The Edible Gardens Project

Here are a couple of links from Gardenweb.com about some nurseries in NJ that people like:
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Favorite NJ nurseries (with soul)

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/njgard/msg040934311488.html

Ellen’s Somerset nurseries tour

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/njgard/msg0508452419490.html

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The latter is my own post about a trip a friend and I make a ritual every Spring; it is beautiful country and a nice day trip, includes vegie plants, but is not exclusively vegetable gardening.

For buying vegie plants I would recommend Rutgers sales day -
Their tomatoes are famous and bring gardeners from all over the state. Peppers too and I don’t know what all else.

An interesting article on the return and history of a famous New Jersey tomato, the Ramapo:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/dining/23toma.html?pagewanted=all

Excerpt:

What’s so special about the Jersey tomato?

Says  Pete Nitzsche, a Rutgers agent in Morris County. “What we’ve got here is a memory of how tomatoes used to taste.”

That memory is so powerful that when the seeds of a favorite tomato, the Ramapo, became unavailable in the late 1980s, the state’s gardeners began a letter-writing campaign, demanding that Rutgers bring it back.

Although many praise the Ramapo’s tangy, mouth-filling flavor, growers especially appreciated its vigor. Unlike some heirlooms, this hybrid variety was prolific and easy to grow. Linda Muccio, a retired teacher who grew up near Paterson, said that her Italian-born grandparents — all four of them — used home-grown Ramapos all summer and for sauce in September when she was a child, choosing them over Italian plum tomatoes because the yields were so much greater. “More tomatoes on the vine means more sauce for the winter,” she said. “Simple as that.”
More on nj tomatoes:
This article (from 2008) has information on timing of planting tomatoes and peppers:

http://www.ifplantscouldtalk.rutgers.edu/planttalk/article.asp?ID=24

Rediscovering the Jersey Tomato

http://njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/JerseyTomato.html

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BTW- do you’all know there is a PAUL ROBESON tomato?!
That is definitely one I want to grow. I’d like to know how that came about!
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