After all the snow, rain and freezing cold nights, today we finally got a break in the weather. Today’s high was 66 degrees (Fahrenheit) so I decided to take the lids off of my larger plastic bins that have been sitting outside since late January and have a peek inside.
When I did, all I could say was WOW!! It is so exciting to see so many seedlings coming up! They’re alive!!
Some were just tiny green dots on the surface of the soil, but other seedlings were standing up with several leaves. It’s the first time I have done Winter sowing, and I know I went overboard with my planting, but it is so gratifying to see these early results!
Some of the early plants that are “Springing” to life now are Bachelor Buttons (aka Cornflowers); California Poppies; Snapdragons, Hyssop; a Salvia variety called ‘Pink Sundae’; and an entire container of Cottage Pinks! There are dozens of other plants that should continue to grow and develop as the weather warms up.
The beginning of Spring does not arrive until March 19th, so incredibly, these seeds were planted in the Winter and sprouted in the Winter.
My plan is to start planting out Snapdragons and Bachelor Buttons soon, because they should be safe to put in the ground at least 3 weeks before the last frost, which is approximately April 9th this year. It’s funny, I have never been so aware of the daily weather forecasts until now, especially nighttime temperatures.
This Sunday might be a good day to try to plant some of the seedlings, since it will be cloudy that day and cloudy for the following 5 days – no rain in the forecast for now. And because I have an abundance of seedlings, I can experiment by putting a half dozen or more plants in the ground and see if they adjust and do well. If they do, I can wait and sow more seedlings as we get closer to April!
In my last post, I covered all the supplies needed to Winter Sow and in this post I’ll go through the “How To” so you can prepare your seeds for outdoor cold stratification and germination.
First, take your empty and washed water bottle, milk jug, or other container, and cut it around the center leaving a 2-3″ “hinge” in the back where the top part of the jug is still attached to the bottom. Drill four drainage holes in the bottom of the container, or use a small knife to cut some holes.
Take your dry seed starting mix, and put it in a washed (sterilized) container that you can use to mix the seed starter with water. Seed starter is very light and fluffy, you will need to slowly add water to the starter and mix the water in with your hand. You’ll mix just enough water so that the seed starter is consistently moist, but you don’t want it fully saturated and dripping wet. The mixture should almost be a crumbly consistency. Scoop some of this into your hand, and put it in the bottom of your jug. Fill the jug until you have about 3 and a half inches of soil starter.
From there, gently tamp down the mixture into the jug (do not press down hard or compact the mixture) so that the soil surface is even.
Now here comes the real fun! Select a packet of seed you want to plant, and open it up. Some seeds, like the blue poppy seeds shown in the image above, are extremely tiny – about the size of a speck of pepper. You can use a variety of techniques to place the seeds on the soil surface. If I am planting very tiny seeds, I put my fingertip against the bottom of the packet and ensure that I am “grabbing” four or five seeds. I put those seeds into the palm of my “non planting” hand, and then pick up each individual seed with my finger and place it on the soil. Another technique is to take a piece of paper and fold it in half, then gently tap the seed packet onto the paper, allowing only a few seeds to come out. Hold the folded part of the paper over the soil and allow the seeds to roll onto the soil surface. It’s important when you have tiny seeds that you don’t just dump the entire packet into one jug. You could easily put too many seeds on the soil which will waste the seed. Another technique some people use is to take a toothpick and dip it in water, and touch the tip of the moistened toothpick to the seed, which will pick up an individual seed, so it can be placed more accurately on the soil.
Once the seeds are all placed, mist them with a little water so that the seeds “settle” into the seed starting mixture. Mist means exactly that – do not run the soil under a faucet or use a watering can. You’re really just looking for a very fine spray of water.
Can you see the Orange California Poppy seeds sitting on the surface of the soil, in the little peat cells above? There are only 5 or so seeds per cell, which is generous. Most likely some of those seeds will need to be thinned out later so that each seedling does not have to compete for space and nutrients. Yes, later on it will be about survival of the fittest.
In each jug, or in each cell, please make sure that you label what you planted. Once a seed starts to germinate and it gets its “seedling leaves” (cotyledons) you will not be able to distinguish what the plant is since all cotyledons essentially look the same. I also like to indicate the date I planted the seed as well.
If you are using a jug, get a few pieces of duct tape to close up the cut you made around the center of the container. Make sure that you REMOVE the CAP from the top of the bottle or jug, so that rain or snow CAN get in the top. This jug will act like a little greenhouse, and you drilled drainage holes in the bottom of the container so that the soil mixture doesn’t get soggy, but the seeds will need to stay moist in order to germinate.
I might have gotten a little bit carried away with this Winter sowing project, because in addition to the water jugs, I also have large plastic bins with holes drilled in the top and the bottom. Inside the bins, I have peat cells filled with seed starter, and lots of different types of seeds that I believe will germinate inside these containers … once it gets a little warmer.
In several more weeks, probably well into March or even early April, I should start to see some results, with seedlings starting to sprout up. All in all, I planted over 200 “seed cells” or jugs outside with a large variety of plants including both perennials and annuals. Everything from Cream Wild Indigo to Prairie Smoke to Himalayan Blue Poppies and Cosmos. I am not expecting everything to germinate, but it will be fascinating to see what happens.
For now, I am waiting, like every other gardener, for Spring to arrive.
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