How's your winter sowing going #2?

OK ----let's continue

Karen

I'm here!!

Susan

Moi o ci - or however you spell it - I took spanish. I have all kinds of seeds up - its so cool. Then last night I WS'd herbs and cucumbers, etc. and used 1 lousy bread bag that wasn't bleached to tie up a container and don't you know it. The critters dumped over a bunch of containers and shredded the bread bag - which only had a scent on it - no food. They are sooooo annoying. I had so much trouble last year with dahlia tubers begin dug up every single blankety blank night. It ended up killing some of them. I'm guessing its raccoons but it could also be skunks. Anyway.

I chickened out on putting more dahlia seeds outside so put them in front of the garage window. I have one set that's been outside since February, the 2nd set went in the garage. We'll see what works.

Andrea

Hey Andrea have you had a kid ride up into one of your pots and plow his bike tire into it?? I have!! The human sabatours!!

Yes, I'm going to start my Dahlias soon too.

Susan

I hope to start planting out a few things into my beds today. I have poached eggs, achillea, and lupines that are ready to go out. We're supposed to get rain, possible storms again tomorrow so I hope they don't get beaten down into the soil tomorrow. But I have to get started sometime, and our spring forcast always includes storms so I figure this is as good a time as any.

Karen

Are you all going to be putting things out before your last frost date and then just cover if you have frost? I am unsure of what I'm going to do..

Susan

Don't ask me what to do!!! I'm winging it. I'll be on here asking the same thing with the first frost. Any veterans who can answer?

Karen

I'll be doing the same - I figured I've got to learn sometime, so this years successes and failures will play into next years successes!

Yes, I'm planting out my seedlings! If you don't start planting them out now, their roots will become entangled and it will be harder to separate them. Also, plant out now to avoid the Summer heat. Much better for you & your plants!

No need to cover them up because they are already hardy and use to the fluctuations in temperatures. That's the beauty of wintersowing!! Keep the faith!!!

Hope you don't mind stupid questions: What's the latest I could wintersow? Somewhere in this forum, someone said that as long as it's cool enough at night to require shirt sleeves, that you can still wintersow. Shirley, since you live so close by, do you have any thoughts on this?

Thanking you in advance, karen

On the GW container count, we call the end of April the end of winter sowing. May 1 starts the spring sowing season (same techniques, modified for warmer weather). That is, of course, very zone dependent.

I haven't planted anything out yet, but radishes, lettuces, cabbages, Dianthus and perennial Alyssum are ready, and will go out soon.

It poured all day here (much needed), so I sowed 98 cells.

49 cells, 3 Abelmoschus manihot 'Lemon Slice'
7 cells, 4-5 Rumex sanguineus
14 cells, 8-9 Millium effusum 'Aureum'
28 cells, ~50 Thymus serpyllum

I have no idea what I'll do with all those Abelmoschus if they germinate.

It's supposed to be 55° and sunny tomorrow. I am hoping to plant out some w/s stuff that looks big enough. I also want to plant out my tomatoes in wall-o-waters. I've updated some of my info http://lakehousecreations.com/winter_sowing.htm

Wow Anitabryk2....it rained cold and snowed here in New Jersey today....do you have your WOWs already in place keeping the ground warm before you put the tomatoes in the ground? I haven't even set my little tomatoes out to the greenhouse yet...I still have them under the lights. Mine are still tiny though...I only have about 1/3 of them with two sets of true leaves. I am planning on 2 more weeks under lights, and then 10 days in the greenhouse, and then one week outside (with the possiblity of putting them back in the greenhouse if it freezes at night. Maybe I'll follow your lead and hasten the pace for a few of them under milk jugs and try to get some in by April 25 or so. HM

Donn, thanks - I think our zones are very similar. Will sow the seed appropriate for wintersowing first tonight and put out under a tent of 6" gauge wire fencing. Last year was a busy time for local racoons here.

Anita and Herb, ignoring conventional directions for seed germination sure takes some getting used to. But then, long ago, we had some elderly neighbors from rural Tennessee who were doing what their families had always done: sow tomato seed directly in the ground 4 weeks before last frost under inverted wooden (and drafty) fruit baskets.

