Mid-Atlantic - Best Cultivars

The University of Maryland Extension has a great publication titled "Recommended Vegetable Cultivars for Maryland Home Gardens".

The easiest way to tell you how to access this information for your area is to Google:

"Best Vegetable Cultivars for ____________" (insert your state or DC)

or

"Best Vegetable Varieties for ____________"

Make sure to specify Vegetable or you'll get a TON of flower varieties.

Penn State has a very good fruit guide that is readily accessed, as well as a really good pdf file for veggies.

Kim - I loved this! I found the U of Illinois Extension site AFTER I'd started my first year. I wonder if we could have a sticky with the sites with this information about best varieties for your area/state somewhere...

Those of us with little to no experience might assume that what is available for purchase in our area (both seed and transplant) are the best varieties for our area, but after reading the forum for almost a year, I would say that's not always the case especially in chain-type stores.... Good to ask where transplants are actually brought in from... (I believe my Ace Hardware uses a local nursery vs. trucking them in from somewhere else, for example).

Here are some U of Illinois Extension pages I've found...
Uof Illinois Extenstion- Tips on Growing Specific Vegetables
U of Illinois Extension - Herb Gardening
U of Illinois Extension - Veggie Basics (includes link to veggie directory)

If you want to compare varieties once you've narrowed it down, Cornell University has an awesome database with reviews: vegvariety.cce.cornell.edu

I use this every year after I finish drooling over the seed catalogs to determine which things are REALLY worth drooling over.