There seemed to have been a slight interest in Winter-Sowing, so I thought I'd begin a thread.
Tell us, please, your Winter-Sowing stories.
Once upon a time ......
Will you be Winter-Sowing this year?
I came from the "When Do You Say It's Done?" thread (and I bet you all thought I came from the stork!) because, in all my years of gardening, I had never heard of winter-sowing!
I went to the Winter Sowing forum and, unless I missed it somewhere, couldn't find any how-to-get-started threads. So I Googled it and found www.wintersown.org, which has very simple instructions.
So, yes, I will be winter-sowing this year! I'm looking forward to not having my room cluttered with pots, etc.
had a little oopsie on your url
http://www.wintersown.org/
My husband was thrilled to hear the pots and dirt wouldn't be in the kitchen this year. I'm happy too, it is hard to cook when my big 4 feet of counter space is covered with cups of dirt. My son was a cleanliness inspector at a food plant, he is such a pill about dirt in the kitchen, haha, it's amazing he never got sick when he was little. I'm not doing the whole pack of seeds in one container as I have no where to put them when they have to be transplanted. I'll be putting 2 or 3 in each 7 inch tall cup and that is where they will stay until planting time. I should get 4 flats or more of plants this way, mostly perennials. Crossing my fingers!
Cathy, I don't know how old you are, but my mother used to call everyone a "pill" when I was growing up!
If I remember correctly, I've been 39 for 12 years now.
I have a question: If I have a pot of dianthus, and it has dropped seed into the pot, can I just put that pot into the protected bins to get more of the same plants? The store said it was perennial, but it looked more like what we call pinks. Or can it just sit in a protected area over the winter? It was a hanging basket on the clearance shelf. Any ideas?
Well, Cathy, I'll be 39 for 14 years this month!
Cathy4, you are asking an interesting question: why not just treat a hanging basket where seeds have dropped as a WS container itself? (If I am understanding your question correctly.)
I'm not a WS expert by any means--but I don't see why not. Maybe some other WS experts can weigh in here. I've been more apt to collect seeds, either from the plants themselves or by purchasing them, and then to create their own special jug with new loose potting soil and a "lid" of some sort to protect them. . .but using the hanging basket would be like leaving the seeds in the ground, as Victor suggests (?) and I can't see why this wouldn't have similar results. Especially if a special covering with vents was created for protection and to let in moisture.
Below is a link from the WinterSown site which gives stats on various zone 5 seeds that have been WSown. Dianthus "Pinks" are listed as succeeding.
You also talked about just putting 2-3 seeds in each 7-inch cup. I myself would probably put in more seeds, to be sure that there were more seedlings in case of any problems with germination. . . but NOT a whole packet (which I did last year and which was excessive!) The zone 5 database can help decide which seeds are certain to germinate outside.
Hope this helps.
--Emily, whose mother ALSO called certain people "a pill" when she thought they were being annoying.
http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/WS_Database_Z5.html
Thank you for the answers, I'm going to give it a try.
You betcha! I had sooo many plants because I winter sowed last year . . . I could never afford them all.
Last year good people at DG sent me seeds to get me started. This year I have soooo many seeds that if I winter sow one container of each variety (well some would have to be started inside) that I would need about 60 containers. Well, I know some people had like 100 plus containers, but I have no idea what they did wilth all their plants .
Anyway, once I get organized (after Christmas) I will have seeds to share with this year's crop of newbies.
Michaela
I'll definitely be winter-sowing. I've been doing it for five years now, and each year I do about 200-225 containers. I couldn't imagine winter without winter-sowing!
Dee
Okay Dee, you are the expert here. Do you do a whole lot of seeds in one container? What do you do with the seedlings when you have transplanted them? Can you answer my earlier question about hanging pots with seed that have dropped in the dirt? Thanks, I hope it is okay to ask lots of questions. C4
Cathy, that was an interesting question. I would think that as long as that hanging basket is protected somehow (covered with plastic wrap, or something similar) but has adequate drainage and can get adequate moisture (holes in the covering) that yes, it could be used as a winter sowing container. You might as well give it a try - especially if the alternative is to toss it. Give it a shot; you've got nothing to lose!
You know, another thing you could do is bring that pot with the seeds into an unheated garage. I had some agastache foeniculum two years ago (anise hyssop) and that seed must have spread over the entire world, lol, because when I brought all my pots out of the garage in the spring, (NOT winter-sowing containers, but potted perennials that I overwinter in the garage) they were all chock full of agastache seedlings. So the dianthus seeds should survive one way or another, whether it is in the garage or outside with protection.
As far as number of seeds, I use plastic milk containers/ cartons/jugs almost exclusively. I sow approximately 12 seeds per container, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on seed size, or if I have say, 14 or 16 seeds left in the packet, I'll just sow all of them in one container. But I HATE to thin seedlings, so I just sow thinly to begin with, so I don't have to thin later. If the seeds are microscopic, well then I just sprinkle them and hope there is some room between seedlings, lol!
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by what do I do with the seedlings after I transplant them. I am always late in planting out, so I don't bother potting up in stages, if that's what you mean. I just plant out in the beds, and just let them go on their own. Well, okay, sometimes I don't plant out at all, lol! I've got some columbines that have been living in the bottom of a milk jug for two years now!
:)
Dee
Great info, Dee! Thanks so much.