Well, back to lurking - very useful thread.

I can Winter sow till the end of May; up North here on the mountains. Last year a late frost on June 1st, 2nd & 3rd killed a lot tomato babies 'cause I thought that our last frost date was May 4th (it's supposed to be!;) and I started to harden them off on the 20th of May. And planted out fully on the 27th. This year I'll be watching out & listening to the weather reports no matter how off-the-wall they are! They'll probably be giants by then; as the tomato seedlings are 2" tall with true leaves already.

This year I'm going to use garden cloth on the seedlings, plastic milk jugs too & black plastic to warm the soil up first. Composted manure delivers a lot of heat too, which is going on the soil before the black plastic.

~* Robin

Well - I put two sprouts of tomato in my WOW's. This will be a learning experience. I also setup my starter house and put my coleus and asparagus fern in it. Again - a learning experience. I figure, what doesn't make it, I'll note and not repeat next year.

I think I'll experiment too this year. I have 36 seedlings...and only need 6-8 plants. I am of course sharing with friends and neighbors but even so....have about 8 seedlings I can play with. I will move those to the greenhouse this week, and start warming up the tomato bed with aged manure. I plan to set out some milk jugs for 3-4 days to warm some small spots and use as hot caps...so we'll see what happens if I get tomatoes in by April 25 with a last frost date of May 10. Next year I'll try the elderly Tennessean method just for kicks.

Thanks to all. HM

HM, Elderly Tennessean method??

Oh, I see. But I thought the best tomatoes were from New Jersy?! Near Rutgers.

The best tomatoes, bar none, are from your own garden, sun-warm right off the vine. My first memory of one of these was very Godfather-like, with my Grandfather in Indianapolis, when I was a little boy. He had a tomato arbor, with a wrought iron bench under it, and we'd take a salt & pepper shaker out there and eat fresh picked 'maters like apples. Yum! Ever since, I've been addicted to fresh picked home grown tomatoes, whether from seed, or store-bought starts. Accept no substitutes.

I agree, donn. I never even buy tomatoes at the grocery anymore except occasionally grape tomatoes for salad in winter. I love home grown ones, but those grocery store ones gross me out

Karen

Oops I never 'watched' this thread so I didn't catch your comment soulgarden. Sorry! Kids on bikes - they spend most of their time riding on the lawn despite being told over and over not to. If we had sun it wouldn't be so bad but with a shady lawn they can wear paths.

Here's what happened with the dahlias. The ones on the deck finally have started germinating even tho we've had at least 4-5 nights of below freezing weather. I am not getting a 100% germination rate yet on them but I still have plenty. The ones in the garage have about the same germination rate but are spindly and are leaning to the light. A few seedlings are just making their first set of true leaves. So today they are going outside to join the outdoor brethren. Somebody mentioned somewhere that the WS seeds never look pale and spindly and that sure is true. I should have trusted Ma Nature to germinate when she was ready. I can't actually imagine planting out those tiny little things, but if you say so I guess I can start a few of them. I was going to do the clump method anyway as some of these seedlings are so fragile looking - like the poppies. I'm thinking I should hold the dahlias till our last frost date for sure. Those I was going to put out individually or maybe snip off the ones that need to be thinned out. Depends on how big they are I guess.

Naturewalker - I can sympathize - we had a foot of snow last year on May 1. It bent the trees running with sap over to the ground and caused a lot of damage. I don't think I really lost a lot of perennials though because the snow blanketed everything.

I started spritzing the stinky deer repellent yesterday in prep for warding off the real marauders. Give them one chance and they can destroy a bed. Tall rats.

Dave 47

The BEST tomatoes are home grown, vine ripened, heirloom tomatoes...grown in Jersey because the conditions are ideal. Even Jersey can grow bad tomatoes if they use the hybrid seeds developed to look pretty, last long...and taste bland!

