Home Vegetable Variety Trials
What are the Home Vegetable Variety Trials?
There are different varieties of your favorite vegtables and flowers! For example, "Teddy Bear" is a dwarf sunflower with puffy, dark yellow flowers, while "Gummy Bear" is a variety of dwarf sunflower with light yellow flowers. Choosing a well-adapted variety can lead to higher yields, tastier produce, and less need for chemical pest and disease control.
Virginia Cooperative Extension and Extension Master Gardeners frequently receive inquiries about the best varieties for their area. The adoption of a citizen science based approach to vegetable trialing to address these questions will allow us to have the answers for Virginia Home Gardeners. Information about plant performance will be used by Extension to assist Virginia home gardeners in selecting crops and cultivars.
Varieties were slected from sources available to home gardeners and include both tried and true varieties as well as promising new varieties.
How do I get involved?
All Virginia Home gardeners are welcome to participate, whether you are a gardening novice or an Extension Master Gardener!
1. Sign up
Information for the 2026 season is on this page. This year everyone who elects to participate will receive the same combination of seeds. One trail per address.
The cost is $6, which helps us cover shipping and the cost of seed.
Each trial is enough seed for a 4' X 4' square garden, but you don't need to plant them all.
2. Grow your trials
Grow your trial(s) throughout the season!
Download and print a recordkeeping sheet to have all the information you need to submit for the end-of-season evaluations. You will be noting things like germination, disease susceptibility, yield, and flavor.
3. Submit your evaluation
At the end of the growing season (September 1 - October 31) electronically submit your evaluations and data collected on your recordkeeping sheet.
At the end of the year, we will compile all of the results from across the state into a publication to help know what varieties are the best for Virginia Home Gardeners!
This progam is conducted for eduational purposes only. No profits are made from this program.
For more information on this program, contact Ed Olsen, Consumer Horticulture Extension Specialist; edolsen@vt.edu.
VCE Publications related to the Home Vegetable Variety Trials
426-480 - Vegetables Recommended for Virginia
Webpages for the previous year's trials
Language Translator
Home Garden Information Center
Learn more about:
Contact
If you have questions, please contact your local VCE office.