What have you wintersowed so far -part three.

carrielamont, even if the seeds were very cheap, they must be viable, otherwise you were swindled. I wouldn't dare to trade or sell old seeds. So please give us the name, so we all know where not to order.

http://www.neeps.com/seeds.html

I gave them a VERY blistering review in GWD, and wish I'd checked there first.

Maybe you could contact the actual seed company Ferry~Morse. They might make good on it. They may not like a retailer selling old seed and giving their company name a bad rap!

Carrie: Chances are good that you'll have pretty good germination anyway. I often sow several-year-old seeds with good results. You'll probably get more than your money's worth. I agree, though, that the website should divulge the fact that the seeds are old.

Karen

I agree, Karen. I'm famous (at least in my house) for using old, very old seed. I don't ASSUME it's not gonna work. But at least it should be MY fault they're old, LOL! Plus, remember, I haven't sowed a single seed yet this year!

Well, Carrie, watch your mail and maybe you'll get inspired to start! (wink)

Angie

Update on the laundry markers. They don't work on labels that are made out of vinyl mini blinds. I guess they need a porous material for them to work. Since they really don't penetrate the vinyl, the marker comes off when exposed to the elements. I knew that solution was too easy and cheap. Drats!

Elaine and Otis

In a pinch.... if you dont have anything else... use a pencil. i hear they work... or - at least dont fade.

I'll keep the pencils in mind.

The laundry markers were an experiment. Sure am glad that I bought the paint pen

Elaine and Otis

OK, did some more WSing this afternoon, and got one of my sons and my husband (grudgingly) involved. Here is my whole list of what I've sown so far:

Agastache "Honey Bee Blue"
Asclepias Tuberosa (Butterfly Weed)
Asclepias, Swamp Milkweed
Baptisia
Bellflower, Peachleaf Telham Blue
Berlandiera Lyrata Chocolate Daisy
Candy Lily
Cleome "Color Fountains Mix"
Columbine, navy blue
Columbine, navy blue (2nd container)
Columbine, red, purple & blue
Cosmos "Seashells Mixed"
Delphinium (Larkspur), "Seven Dwarves"
Digitalis (Foxglove), pink w/ burgundy throat
Digitalis Parviflora (Milk Chocolate)
English Wall Flower
Gaillardia Aristata "Fanfare?"
Gaillardia Razzledazzle Mixed Colors
Hair Allium
Mixed Coneflower, Monarda, coneflower, achillea
Nigella Damascena Oxford Blue
Nigella Hot Fudge Sundae
Pansy "Silver Wings"
Poppy, California "Appleblossom"
Scabiosa (Sweet William), "Sooty"
Scabiosa, Beaujolais Bonnets
Scabiosa, Chocolate Pincushion Flower
Scabiosa, Pincushion Flower (Telham Blue?)
Stocks "Night Scented Starlight Sensation"
Sweet Pea "Bijou"
Verbena "Adonis Mango"

I did about half of them on Feb. 16, and half today, in all sorts of containers. Some milk jugs, some round plastic Folgers Coffee containers, some 2 liter pop bottles, some Ocean Spray juice jugs, some waxed cardboard soy milk 1/2 gal. jugs, some deli containers. They are all set in boxes to keep them from tipping or blowing over.

Whew! Feels good! I just need to cover a few with plastic, and they're ready to go brave the cold!

Angie

Oh, YUM! Come on, Spring!!!!!!!! ;-)

Great job, Angie!

Other Angie

"Some", hunh? I'm gonna get me a bio-dome or whatever you call those things with pre-filled dirt and a tray and a cover - those always sprout for me as long as I transplant them fast because there's so little to grow in. It's snowing today.

