Taking a Poll

How many of you plant your sprouts in the hunk-o-seed method and how many will separate out each sprout?

Hunka sprouts.

Depends on plant.

I will use hunks on the closely sown tiny stuff. Large seeds I sowed more thinly (like sweet peas, hollyhock) so they will be easier to do singly

Karen

Hunks, ranging from one to hundreds of seedlings per hunk.

Oops, that's true here too. Already sowed the hollyhocks individually. And fennels.

hunks of whatever falls apart naturally on the closely sown stuff. I bought a little seed tapper - what I call it, to sow seed more evenly and the bigger seeds are sown farther apart. With nasturtiums and sweet peas I did them 1 to a peat pot since they don't like to be transplanted.

I'm steeling myself to get out the scissors to snip for thinning. I have a very hard time doing this.

Hi, donn! It's nice to see you here. I don't think I've seen you on this forum before. (But I just joined DG recently). We need all the experts we can get since, while there are kind experienced folks here, this forum is not quite as active as GW. I hope some time you will post some pics here of your beautiful gardens and WS results.

For those of you who might not know donn, he is something of a grand master of WS on GardenWeb. I guess it's not nice to mention the competition but at at least it's tolerated here! I follow both forums (I'm on sick Ieave and have the time). I always try to look for donn's posts because he knows EVERYTHING!

Karen

Mostly I do hunk method but like others it depends on the seed that I have grown.

Michelle

Hey Donn! I haven't seen you since GW! Good to see you! Donn is a wealth of knowledge everyone..

Hi Karen and Anita. I just joined DG recently, because I kept using up my free Plant File searches.

Don't puff me up too much. I'm still learning, like everyone else.

Don't be so modest, donn!

Well, I am glad you are here Donn - You were always very helpful and friendly on GW. Don't forget to share some of your pics! By the way, how was your garden coming along? You had a design laid out and some 'lasagna' setups? I don't remember the term, but I thought it was so interesting. Circular in shape??

I do the "hunk of seedling" method.

Hi Donn! Another wintersowing GW fan of yours!!

hunks, I guess, since they look awfully close together.

Next year I am going to sow more thinly....

Definitely hunk o seedlings. Unless they were big seeds, which I separated when I planted them.

Anita...it's a keyhole/mandala bed, made of alternating layers of sod and sawdust, with woodchip paths. It's been sitting under black plastic since late summer, and I'll start planting it shortly.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/donnwest/2005-08-15011.jpg

I haven't figured out how to post pics here yet.

donn, how big is your bed?

Unlike GW posting pics here is easy. Even I can do it. Below the message box if you click browse it will take you into your computer. Search and pick and it will automatically size. Viewers will be able to enlarge by clicking

Karen

donn, I finally figured out your photobucket site and you sure have some fascinating stuff going on there! I wish there was text 'cause I'm guessing what you're up to and may not have gotten it right. The keyhole/mandala is most interesting as I plan to have lots of sod this year from expanding flower beds and I don't have a use for it yet. Building new beds would be super.

Cool! The pics don't even have to be at a webserver!

The bed is 26' in total diameter. The perimeter path is 3' wide, and the interior paths are 2' wide. The paths are woodchips, about 6" deep, over landscape fabric. One 'wedge' of the mandala now has large pieces of blonde flagstone set in as a sunbathing patio for my wife.

This message was edited Apr 7, 2006 4:10 PM

I hate to hijack Anita's thread, but Katy, I'm working on instant beds made of sod right now. I cut the sod from new paths and bed edges, and lay them upside down on wet cardboard, in other areas of lawn. Then I install a soaker hose, and cover the whole thing with woodchips.

donn, that bed is going to be beautiful!

It really is cool how easy it is to post pics here (esp for computer idiots like me). I just joined DG recently but I really do like it a lot. Aside from lots of nice gardeners, there are no pop-ups! Stick around-you'll like it.

Karen

don't worry about hijacking anything...I love the info!!! Donn, you will quickly find that alot of threads start off one way and then detour a couple of times...makes the conversation lively!

Anita, back to subject. I will plant hunkas due to necessity. I'm a little shaky in my seed distribution. LOL

donn, thank you so much. This fits my needs to a "T". My goal is to reduce my lawn to a series of paths over time and you've given me an easy DIY way to do that. :~ )

I did both HOS and others. I was very glad I put only one nasturtium seed in each plastic pot -- they're already potbound, and I've had no time to transplant.

