Thank you for sending a photo! 

This appears to be a grasshopper egg pod. Grasshopper eggs are typically laid in clusters, called egg pods, laid just below the surface of the soil. The egg pod is covered by a coating of soil particles mixed with a glutinous substance excreted by the female as she lays her eggs in the soil. Each egg pod contains 2-100+ eggs, depending on the grasshopper species. The eggs are quite tough and very resistant to cold, if the ground is not disturbed. 

These eggs are in a state of diapause (a period of suspended activity, similar to hibernation) until they emerge sometime this spring.

We have over 40 known grasshopper species in Maryland.

If grasshoppers are a usual annual problem in this garden, you may want to consider using row covers and/or insect screening around vulnerable plants to exclude the grasshoppers, and/or Nosema locustae, a biological control that produces infection from a protozoan. It is relatively slow acting and only effective against young grasshoppers. Use allowed in Certified Organic crop production. 

Please let us know if you have an further questions.