First Time WS#5 - Come on in, it's a great time to start

That is sweet. ;-)

Hey, Chris! It's great to know where some of my seeds landed. This is the first time I have heard.
I just finished a germination test on those Coneflower seeds, and I got 100% germination! Thay are good, so I hope they mean great success for your WS!

Here's the plant they came from.

Pretty! I love coneflowers. So beautifully simple, such an undemanding plant.

Karen

Jonna - those are nice containers. What are their measurements and where did you order them from?

They are 10 cm x 7.5 cm and 9 cm high. I just bought them in a store on the other side of the country when we were visiting our children. These containers are used here to put in salads and minced meat. Usually they are not so high and much thinner. You might find them at a catering supplier.

I realize that the answer is somewhere, but I'm being lazy, so I'll ask ya'll ^_^

How many hours of sun should my jugs get right now? I think I've put them in too shady a spot!

Jim, I'll let you know later this spring/summer how the coneflowers do for me!


Chris

I recall reading it is a good idea not to let them have all that much sun! Else they get too happy too soon, dontcha know.......

but I am a first-timer too so perhaps an experienced voice will chime in.

At first I was going to put mine down by the South facing wall for maximum sun, til I read not to let them have too much, so they stayed up on the East facing deck getting only morning sun, seem to be doing just fine......

As long as your weather is pretty cold it doesn't matter much. I put mine in morning sun only. I don't want to encourage early sprouting with too much heat from the sun. Also, as the weather warms, they can get too hot, so if they're in sun start adding more vents and watch moisture closely when warm spring weather comes. When hot they dry out fast.

Karen

I have been seeing that some of you zone 7ers have sprouts and I was wondering about this. I am also in zone 7.

We have had unseasonably warm weather but all my containers are on the north side of the house in 100% bright shade, it stays frozen most of the day back there even when the rest of the temps are in the 50s. I think that is probably why I haven't seen any activity yet. I would think this early you would want them out of the direct sun in moderate zones for a while yet. If it is in the 50-60 ambient temperature, inside those little greenhouses, they could be getting up to 70s and could start germinating. I am just not ready for babies just yet. I know it will get cold again, at least a few times in the next month. After the middle of March I am going to move mine to get more sun. After that point, while frost is still inevitable, there won't be long periods of hard freezing type temps. That being said, even my irises and daylillies are putting up new growth already! So I know it is warm enough out there, I just don't think it will last.

Yeah, t hat is probably why. My North side was just not an option.

What I have sprouting are all things I want to have sprouting, I believe, spinach and kale who are not going to mind cold too much; onions which need the head start !, poppies that, if they h ad been seeded in the ground would also be doing just what they are doing, and just today notice blue flax starting to germinate, also a local tough guy I understand...... But truly all I can do at this point is hope I figured it right ...... leap of faith and all that.

Going to sow a bunch more Friday and Saturday, have not yet decided what......... have to get out all my seeds that remain unsown and make some kind of plan.

Thanks for all the input! I believe that I should just leave them where they are for now, as I don't need them to germinate yet. Guess I also don't need to be mother-henning them LOL

I'm going to ignore them!

I have several more types to sow this weekend too.. and we're supposed to be in the 70s! But as Lissa said, I know that we're not out of the cold yet, so I'll just be patient and let them stay in the shade.

Chris

Benign neglect is often a good policy in many situation, I find.......

I love that approach, Kylaluaz. :D

Benign neglect indeed! That's what my seeds and my plants pretty much get. Tough love.

HAH! Around here, if I turn my back for just a second, the weeds take over, the bindweed encircles the house and Conan the Corgi excavates the veg.

Jim - perhaps if the bindweed got too carried away, Conan the Corgi could dig you all out? I'm loving that mental image. :D

Are you kidding? If he didn't keep moving, it would ensnarcle him, too!

Jim -- i just think Corgi's are so adorable. I loved that photo you posted of Conan around the holidays.

Well, my approach has always been..... Grow Or Die ... LOL..

I totally ignore my plants sometimes and that's when they're on their own to do one or the other :)

Hey, well, maybe out there in the wild wastes of Oklahoma, the world-famous DustBowl. where the hardiest thing that grows is Merle Haggard (I mean, is that a real name, or a description of growing up in Muskogee?), "Grow or Die" is a viable, even an admirable "All-American" approach to gardening.

Here, I have to be on the lookout every moment! Hell, as you can see here, if I don't keep track, even the cattails will consume my Corgi ("The Feline Revenge"!)

my gosh Jim.... cute as a button i tell ya. What a cutie!!