I grew bad tomatoes last year because the lumber yard way up the street closed 2 years ago. When they closed, they removed protective barriers (railroad ties) and I had a spring/summer full of lumberyard parking lot runoff that washed away 15 years of amended soil and replaced it with silt. It has taken an awful lot of work to rebuild our beds with barriers and re-amend the soil. I am very concerned about the content of the soil so am moving the tomatoes this year to an area that didn't get damaged, and will plant flowers for a few years and continue to add compost to the beds (and get the soil tested as well!) before I put any food crops back there.

Who knew that moving a half-dozen railroad ties would wreak havoc on the gardens of 6 families down the street?

HM

Herb, Everything we pick up is connected to everything else.

I once worked with a horticulture graduate from Rutgers. Believe me, I heard a few times were the best tomatoes grow! (But, yes, I'm partial to my back yard)

Well all....my winter sowing days have not been my finest hours. After carefully nuturing coleus...I left them in the plastic greenhouse today and didn't lift the windows and think I fried them. A few may have survived. I watered them good and will have to hope for the best. Everything else appears to have survived. We are headed out on a 4 day college shopping trip...and since the nights aren't supposed to drop below 43 will leave the north window open...keeping the rest protected from the sun but with plenty of air. Impatiens, butterfly weed, scabiosa, cosmos, peppers, tomatoes,( just some... most of these are in a neighbors greenhouse with her carefully tending them while we are gone) nasturtiums, hosta seedlings, marigold seeds just germinating.....wish me luck...I sure would hate to have all of that hard work go to waste. HM

herbmoxie--

So how did your college shopping trip go and did the little seedlings survive?

I was wondering myself how I can possibly tear myself away from my WSing project to take some needed trips.

t.

Hi Tabasco - the seedlings survived and even thrived....but the coleus are gone forever. I guess that is my cue to try rooting from cuttings next year. I do have a fine little place for year-round grow lights...can't do too much but maybe can keep coleus and caladiums alive.

The winter sowing otherwise has been fun...I particularly like the zinnias and nasturtiums coming along in the milk jugs.

Today was the finest of days in NJ - the bee balm, borage and butterfly weed plus some dahlias went in the ground. A rose bush got transplanted from a terrible spot on the north side to a wonderful spot on the south side....hope the transplant holds.

College shopping is fun....I want to go! The good news is that after griping and grousing up until now...my boys got a bit "hooked" on the idea of going to college. Of course we were in Washington, DC which is a neat place to be at least from a 15 year old perspective - and we visited Georgetown and American U which were both fun. We also did Holy Thursday services at the Basilica which is the 7th largest cathedral in the world and that was impressive....the diversity of the congregation was amazing.....

I am, however, behind in the garden as a result of taking the time to travel. This time of year it is tough to get everything done. I may want to be in the dirt....but the rest of the family has other ideas! I guess we all deal with that, huh!

Thanks for asking......HM

Yes, beautiful time to be in DC. When our children were highschool age we did the college tours there in the springtime, too. We were coming from California, then, though, and my daughter thought Georgetown was way too cold for her (in April)!!! When she said that, I told her we would just skip Massachusetts and New York schools, then!!

Good to know your seedlings survived. It would be a shame to lose them after all the fretting (at least that I do!). I will be interested to know how your Coleus plan works out. They are getting to be very popular plants.

I hear it is beautiful with the cherry blossoms in bloom

The cherry blossoms and other flowers were wonderful - the new WW2 monument was very impressive. Both the Roosevelt and the WW2 monuments have lots of water fountains now so it is a refreshing look-see. What I like best about DC is the metro....you can get anywhere without driving. Just by asking the metro guy we learned how to take a metro and then hop a bus to Georgetown. I get annoyed with the auto mentality....there is so much benefit to public transport.

Anitabryk2 - take a backpack to a local train, to Penn Station and hop the Amtrak to Union Station in DC. You can take the metro from there to anywhere in DC. There is every cuisine in the world available. Let me know if you want hotel recs.

Back to winter sowing - the nasturtiums grew 3 inches in one day! Time to release them from their jug and plant them which will happen in the cool rain this weekend. The garden went nutty today in the 80s heat. HM

I was there two years ago and loved it. I will go back - my sister-in-law's brother lives there so we have a place to stay when we go. I need more time in the Smithsonian