2025 Variety Trials

About the 2025 trials

Take some time to review this digital catalog of available trials for this year.  Each trial contains two varieies that you will grow in your garden throughout the season.  You can select mutiple trials up to a maximum of 5 trials (with a total of 10 varieties of seed).  You may also request one free youth trial (in addition to your maximum of 5 trials) as long as supplies last.

Once you have identified the trial(s) you are interested in, head over to our registration site. There is a fee of $2 for each trial you enroll in.

Due to overwhelming response, registration for the 2025 trials are now closed.  

Participation requirements

Please only enroll in a variety trial if you can commit to sowing and tending the plants. We are relying on your experience growing these plants to inform our recommendations for Virginia! If you aren't certain you can commit to sowing and growing the seeds, please do not enroll in the trial.

While we do understand that there may be germination or garden problems that lead to failure, it is still expected that each participant will submit a year-end evaluation.  Failure to submit an evaluation may limit participation in future evaulations.

Example trial narrative

Susan enrolls in five trials (tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, basil, and sunflower). She receives a total of ten packets of seeds (two varieties for each trial). She also enrolls her daughter in the youth trial, so her daughter receives the additional two packets of cherry tomato seeds. She pays $10 total via the registration site.

Susan and her daughter start their tomatoes and basil indoors before their last frost date and direct sow their cucumbers, beans, and sunflowers. They care for the plants in their garden all summer, harvest and eat the produce, and keep notes on what they thought of each plant. Some varieties had more disease problems than others and they keep good records of this. At the end of the season, they submit their evaluation of their crops.

2025 Variety Trials

This is the page for our 2025 Variety Trails, for complete information about the Home Vegetable Variety Trials, please visit this page.  

If this is a Vegetable Variety Trial, why do you have herbs and flowers?

While herbs and flowers are not the main focus of these trials, we felt that inclusion of an herb and cut flower would be of interest to our home vegetable garden growers.