I grow great tomatoes(very sweet, no lie) and for years have compared with others tomatoes ...I only water them when they really really need in so so soil and do not fertilize much ( several locations and climates..same results) Some plants really need lots of organic material in the soil Like cucumbers . So I make little spots for the ones that require loamy soil. And keep the ones that like more water close to each other.Economising water usage..I am basically a water miser. I'm also lazy so raised beds11?? OK so I need yard slave before that will happen. I grow in what even is handy. I can never be accused of over watering especially tomatoes. I only grow Early girl and better boy. Have tried Heirloom with mixed results so stick to my proven winners. (some grape tommy toes are great.) Red candy every year..though recently moved to Oregon and will have to change my technique..inconsistent sun has made for a poor tomato crop but I hear everyone had that problem. Lettuce you have to pick as soon as it is ready!! Letting it go past that and it starts turning bitter. So so with carrots, need more amending of soil here. Something here clobbers my baby sprouts ..esp.. broccoli!! Never had issues with beets even in poor soil..also water miser. Like with fruit/ citrus..you give too much water and it dilutes the flavor.

I live in Eldersburg, MD (15 minutes down the road from you) and I planted romaine lettuce that was wonderful for about 4 days. The problem was that we had only 1-2 weeks between frost and 90 degrees. From what I've seen and read you just can't grow lettuce like that. I plan to plant 8 or 9 different types of lettuce in September (see the types recommended in the other posts) and see what I can get before it frosts and kills them. I don't know how successful shading will be, we don't have any of that in our yard. The other suggestion that I have seen is to grow them in large pots that can be started very early (March) indoors and then taken outside when the temps are right...this way when the temps get too high, you can move them to shade or back inside under a grow light. We don't have space in the house for all of that, so I will try a fall harvest, but may stick to store bought.

Well, I kinda like the "Lots of Love" idea. Heh. That year I had such great success with my candy onions -- actually great success with ANY onion -- I did something that I don't know if it helped or not. I soaked them in Jerry Baker's "Root Revival Tonic": 1 tbsp of mild dish soap, 1/4 cup of strong tea and 1 tbsp epsom salt, mixed well into 1 gallon of water. This is from his book, "Old-Time Gardening Wisdom". I had used it to soak some bushes I was planting and instructions said up to 24 hours. I didn't soak the onions in it but about an hour. They made the water really "onioney" and I was worried I'd made a big mistake. But I set them out right away and those were the best and biggest onions I'd ever grown. I also didn't set them out till April 15, the approximate date of our last frost. We got a frost after that and I went out and covered them all. What concerns me is that sometimes the frost will cause the onions to think they've had another winter, and that triggers bolting to seed. Last year, I didn't soak the onions. I put the ones I got from Dawn out immediately, which was sometime in early March, I think. And then I planted Southern Belle Red later on. Of course it was a weird year and so hard to judge because of that. Got some decent-sized onions from Dawn's plants, but nothing like the previous year, others stayed small and a few of them went to seed. The Southern Belles that were planted later didn't bolt to seed but they didn't grow any, either. I dug them back up and will be planting them around April 15 to see if they'll go ahead and do anything. This year, whatever I end up getting, I'm going to try the soak again, and wait till April 15. I know this goes against standard practice, but it did work for me that one year. Maybe I was just having "Dumb cluck luck". We'll see what happens.

OSUEngineer, I generally have the same experience except when the weather is wildly fluctuating from too hot to too cold weekly. When that happens, often the bigger ones bolt. It is that whole biennial thing that happens once they're a certain size and then exposed to a week of very cold weather. It really doesn't happen that often though. The smallest ones usually aren't worth planting---I mean the really tiny ones. I usually just drop them into the path to blend in with the mulch. I like the medium-sized plants since they are the easiest to keep happy, but this year even th great big ones stayed happy. You know, if the onions are happy, I'm happy. Since we haven't had that erratic weather down here this year, our onions are way ahead of their usual schedule. It is sort of astonishing to see what happens when the onions haven't had to deal with much cold weather at all since they were planted. I rarely have had onions reach the 15-16 leaf stage in May, when they reach it at all, and this year all the larger ones just about have hit that point. I feel like I walk through a forest of onions every day, but I'm not complaining. I'm so glad to hear that buying direct from Dixondale is working out so well for you. It was a gentleman from Texas, now deceased, who used to post here on GW as GoneFishin' who convinced me to try ordering from Dixondale many years ago. He always had the most beautiful onions and so I decided to try ordering direct to see if I could get onions as nice as his. I think maybe this year I finally have onions as big and as happy and as healthy as his always were, but it has taken me the better part of 2 decades to get there. See how nice it can be when the weather cooperates? When a few of mine have died like yours did, I always assume they might have had a disease or got too dried out after being pulled or whatever. It happens. I think Dixondale overpacks to account for that. Kim, Normally, if you cut off the necks instead of curing the onions properly, the onions will not store as well, but much depends on the varieties too. With all the sweet southern type varieties (most short day and intermediate day length types fall in this category), they really don't store for a real long time anyway so it might not hurt to cut off their leaves. Would I do it? No. But, these are your onions and you're the Queen of your garden so you should feel free to do whatever you choose. To understand why curing them with the leaves on is important, I'll just say that as the onions cure, the necks dry and shrink down. During this process the onion skins/wrappers are drying and sort of shriveling and pulling tight. Allowing this to happen naturally takes a while but is important---there's more to gardening than just the growing---you want to maximize your harvest's usage via proper curing and storing. The wrappers/scales/skins (whatever you choose to call them) will help protect the onions in storage. If you cut off the leaves before the drying process finishes up, the skins may not dry properly and pull tight to protect the onions from bacteria. Normally, once the skins pull tight and dry out, then you can cut the leaves off about 1" above the bulb. The reason you don't cut closer is because cutting too close can allow bacteria to infiltrate. If you prefer and if your leaves have dried down really well without getting mildew or fungi or anything, you can braid the onions together like you do with garlic. With storage onions (generally the long day length types and a few of the intermediate types), it is very important to let them cure properly. If cured properly they can last in storage from 4 to 10 months, which is just awesome. Imagine never having to buy an onion at the grocery store all year. Cutting off the leaves too early without curing properly could interfere in the curing process and cause them to sprout really early instead of storing for months. So, weigh your options. If you're wanting to cut some to use the greens, try it with a few and see how they store and then you can determine if you want to try it with more of them. The best way to learn is to experiment to see what works for you in your particular conditions and circumstances. I learned how important proper curing was early in my adult gardening life by not curing properly----that is why I feel like it is so important. When I slowed down and stopped being so impatient and allowed them to cure properly on their schedule as they needed instead of on/by my schedule, my storage time of all varieties pretty much doubled. For me, there was a huge lesson in that. You know, I helped my dad all the time when I was a kid--toddler-sized, really, through young adulthood and I never really thought much about what he did or how he did it. I just did things the way he'd shown me or told me and that was that. I didn't question his methods. They worked. I might not have understood why they worked, but I knew they did. Later on, as an adult with my own garden and with Alzheimer's Disease stealing his mind, I wish I previously had asked a lot more questions and written down his answers while he still could provide those answers. By the time I wanted/needed to ask questions to learn why we did things a certain way, he no longer could answer those questions. It took me another 10 years on my own to develop a good understanding of it all---not so much an understanding of what he did, but of why he did it and why it mattered and why I needed to do it too. I always try to explain the why's when I can because he didn't explain them to me and that caused me, eventually, to have a much longer learning curve. Dawn