LESSONS LEARNED for next year?!

Elaine...how is the weather by you? Can you put them outside?

Are you sure they are not growing or are you just watching them so closely that you've not giving them the time? What are you growing? I have some things in wintersown pots that have been itsy bitsy for months. Do they look healthy?

Have you tried reading threads in the propagation forum with folsk that grow indoors? That may help too.. I'm all outdoors seed grower myself.

Good luck.
:)
Susan

Elaine
You likely need sun and also possibly deeper soil for the roots to stretch out. I sowed cilantro and basil in 3" of soil in containers and they did nothing at all except make the first set of leaves. Finally when the weather turned hot the cilantro started to grow. But when I put them out into their permanent locations they immediately started growing. Had the same thing happen with 3 types of Shasta daisies and also delphiums. They just weren't growing till they were put out. Since you're in TX you should probably set up something to shade the little seedlings till they get established.

Are the plants a nice green color and fairly sturdy looking, albeit small? Is it just a matter of them not getting larger that is the problem? If so, they need to be potted on or transplanted. They need room.

If they are yellowing, leggy, limp, etc...that would be a different matter.

Can you send a photo?

Anybody have seeds they tried but that didn't work? I had a couple. Lupine and Brandy wine tomatoes didn't make it for me.
Dave

Hey Dave. Here are the seeds that didn't sprout for me.

Plumbago - harvested from my yard
Crepe Myrtle - harvested from wild
Malva Rose - I did two containers - one did one didn't.
Texas Blue Bonnet - old seed
Cigar Plant
Marigold - will try again next year
Pentas

I did well with the Brandywine Tomatoes - actually all my veggies did well.

Re- seedlings not growing and root size: I allowed Verbena bonariensis to reseed in one of the beds I use for annuals so I'd have some plants this year. Last night I dug them out and was quite surprised at the size of the root systems vs the tops. Good lesson learned for me. The tops were anywhere from 1" to 4" tall but the roots went about 3-4" down. The seedlings came up in blocks just they do when they are thickly wintersown.

Another lesson I've learned... I don't currently have a gardening staff and will need to sow in place more for annuals next year.. I will water babies if needed and let them come up as they would naturally and thin out.... As much as I've been adverse to pulling out perfectly great plants, it's much much better than having to mess with transplanting as many from wintersown pots. I wintersowed SO much, that I STILL on June 4th, have seedlings in the wintersown pots. I predict that at the end of the season there will still be plants that never got out of the pots. I will focus on a much more tighter list of annuals and grow more perennials from seed. I also will sow lighter and not as densely.

Susan

Haven't WS yet but am beginning my container collection as we speak:) I always buy tons of seeds and due to disappointing spring planting and germination I give up and buy bedding and perennial plants. I'm actually going to give Sweet Peas one more try using winter sowing.
Thanks for all the great advice and tips.

Ah!!! I'm so anxious to start but it's only August. How soon do we start WS this year?? Does anyone know what i can sow now? I just gotta sow something.
ed

Try some biennials, like foxglove, hollyhocks, lunaria, or forget-me-nots. With luck they should bloom next year.

dehart...have you checked out this website http://www.wintersown.org/ ? It is a great reference point. Usually, wintersowing starts on the winter solstice [for perennials] which is December 21st.

I was just looking at my WS spreadsheet from last year and remember another thing I promised myself to do differently. I will not number my containers but will ID them with names. With nearly 100 containers, I got totally confused as to which number referred to which seeds. I plan on using duct tape around the bottoms of the containers with the plant name written on with a cow tag marker pen (super permanent). If the tops get switched or blown off it won't matter.

me too Katy - names - no numbers! I always needed my spreadsheet to track what was sprouting!

Dang, Katy Mac! That is some spreadsheet!

I have a million questions, but I think the first and foremost (without you giving me an Excel class) is to ask how you learned all the various tips and tricks for germiantion. The H2O2 information specifically. I have never seen any reference for seeds, except on a onsie twosie basis on the seed starting forum. Certainly nothing that would cover all the seeds I'll be starting next year.

Szuy

KatyMac: I am bowled over by your spreadsheet. How did you do that? Excel? It is so fine!

Yes, it's just Excel. As for the tips, etc. virtually all came from DG. Either the plant files or the WS forum. Some too reading in [HYPERLINK@www.wintersown.org] and other sites I googled. Some of the seed sellers have excellent references too. There was a huge thread on using H2O2 for seed starting I referred to.

KatyMac
How impresive your spread sheet is. Being new to gardening, I don't know what H202 is, so I will have to do some research. Thanks for all of the tips everyone.

H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide, it's not just for gardening!

VERY impressive spreadsheet, KatyMac! Great resource tool!

What do the cute little symbols to the right of the photos mean?

happy, they are little plant IDs for my landscape layout sheet. You can see that in my DG Diary. http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/t/KatyMac/3540/

Wow!

Katymac, Great job, breath taking :o)
What did you use to do yard layout/plan?
cg

cg, just Excel 2006 Office upgrade using the draw feature. But it hasn't changed significantly since 1995 really.

Did you draw it freehand?

Great, I have excel 2006, now to figure out how to use it lol

happy, most of it is using the shapes feature. Some of the shapes are sort of freehand, after you have your basic shape you can change/adjust using edit points. I strongly advise going through the tutorial a couple of times.

Hi everybody--

Such a fascinating idea to use Excel for WS records--Katy you seem to have lots of interest in this---

maybe this topic is worthy of a separate thread?! :-)

Katy--Would you please like to start one up? I know everyone would appreciate it!

Thanks. t.

I also have my plants on an Excel file; I have more info on them than Katy does, but mine isn't nearly as user friendly and makes no attempt to be pretty. I bet a lot of others also use Excel in one form or another. I'm happy to help -- but it would be hard to draw the line between an Excel tutorial and instruction specific to gardening. Maybe it would be better to just have a thread where people could pose questions specific to Excel -- and maybe that is all you were talking about, Tabasco. Initially I thought you were proposing a tutorial.

katymac lol I have excel 2003, will that work?
Connie

Where do you all keep your records? I couldn't keep a record without Excel. Actually I don't think I really kept records without Excel altho for a while I kept a really fun diary - the prob is - if you don't write in it the pages are blank. If anybody wants a copy I have a great template to track bloomtimes of all your plants every year. Here is a sample of what the data input page looks like. Edited to put the periods in to hold the place in this msg.

Plant Name............................................Start Date..............NUMBER OF BLOOM DAYS
HELLEBORUS ORIENTALIS..............1/5/2006............. ..130
CORYLUS CONTORTA........................4/11/2006..............21
PULMONARIA Reginald Kay...............4/11/2006...............45

This picture might not work - in real life the spreadsheet doesn't have a black background and I don't know how to create a JPEG file out of an Excel spreadsheet.

This message was edited Sep 6, 2006 9:43 AM

This is better but don't ask me how I did it!

I've been using Access...I'll look around for some old threads and bump them up for everyone.

I'd love that. I don't keep bloom time on my Excel spreadhseet -- an obvious thing to add -- love it.

D-mail me with your email address and I'll send you the 2006 version.

Bloom time is an excellent idea! I'll have to add that to this years database

I'll set up a separate thread at some point, I promise, but can't right now - too busy.

Make sure and get your soil to plant in now, as it is impossible to find when winter hits. I went to wallymart and got their clearance Miracle grow moisture control on sale!

very good point, Mobi!!

I need potting soil and stuff, I'd better move now!

xxx, Carrie