Hi All,
This was my first attempt at winter sowing this year and I'm so happy that I did it. When I sowed the seeds, I thought I had spaced them apart fairly well but with freeze/ thaw and water dripping in them, it seems the seeds in some containers shifted closer together. One container had a raccoon paw print in it (yes, somehow the critter opened a few containers) and all these seeds germinated right in the paw print and no where else. With that said, I will plant the whole hunks and thin out as necessary. Survival of the fittest I guess.

Erynne

That's pretty funny Erynne!

Hunk and yesterday I planted out and separated lots of the baby solan marigolds. I looked at the pot and thought how in the world am I going to do this? Very carefully.. I know some plants don't like being bothered so I hope this is not one of them. I used the points of scissors to help me get the babies out and I couldn't wear gloves to get them into the little hole gently. Then I ever so carefully placed the mulch around them and watered. They were so small the bed jsut looks like mulch. We'll see. I'm very hopeful.

I had thought that maybe I should use the individual cells next time to just easily pop them out, but them I thought about all the seeds that don't make it for whatever reason and the huge up front investment of time putting them all into cells... I would only do that for seeds I already had done and grown well... but then again I have three pots of the same thing and one of them is doing great and nothing from the other two.. so go figure.. I don't know how to improve yet!!


Susan

My husband has bought me a couple of sets of seedling tools which work well on these tiny babies. The best is an all-stainless steel thing called a "mini transplanter". It's just a little bigger than a dinner knife and the 2 ends are different sizes. It works great to pry apart a hunk and divide even long roots and seperate them. It's bent just a little to give leverage to pry them out of the jug. If anyone's really interested I could post a picture.

So I have been using hunks on the few I've managed to get into the ground. So many to go. If I could figure how to get them out of the jug maybe I would plant some whole jugs at once like donn does! I do better if they're just a little bigger. I have tried some very tiny ones like trudi shows on her site but I'm not so great with those tiny buggers. I experimented with just a few of them and those have kind of disappeared into the dirt, mostly with our strong storms

Karen

"If I could figure how to get them out of the jug maybe I would plant some whole jugs at once like donn does!"

It's easy! I don't reuse my jugs, and gradually cut them down as the weather warms up. Today, I'll separate sprouted jugs from non-sprouted, and the baggies will come off the sprouted jugs. In a couple of weeks, I'll cut off all except the lower section holding the soil. Then, when I plant them out, it's a simple matter of upending the jug in my hand...1 hunk..into the garden!

Upend it on my hand? My hand is so little I'm lucky I can palm and apple!
I wouldn't try that on a gallon milk jug, but maybe a 2 liter pop bottle. What flowers do you use that technique for, donn? I would like to at least give it a try.

But I don't know, some of mine are sown so densely! You can't find potting soil if you try. They're a sea of green.

Karen

I use an old plastic spatula - took it out like lasagna - worked great!

When they're that densely sown, their roots hold the soil together nicely.

This year I'm doing 3-4" square and 1-gallon sized HOS of numerous things, from grasses to flowers to bulb-plants.

Here are two flats of 4" square bands. On the left is Dianthus deltoides 'Arctic Fire' and on the right is Alyssum montanum 'Berggold.' The pic is three weeks old, and they're twice as thick now.

I'm going to try that on some things, just not sure which. I have a lot of area I want to cover with my new flowers, most of which I have never grown so don't know what to expect. A few are sown in styro cups; I know I could do it with those guys (icelandic poppies, rudbeckia, nasties).

I do have one sprout of my hibiscus. It's a perennial one (name unknown) that dies to the ground in winter then grows to about 4' or 5' with beautiful pink blossoms in summer. I saved and sowed just a few seeds and now have a sprout.

Karen

mmmmmmmm Spatula.. Great idea Anita.

Yes Donn, I've got a pot or two that has the same density and I'm wondering how thats going to work out.. I guess it just will!!

Susan

Today I used an old kitchen flatware knife and fork - that worked real well as well

hmmmm!! I bet next well be using the kitchen sink too!! :)

Susan

as long as it drains- wouldn't want to drown the little guys!

Last year, I did a lot of clump transplanting (little HOS's) into flats of 48 cells, then planted out into the garden when the seedlings had filled their new little pots with roots. This year, I am going to be brave and use the HOS method to put seedlings right out into the garden.... although maybe I will hedge my bet and pot up just a few of them... It's much harder for me to be sure little seedlings get water & attention when they're out in the wild blue yonder than when they're right outside the back door on my deck!

You know Jill - so far so good with the HOS that I planted directly into the garden. I should be able to do some more in a couple of days. My Dahlia's are getting big enough as are some of my rudbecki. By the way Jill - do you still want the heliotrope?