I'm thinking more and more about those pre-filled things too. I saw some while cruising the aisles in Wal-Mart and it was all I could do not to sidle over that way. Funny expression lol. Sounds like I'm riding a horse. Anyway I need something I don't have to get plants going for me. Yesterday I ws some annuals Then the temps went down into the teens last night. I have been led to believe it won't hurt unless they are up. I used the grape containers and planted

Gomphrene 'Carmine'
Snapdragons 'Black Prince'
Snapdragond 'Chantilly Orange on of new seed and one seed I saved
Red flax
Dill
Rudbeckia 'Cordoba'
Nicotiana white don't know the variety hope it is tall

I still need to get my alyssum brownie pan going but that may be the end of the wsowing for me. So far I have filled 21 containers using milk or more acurately water jugs and the grape boxes. I love the grape boxes no holes to drill
Veronica

I wonder if your grape containers have smaller holes than my strawberry box. It had big slits that went all the way up the sides. After trying to spoon potting mix into it, I decided to line it with a coffee filter, first, as I figured I wasn't going to end up with any dirt left inside after the first rain! It seemed like such a good idea when I saved the box. . .nice depth, and no drilling or cutting to do! Hope it works!

I hope the annuals I sowed will be OK, too. I guess a lot of what I did was annuals. The primary concern is if we get a hard freeze again after they sprout, right? They should be OK outside right now?

Question for those who do spreadsheets/databases. What kind of information do you track? Mine is absurdly complicated. I put the name, where I got the seed, what planting method/type of soil I used (wintersowing, started indoors, etc.), date planted, date sprouted, date potted up or planted out, how long the package says it will take to germinate (if available), though this is moot with WSing, the package planting directions, whether it needs sun/shade, height, spacing, and notes. Am I being too OCD about this? It's nice, though, because then I can look back and see if I had poor germination on all the seed from a certain source, or if I was more successful WSing or starting indoors, how long something took to germinate last year, and when I plant out, I can just print it, stick it in a plastic report cover, and see at a glance how tall the plants in a container will get, and if they are sun or shade, without fumbling through a bunch of packages and notes.

I did a dumb thing on my spreadsheet the other day, when I entered my second round of planting. I decided to sort by the column showing what container # each one was in, and it mixed all my annuals, perennials, herbs, etc. all together. Now I'm trying to figure out how to sort them back out, and re-alphabetize them within their categories. LOL I really do sound OCD, don't I?

here are my Categories from Excel - for my Seeds Page, listing all of my seeds
Botanical Name
Common Name
Date Sown
Germinated
Varitey/Color
Life [annual, Perennial, Bi-Annual]
Type [orn, Vine, herb, etc]
#of seeds
Sowing Method
WBLF [this one i dont use -- weeks before last frost]
Depth [how deep to plant seed]
Space [spacing]
sun Source [sun, shade, part... ]
Comment 1
Comment 2
Daves Reference [link to Plant Files]

Here is for my Winter Sowing
Type [type of container]
# [number on the container]
Date
Seed [name of seed, either latin or common]
Qty [how mnay seeds in container]
# Germ. [how many germinated]
Date Germ
comments

That may be A LOT of info .... for the WS page, i generally use all of those.... On the Seeds page, i use most of it.

Well, I must be a simpleton. My spread sheet, such as it is, lists the name, common and botanical, date sown, date germinated and the source of the seed. I'll have to take remedial spread sheet class from you gals.

Angie

I've been listing some seeds sown in my DG Garden Journal this year. I've never used that tool before, but I'm liking it. It's pretty simple in concept, but you can add more details (like seed source) under "notes."

Mine was like a weed. . .once I started, it just kept sending out runners until it got out of control! LOL

But Angie, I found my excel spreadsheet got so complicated I dreaded opening it to input stuff. My first year, I used a bunch of used mail envelopes, and put all of "2/12/07" in one envelope, and "1/29/07" was in another one. No, I didn't have everything in one place, but when in 2008 I got bored with my OCD spreadsheet I had nothing left to fall back on, whereas in 2007 once, I forget to push save on my lame spreadsheet and I could reconstruct the whole thing because I still had all the packages.

Carrie: That's a good thing, but I'm so overloaded right now that I can only handle simple tasks! I've got thousands of pages of transcripts, in court every day, and now we've started remodeling our den, so DH expects me to carry my share of the load on that. No time for much of anything. I need to plant some more seeds, get some beds ready to go and here I am tearing out wall paneling and sheetrock! Some day I'll laugh about this, but not today. Today I just want to run away. Maybe to that charming little garden cottage in the banner on this page!

Unless it's tulips! Do like I did, use a lot of envelopes. (Unless you find spreadsheets easy. ) Or Calgon, take me away!