Where is Trudy's site?????? I put seed out last fall and some I covered with plastic lids off containers ...Others not...... I did it in 2006 also.......I did have some success. Is that referred to as winter sow? the next episole will be containters......Do they have to be watered in containers?
Thankyou diene. I was looking for a good site for (my) better info because I'm no expert either and this is my first time winter sowing. I used bought soil. It has the vermucilite, perilite, & sphagnum moss all in it with other nutrients too. My seeds I didn't plant too deep but for bulbs you'd want them deeper in the soil. As said we want to do this as close as nature would do outdoors.
Another site may or maynot help is Gardenguides.com then go through the search on their page for any questions.
Winter Sowing Hello; Trudi's site is wintersown.org and she started winter sowing because she had a very small house originally. Now it seems to have become her avocation. diene
Thanks Diene, you have a great day also,, an everyone else too,, even 24 hours a day of sunlight can be a little much too,, but its something you get use too. I use any soil i can get my hands on,,left over potting soil, earth from the yard, compost, you name it if have used it. i water once and that is it. there is holes in the bottoms of your containers, an the tops also should have holes. so water can get in,, an freeze but also so it can drain thru when it does get warm enough to thaw a little. everything needs air. so remember those air holes,, i use plastic wrap, with the lid to the container, middle cut out an placed ontop of the plastic wrap. this works well. just remember to have drainage in the bottom or else you will drown your plants. the only thing that i don't winter sow is my herbs. those i start indoors, an if the weather is bad in the summer they stay indoors or in little mini green houses we have made. everything else is done next month,, my potatoes will be done in march. so they are ready to plant in june. When i have collected flower seeds from the flowers here in the Artic,, i take an clean them from the flowers, then put in little containers, an straight to the deep freeze, even if they don't need to me,, then when april comes, an the snow is very very little out there, i start to scatter them around the fields on the farm.. an most of the time they take, since they already have been frozen. I've been doing this for 3 yrs now. an we have flowers in places that they never have grown before, because i go an scatter them,, keep it natural is my motto...lol.
I did some studying up on winter sowing last spring/summer and started saving all sorts of plastic containers for doing some this winter. Well, it seems that you have to really have winter before this idea will work Our weather has been more like one long stretch of spring weather along with several days of almost summer so winter sowing just didn't happen. Now I have two large bags plastic containers to add to the recycle cart this next week. I am going to start some seeds next month, that should be enough time to let them experience some cold weather before they start to sprout and they will be ready to plant in the ground pretty early this year. Our average last freeze date is in mid-March but usually happens late Feb-early March.
