seeds

Burpee’s Garden Sown™ Direct-Sow Crops: First Impressions

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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.)

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Seed-Starting Guide, Part Three

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It’s February, so really time to think about starting plants from seed, if not necessarily time to actually start them. (If you are itching to get going, I wrote a post a while back about which seeds to sow in February. Hint: not tomatoes.) Let’s continue with the guide, which I hope you’re finding a practical help to this complicated subject. (Parts One and Two also available.)

Choosing Seeds

If you have not already impulsively ordered a bunch of seeds without concern for whether they’re the easiest ones to grow (in which case you are a person after my own heart), now is a good time to go shopping. In most cases these days that means shopping online. You can certainly buy seeds at garden centers and even supermarkets, though they may not be on display this early, but you get a much better selection by visiting the full catalog of a seed company website.

I’ve written a post about choosing a seed catalog to order from, so won’t repeat that information here. If you are confused by the jargon used in seed catalogs, Jon Traunfeld explains it in this post.

But which plants are best for novice seed-starters to grow from seed? First of all, you shouldn’t always let ease dictate what you choose to grow. If you like a vegetable (or a flower) and want to grow it, you may be willing to take on the challenges involved. Some seeds are more cooperative than others, however. Of the many veggies that are best started indoors, here are a few I recommend for beginners:

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Heat-tolerant vegetable crops and cultivars for the changing climate

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Our food-growing spaces allow us to grow healthy produce, connect with Nature, and hopefully save money. They are also a solid response to climate change and COVID.

My blog articles this year will be about climate-resilient food gardening. Each month I’ll address one or more aspects of how climate change is affecting our food gardens and changes we can make to reduce global warming and ensure a future of healthy harvests.

HGIC has a new Climate-Resilient Gardening section (thanks to Christa Carignan!) where you’ll find more information on these topics. We plan to continually update content and add new pages. And please check out the University of Maryland Extension’s new Healthy Garden, Healthy You project that connects food gardening and human health.

This first installment includes an overview of how our mid-Atlantic climate is changing and a look at heat-tolerant crops and cultivars. Future articles will explore low-dig soil prep, composting food scraps, peat alternatives, heat stress in plants, reducing plastics, and “hardening” our garden spaces.

Resiliency is mentioned a lot with respect to climate change. A climate-resilient garden can both withstand and recover from warmer, more extreme weather. Resiliency can also mean transforming how we grow food by creating and sharing a community knowledgebase of new ideas and techniques.

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Seed starting and soil testing: a Master Gardener outlines his spring gardening progress

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In mid-February, I started my Gypsy, Monty, and Green Magic broccoli, Snow Crown cauliflower, Lacinato kale, several types of lettuce, and some Big Blue salvia.

Italian flat-leaf parsley was started in mid-January. Most of these transplants will be planted in the garden or containers in the first week of April after hardening off for at least a week in my cold frame. My pre-sprouted snap peas will be planted in late March. Planting dates for central Maryland can be found here on the Home and Garden Information Center website.

Kent's seedlings

In early March, I will be making a trip into Baltimore to get some other seeds for Sugar Ann snap peas, Jade string beans, and a couple of other things. In late March, I will be planting some seed potatoes in containers, just to see what the yield is. On March 27th, seven to eight weeks before the spring plant out date of mid-May, I will be planting Galine eggplant and several different types of peppers.

In previous years, I’ve planted tomatoes six weeks prior to my plant out date, but they have been leggy. This year, I’m planting them on April 10 for planting in the garden and containers on May 15.

My latest soil test, done in May of 2019, says to incorporate one pound of nitrogen (N) per 1,000 square feet. Only N is required since the beds contain the optimum amount of phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) and are at the correct pH.

To determine what fertilizer needs to be added to my beds which are 32 or 40 square feet, I will have to convert this recommendation to determine the amount of urea (46-0-0) to apply to my beds. This is fairly simple to do, using the following equation. Amount of N/.46 (% of N in urea) x beds size/1000 square feet. This yields the following: 2.17 pounds of urea x 0.032 for a 32 square foot bed equals .069 pounds of urea or 1.1 ounces. I guess I’ll have to get out my kitchen scale.

Alternatively, the University of Delaware suggested 2.5 pounds per 1000 square feet or 2.5 x .032 = 1.28 ounces of urea. This calculation works for almost all recommendations from soil test labs. However, if in doubt, you can always Ask a Gardening Expert at HGIC.

By Kent Phillips, University of Maryland Extension, Howard County Master Gardener

What can you start from seed in February?

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I hope all of you are busy planning your vegetable gardens and getting those seeds ordered! If you haven’t purchased seeds yet, now is the time. A lot of seed companies are experiencing larger than usual interest and several have had to temporarily stop accepting orders. Many varieties of seeds are running out. So jump on it!

If you already have your seeds and your plan of action, you may be champing at the bit to get started. Those of us who start seeds indoors feel the urge to play in the dirt (or the soilless seed-starting mix) even in winter, but it’s often not a good idea. When I began gardening, I started many plants far too early, and was sorry later when I had enormous seedlings that couldn’t be put in the ground until the weather cooperated. So as a former offender, I will state clearly: DO NOT START YOUR TOMATO PLANTS IN FEBRUARY. In fact, do not start your tomato plants until late March or early April, and you will be much happier, and so will your plants.

But what CAN I start, you ask, with a pitiful, yearning look in your eyes. I know. I really do. Here’s a  list. It may not include anything you’re actually planning to grow, but I’ll give you another suggestion at the end. Here we go.

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Planting Vegetables in May

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Maybe April is the cruelest month (especially this year) but early May can be tough on vegetable gardeners who are raring to go. You’ve got your spring crops in the ground and growing; maybe if you got an early start you’re even harvesting. But what about all those delicious summer veggies? If you’re lucky, you have some tomato plants, maybe some peppers or eggplant; you’ve got bean seeds and squash seeds and more. And you have well-prepared soil to plant them in. But when is it safe?

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When can I plant these tomato and tomatillo TREES that I started at least a week too early?

When people ask me this, which they do a lot around this time of year, I usually sound a note of caution. But really, there’s no one clear answer. It depends on factors we have no control over, and it depends on how risk-averse you are. Many of us prefer to put a planting date on the calendar; even better if it’s an easy one to remember. St. Patrick’s Day: plant your peas and potatoes. Mother’s Day: time for the tomatoes to go in. But it’s not that simple. Continue reading →