I am about 40 miles south of the cities and usually grow the Beefsteak & Brandywine varieties with great success. As long as I start them indoors by the end of February and harden them off slowly. I have tried the Earlygirl varieties in the past but found the overall yield was much smaller

I'm a bit further south than you, but I've had great success with Legend tomato. It's the earliest of the types I grow. I usually start from seed around April 1.I've found that cutting the bottoms out of the gallon or larger nursery pots and putting those over my tomato and pepper transplants gets them going faster. I leave them on for about 3 weeks or so. I take them off when the plant is growing strongly. Last summer I also tried some black planters paper around my pepper plants. Even though the deer ate every plant down to the bare stems over the 4th of July weekend the plants regrew and I had lots of peppers, though only about a half dozen ripe ones. I hadn't really expected to get any considering it was a pretty cool summer.
An MG I know said she stacks a couple of old tires around each plant to absorb heat during the day and release it at night. Same principal as the nursery pots. Good luck.

herbtester, I do love those Brandywines. One year I grew Brandyboys, and they were pretty good. I think they will definitely need some long hot sunny days, though. I will have to go study that seed starting thread and try decide if I am up to the challenge of starting my own plants. I used to have a cold frame--maybe I can get hubby to build me a new one. It worked well to harden off the seedlings.

Hostaholic, isn't it funny how the peppers seem to do better than the tomotoes? I always thought peppers would be hard to grow, but it seems I always get plenty of peppers. I have been thinking about trying the red plastic mulch under the tomatoes. For some reason they are supposed to respond to the reflected red light. A friend used to put old aluminum foil pie plates under her peppers to ripen them. I have never tried it, but maybe this year. I like the idea about the nursery pots. I have used plastic milk jugs, but I think I will have to start with larger plants.

Thanks.

All maturity periods are generalities and will vary due to differing conditions in gardens. Keep in mind that the maturity times are for after transplanting to the garden or container not from when seed is sown.

I have used Wall of Water units to warm the soil and get an earlier start on transplanting.

One way to find new varieties with earlier maturity times is to visit a veg. garden web site and read the descriptions to check maturity times.

Oregon Spring has a maturity time of 60 days. Glacier 45 days
Manitoba 58 days Early Girl 57 days First Ladies hybrid 68 days

Caspian Pink 80 days is my favorite but not really an early maturing variety.

Have you checked the tomato forum for suggesions?

I can highly recommend "German Red Strawberry" tomatoes. They have excellent flavor and have a HUGE flush early and later in the season. They don't like extreme heat. Great for slicing and canning - my favorite over Brandywine (though I LOVE Caspian Pink as well - they are a smidge later) The GRS start off looking like little wimpy things, weaker than their compatriots, then they'll take off and create good strong plants. They are an ox-heart type, so have a lovely shape ranging from classic tomato to fully heart (strawberry) shaped. YUM!

For sweet peppers, the orange varieties - Valencia, Cal Wonder Orange, Satsuma - tend to ripen much earlier than the others. For hot peppers, try Thai Dragons - killer from green to red! Squash and melons are hit an miss where you are, but I know there are some smaller winter squash hybrids of the biggies out there - believe there is a small-sized butternut that is supposed to ripen a bit earlier. For popcorn try Japanese White Hull-less, it makes a very small ear but it's prolific. Sweet corn? Well that I can't help with, though sticking again to smaller ear sizes should help. There are some very early cornichon style pickling cukes out there too!

-Marie

I am going through my seed catalogs and checking for the varieties you have mentioned. I guess I will have to give the seed starting thing a try.

I think I need to concentrate on getting the ground warm earlier for the corn, tomotoes, peppers, and squash. I am thinking of using the spun fabaric used for frost cover in a small hoop tunnel-thing, perhaps with the red or black plastic mulch on the ground. If anyone has any do-it-yourself methods/advice--I would really appreciate it. I really like CHEAP ideas! (or should I say "cost effective"?)

The hoop tunnel is for growing the plants. A good idea, IMO, for spring time. But if you just want to warm the soil, I don't think anything will beat clear plastic set right on the ground, black plastic(and weeds won't germinate) as a second choice.