Winter Sowing

[bunkie]

blue, i say go for it also! like telsing said, our cold here also won't be gone till march plus. i have more seeds i want to try and will be planting them in the next day or two. seeing wet plants' results, i may even try a few squash seeds.

[wintersown]

Hi All,

I've been very busy these past few weeks and haven't looked in on HomeGrown Goodness in a few weeks. It's a delight to see a post on WS here.

I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to give it a try. The results are just stunning--when you begin you can't imagine that the seeds would survive winter to sprout, but they do, and the amazing thing is the high germination percentages. The vented containers do let in the wind and weather, they let out warmth which is actually perilous, but most importantly--they protect the seeds from critters and bugs, there's no washouts from downpours, no seed dessication from wind. There's also no hardening-off.

Topgrowth is slow in the beginning because of cold weather and reduced daylight hours but the roots grow amazingly large. You can transplant soon after sprouting. Most of my transplants go into the ground with barely their first set of leaves. Thickly sprouted seedlings need no thinning, just transplant via Hunk-O-Seedlings.

I do have seed lists available:
www.wintersown.org/wseo1/Seed_Lists.html

And most important, read the FAQs.
wintersown.org/wseo1/FAQs.html

Pull up a comfy chair and sit back for a while; the FAQs are written in an easy-to-read manner, they are all illustrated--some with photos and some with majorly cheezy clipart, lol. (Photos are worth a thousand words but cheezy clipart says it in ten.)

Good luck!

Trudi

[greeneyes]

Trudi,
High germination percentages is right..First year I tried wintersowing,I put a whole pack of poppy seeds in one gallon jug...It didn't look like that many seeds,they are so small,but I think there must have been around 100 or so seeds because when i transplanted them I had poppies every where,in every available container and flower pot that i had,in the ground and even gave some away....That was the first time I had ever been able to grow poppies,never had any luck with them at all....It was the most enjoyable experience that I had ever had in growing something..Dawn

[Penny]

Thanks for the links Trudi.

Lots of GREAT information there.

[sammyqc]

This reminds me, I have to try wintersowing this year. Especially with poppies. I have packets in the freezer that I forget about ever year. Maybe I'll still get some germination from them if I wintersow them.

[bluelacedredhead]

I've scrounged one container, lol

But I remembered tonight that my new neighbour put lots of plastic 4 litre juice containers out in her recycling a few weeks back. They had young children so I imagine this is something they use on a regular basis. If I see her tomorrow, I'm going to ask if they can save me a few for Wintersowing.

And I'm scrounging paper coffee cups for transplanting seedlings into.

If I could find my gardening notes, I'd know what I had success with last year as far as WS? This year, I think I'll do it to try to jumpstart my new herb garden and use the shoplight to start the frost tender annuals.

[bluelacedredhead]

I found a six compartment muffin container with lid. I'm going to do
Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage
Kale
Celeriac
Ruby Chard
Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli
And a winter squash X that someone sent me (lots) of seeds to try.

6 Wintersown Veggies are better than none.

[bunkie]

yay blue! so glad you found a container!

[bluelacedredhead]

Yeah, now listen to what I did with said container....

I labelled it, filled it with seed starter, seeds and moisture. Slit holes in the lid for ventilation and promptly knocked in upside down on the floor.

Should I just jumble the labels to match the Melange de Seed???

[ceara]

Well at least the squash will be recognized easy!

[flowerpower]

Blue, I did the same thing one time. Except it was all mater seeds. lol Were you able to salvage any of the smaller seeds?

[bunkie]

hey blue, check this out...

wintersown.org/wseo1/Winter_Sowing_in_a_Baggie.html

what a great idea! everyone has baggies, right???!

[bluelacedredhead]

Lunchbags for Squirrels~!!

ACtually, I despise ziplock bags. I try not to buy those things. In this day and age of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, I fail to understand why plastic bags are so popular? It just contributes to excess waste... (Sorry...excess food packaging and Cellphones....bane of my existence...)

But yes Bunkie, you're correct. Most people do have ready access to plastic storage bags, LOL

FP, I didn't worry about the mixture. I will be able to tell some seedlings from others. Like Ceara says, the squash will be easily recognizable. I'll just let nature take it's course. Perhaps I will find that I've stumbled (pun intended) into great companion plant combinations.

[ottawagardener]

Oh boy, I did this with a couple packs of WS but they were all the same seed so we'll see if sowing way too deep and way too shallow has any effect

[ceara]

We use Medium size non-zipper freezer bags for starting tomatoes! But we reuse the bags as much as possible, unless they get torn. Once the tomatoes germinate, we move a single plant to a baggie with minimal potting mixture. As the tomato grows we add more and more potting mixture to cover the stems and encourage additional roots. The bags are set on trays which than can be moved in and out of the sun porch until it's warm enough to harden off outdoors. Then when it is time to transplant outside we just fold down the bag sides and pull the whole plant out.

I started some long-desired Delphiniums finally for winter sowing. They are out on the front unheated porch now because I can't put them directly outside yet because with all the snow shoveling and the piles of 4-5 feet of snow, there's really no safe place to put them to prevent access by the dogs, snow shovels or the big plow that comes to clear the driveway. lol I've never been able to germinate Delphiniums before, so I hope this year will be successful now that I know more about how to germinate them.

We won't be starting other seeds until 2nd week of March. Not long now!