I wintersowed for the first time last year, and if you haven't tried it yet, you must! I sowed about 80 containers. They didn't all germinate, but if they had I would have gone crazy and never gotten them all planted. All in all, I planted over 300 seedlings. A good number were perennials. They didn't all survive after I got them in the ground and I may lose some over the winter. But even with those odds, I saved a ton of money. And I always lose some of the perennials I buy over the winter, too. At least these were practically free. I'm filling a 70' cottage garden with wintersown plants.
I just participated in Anita's wintersowing seed swap and also one in the Cottage Gardening forum. I should have about 150 new kinds of seeds to play with for just the cost of postage this year. And all from collecting seed from last year's wintersown plants and trading it.
What a wonderful story! Especially the seed-trading part.
yes - seed trading is a lot of fun :-)
Cathy and Primrose, I guarantee you will have a lot of fun WSing this year! And watching for your "babies" to sprout in the spring is really gratifying--you can do it "up close and personal" in your jug-nursery. (Note that I am referring to ALL suitable WS containers as "jugs" but you can use virtually any container as long as it has at least 4-inches of soil depth and room at the top for a clear or translucent cover.)
I do what DiggerDee does: just plant out my milk-jug seedlings into their own beds as soon as I think the soil is warm enough--May 25 is the average last date of frost around there. These WS seedlings are the "survivors of the fittest" so they do fine even if they are still quite small when I plant them.
I was sort of a failure with my winter sowing. I did a duplicate batch the old fashion way as a back up and those did fine. So I think I will go back to my old way. I also didn't love the mess on the porch which was so visible from where we spend most of our time in the house. But I might try a few and put them out behind the shed and forget about them until spring and see if they do better without me worrying so much about them. "a watched pot never germinates?" Patti
bbrookrd, . . you and I are both zone 7a and Cape people. I am sorry that your WS experience wasn't really successful or at least, up to your expectations.
I am just curious about how you did your "duplicate batch"? It if was done under lights, I do agree that the results are probably more reliable using this method. But also more complicated and more expensive. I did both, and appreciated both.
WS is great, and I'm an enthusiast, but it's not the be-all and end-all (never been sure how to punctuate that.)
My free wintersown seed packets came yesterday, how cool is that?
CC, I put the seeds in covered flats in my GH (only solar heat) until they germinate and then I move the flats into my north side living room on a big plastic tarp on the floor close to the east windows. I can then hover over them with my mister and rotate them. When we go away for a few days, I put the flats in plastic trays with water so they self water. It works pretty well. I can't leave them in the GH as it gets too hot for them but the living rm is around 65 most days. I had the most success WS the easy stuff like hollyhocks, zinnia, herbs, and nasturtiums. What where you sowing that worked well for you. I might try those. Last winter was so strange weather wise that I thought that might have been my problem, but if you did OK, it must have been my poor parenting skills! Patti
"...And watching for your "babies" to sprout in the spring is really gratifying..."
It's ridiculous - I'm out there in February looking in my milk jugs. I absolutely, positively KNOW that there cannot possibly be germination that early, but I just cannot walk by that line of milk jugs without picking up one or two and peeking inside. It's crazy, lol!
Dee
Dee, I'm that way with my compost, morning isn't complete without checking it for heat, sometimes I go out in my night gown. Totally nuts.
Gardeners are a funny, compulsive bunch LOL. That's what makes DG so great. We can come here and we all understand one another. We ALL do that :0)
A better group of friends I've never found.
Cathy, we must be soul mates! I've always gone out in the yard in my bathrobe, until about four years ago when a house was built beside ours. Now, within the past year, I'm slowing venturing out again (dressed like that). The neighborhood thinks we're weird anyway - because my kids have Asperger's and aren't social, and because we don't celebrate Halloween (we're born-again Christians). So gardening in my p.j.'s will just give them one more thing to talk about!
I figure if I'm covered in all the important places, what does it matter? My husband wears flannel and it is okay, my flannel isn't? I'm in the back yard, not parading down the street. Say morning prayers, check the garden, a cup of tea and all is well with my soul.
Primrose Sue, I can beat that about the bathrobe. . . in the warm, humid Cape Cod mornings of summer, I just step outside in my nightgown--barefoot-- to check on a few things 'long about 7 am, and then suddenly it's 10 am and my neighbors are looking at me strangely.
Just wave and give them a big smile, they don't know what they are missing!
CCG - that's what my problem was! I'd take my coffee out to just take a "walk-about" and, like you, I'd come in hours later.
For living out in the country, I live on a pretty busy intersection. So I am fully dressed when I go outside, for the most part. There ARE a few days that find me still in my jammies and bathrobe, but that will be before 6 AM
I never go outside in my jammies. I guess I had it stuffed into me when I was kid. I still remember how horrified my mother was when she bought me some new pajamas and I thought it was a top and shorts (I was 11 or 12). I put it on and went outside to show her and she pretty near fainted. So I'll go out in my bathing suit, but not in flannel p.j.s and a bathrobe. Makes no sense at all.
That's funny, grampapa! Guess it's all about "dressing approrpriately" (or something.)
Maybe I'll change into my swimming suit to go out in the morning, haha, that will make anyone stop looking! Good point grampapa!
I agree, though. Some pjs now-a-days look a lot like the clothing that most teens wear. It's really hard to tell the difference!!
I almost went out and raked in my pj's this morning, but then thought of you guys, and also that it was my front yard that I raked. Flannel pj's would have been warm and comfortable to work in.
Flannel pants are popular with the younger crowd, you would fit right in around here. Flannel shirts are considered old men. So leave the pants on, pull on a light sweatshirt, and go for it.
I would definitely suggest leaving your pants on LOL
too funny, grampapa