fill up with trees and shrubs and perennials, and think we’ve created something permanent. But… trees grow, and shade grows with them. Plants die, or plants get bigger or spread faster than we expected. Unpredictable seedlings come up, and might be weeds, or might be something new and exciting that found its way in.
I’ve had some significant gardening changes this year, along with the normal state of constant flux. For one thing, we took down a tree near our driveway (it was an invasive species, and also persistently dropped things on our cars in a super-annoying way) and now we have an area in pretty full sun where it was partial before. So of course we’ve put in a new vegetable garden!
View of the new garden in early June
I had a perennial bed there, but it had become choked with liriope and Spanish bluebells, so I dug those out and threw them away, and transplanted what flower bulbs and native perennials I could locate during the winter months. My son constructed the new garden, which has a base of landscape fabric and pea gravel (to discourage anything from re-emerging from underneath) and consists of three 3’x6’ raised beds that are close to 18” high (no landscape fabric under these), plus plenty of room for containers. It’s surrounded by a six-foot wire fence to discourage animal invaders. The raised beds are made with pressure-treated lumber (now considered to be safe for food gardens) and handy concrete corners they slot into. The soil in the raised beds was dug from the surrounding area (some excavation was necessary to put in that base layer) and supplemented with homemade compost. Some weeds are popping up (along with volunteer tomatoes and mystery cucurbits), but I’m glad not to have to buy topsoil and compost
I’m going to use the new garden for vegetable plants I have trouble growing in my community garden plot, because of pests and diseases that are hard to keep at bay there. This year I’m growing beans and winter squash, plus a few other things! It’ll be interesting to find out how much produce I can grow in a relatively small space.
The herb spiral in early June, with new plants
In another area of my yard I have an herb spiral that was put in seven or eight years ago, next to a gravelly slope where I’d had great success growing rosemary. But this was a particularly bad winter for that marginally hardy Mediterranean herb, and when I checked in early spring, all of the plants were very, very dead. I’ve replanted new rosemary in pretty much the same place (sunny, great drainage, protected from wind) so hopefully it will live at least a few more years.
The herb spiral itself had been taken over by lavender, so it was basically a glorious lavender hill, with no room for anything else to grow. I don’t think the winter completely killed the plants (lavender is surprisingly tough, at least the hardier cultivars) but they were badly enough off that I decided it was time to take them out. I’ve added new soil into the herb spiral and begun planting more herbs. No lavender this time! I have room for it in other places where it can grow into shrubs.
Marjoram, thyme, and lemon verbena in the recovered herb spiral
Changes happen every year in the garden—big ones or small ones, but always some. Enjoy the early summer weather as you transform your own gardening spaces, one small task or one giant refreshment at a time.
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