That cute little face alone is enough to do me in! Cutie, Jim, for sure. Don't let the bindweed get him!

I agree - completely adorable - and I'm not even a dog person. More of a cat person.

Okay, Conan the Cutie can come live with me in the wastes of Oklahoma and Merle Haggard was from Bakersfield, Calif. Jim, now that song is stuck in my head... ugh!!

Still nothing showing in my containers yet, but we've thawed out and now we're hitting 70s again. Normally we will have a couple of more hard freezes before we are finally safe. Is there any time I should panic that nothing is coming up. Oh, and one container got flipped over by my cowgirl... oriental poppies... really wonder what that is going to do for them?

Merpeg: Is that the little cowgirl in the picture? What a sweetheart. Nothing to do but pat her on the head, say, "It's okay," and sow them again ^_^

What a little doll! Conan can stay here and Cowgirl can come live in France! I bet they would have a ball together!
Please don't be upset by my remarks! I was just messing around late at night!
Merle Haggard was from BAKERSFIELD, CA? Well, that kind of ruins the mythology, doesn't it?
I hope you saved some of those poppy seeds, merpeg! You can plant again.
I think you are several weeks away yet from panic.
I'm going to panic when Conan discovers the bottles; he thinks ANY empty water bottle is a toy!

Jim, not upset by your remarks at all, LOL, except for getting that song stuck in my head. Freckles ("cowgirl") is my three-month-old. I put the containers up on the picnic table thinking she could not get to them. So wrong, she jumped right up there. The poppy container that was flipped was frozen solid at the time, so I'm hoping it will still come through.

Our next two months will be the real test for me. We typically go from bitter cold (20s) to very warm (80s) sometimes within the same week, and this is our rainy season. So I'm hoping these seeds will know what to do and when, unlike the human here. ^_^

I think we are just on the verge of getting the same "yo-yo" temps here.
Meanwhile, I still have LOTs of seeds just waiting for me to drink more water!

>>up on the picnic table thinking she could not get to them. So wrong, she jumped right up there.

merpeg... this is one reason i have to put my containers in boxes. I dont think Buddy would play with some of the containers now [he's 5 now] but when they get frisky, you just never know what is going to become a toy.

it the poppies were frozen, they should be fine. Hopefully the seeds were frozen in place, and didnt all fall to one side of the container.

Peg, I'm in love with Freckles! (But shouldn't that be a PINK kerchief????) lol!! And Cowgirl would have been an adorable name for her :)

I'm going to WS about 7 more jugs today.. the others were planted last week, so that should be a good range. I need to find more containers though! (hmmm.. think I'll find the mealworms a new home and use their container LOL) I'm going jug hunting..wish me luck!

Chris

I'm pretty sure the seeds were frozen in place. Watch those be the ones that grow the best! Possible secret ingredient to WS, add puppy. LOL Peg

Crossed, Chris! Good luck on the container hunt. Got to get busy, sunshine is beckoning! Peg

Not all my seedcontainers are in boxes (didn't have enough of them). A fox reversed a lot of my containers, some even 10 meters away. A lot of the lits were gone and some containers were completely damaged. Because they were still frozen, I hope the onces I've sown on surface were still sticked to the earth.
The fox even tried to dig in a few of my boxes. But besides a few damaged lits, nothing serious happend there.
Hope he knows now there is nothing to find there and won't come back.

Jonna, Are you sure that was a fox and not a wandering Corgi?

Well, if Corgi's have the same leg impression as foxes, it might have been one. But it was sure not yours, he's too cute.

Hi All
Sent here from Poppies Forum.
Its near time for me to start Oriental Poppies.
MY PLAN:
Sow in March,Keep in cold garage until germination April maybe?
Bring in house until late May( thats when we are free of any frosts)
Bring outside for the summer to grow among the deck containers.
Does that sound right?
Please feel free to make corrections.
These are Jonnas's Coral Rief OP's plus some other colors I bought from One Stop Poppy Shope

Honestly, not as tough as you're making it. I wintersowed them in January or February. Sprinkle in a jug of moist potting mix in winter, toss 'em out in the snow. Voila, in spring: poppy seedlings.

Wintersowing at it's best.

Karen

Hey, everybody!
I just had my first WinterSowing Harvest!!!
No kidding!
400 grammes of the most delicious Brown Button Mushrooms (Champignons de Paris Brun) from a kit I received at Christmas?
Does this count?
If not, I'm not sharing!

Potagere

Jim, how does one start mushrooms?

Jim, Absolutely it counts! Yum!