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.
In my last post, I talked about giving a glimpse ahead of the 2024 planting season. This year, for the first time, I am going to jump headfirst into the world of “Winter Seed Sowing” outdoors.
Well actually, that’s not quite true because last Winter I cleared ground outside (or at least I thought I had cleared it of weeds) and then I generously spread various types of perennial seeds like Columbine, Penstemon and others, then tamped them down with my feet and waited. Nothing happened. At all. No seedlings came up, and I think it is because we did not have any snow last year with average temperatures staying above the freezing mark, even at night. My guess is the seed I put down rotted and never had a chance, because they did not cold stratify. Or, it’s possible that some of those seeds are still there and might even germinate this year due to our colder temperatures and snow.
This year, I will still attempt to cold stratify my seeds, but this time I am going to use a somewhat more controlled environment for my plants to have a better chance at a head start in containers … outdoors. This idea of planting seeds outside in the Winter does feel a little strange, because when you buy plants at the garden center, you’re instructed not to plant them until temperatures have warmed up so the plants don’t die from exposure. But Mother Nature has been growing plants a lot longer than the garden centers, so the Winter Sowing process is intended to mimic what seeds would naturally go through.
A helpful explanation of what happens to perennial seeds from Prairie Moon Nursery, an excellent supplier of native North American seed, bare roots and plants. I have already gotten great results from planting bare roots from this supplier.
Namely, a perennial plant in the ground will generate seeds that, once pollinated, will ripen. Those ripe seeds will fall to the ground and lay on the surface of the soil. If the seeds aren’t eaten by birds, they can get rained on, frozen, snowed on, and go through Winter so the coating of the seed gets broken down. As the temperatures start to warm up, and the seed coating has sufficiently broken down, the seed will germinate. When that little baby seed germinates, it will send up two cotyledons, aka the “seed leaves” which essentially provide the little seed embryo with what it needs nutritionally until it can send up its “true leaves” which is when the plant really starts to grow.
But in order to mimic Winter Sowing an environment needs to be provided that will give the seed the best chance to survive. And that’s where various supplies are needed to make the magic happen. It’s not as inexpensive as taking a packet of seeds and putting them directly on the ground outside, but it’s still much less expensive than buying plants at the garden center. This is not to say it’s not worth it to buy certain plants from the garden center, because let’s face it, they have done all the work for you. You just go in and pick up a lovely healthy plant for a reasonable sum which, once planted, might stay in your garden for years. BUT if you want to have a ginormous selection of specific plants in your garden, and I mean both annuals and perennials, chances are you will want to grow those plants from seed because the garden center will not carry those plants.
There are many sources of seed on the internet and I have now purchased from many of them, but I don’t have any results yet to be able to say which companies have provided fresh seed which will give me good germination rates.
Supplies Needed for Winter Sowing:
Seeds – preferably organic.
Sterile Seed Starting Medium – preferably organic. Also, this is not potting soil.
Containers – this could be as simple as a milk jug, or as elaborate a pre-formed potting trays.
Mycorrizae Powder – optional. This might be a controversial ingredient for some people as a part of seed starter, but I am going to try to test the inclusion of mycorrizae with my seed starter for SOME pots and then plant other pots with the exact same seed without it and see if I notice any difference.
Pump Sprayer – optional. Again, people have different methods they prefer for watering. Some people swear by a bottom method of watering where the water is placed in the tray underneath the seed pots so it can be absorbed through the roots. Others apply water from the top. I’m going to try to gently spray water on the top of the seed trays only if they need extra moisture. I am choosing this method because I don’t want to risk having the roots of the new plants rot in standing water.
Fertilizer – optional. Preferably organic. Once the plant has established its true leaves and the plant is on its way to growing sufficiently to be planted out in the garden, a dilute solution of a gentle fertilizer is part of my plan this year. I use a de-stink-i-fied fish based fertilizer which is a powder and can be mixed with water. That’s going to go into my sprayer, at a 25% dilution rate. Plants will likely only get fertilized once or twice before they get planted out, but it is supposed to help prevent transplant shock.
What are the benefits of Winter Sowing?
The pleasure of seeing the fruits of your efforts, and seeing the plants grow from seed (miraculous!)
Less expensive than buying from the garden center
More varieties of plants available to the home gardener based on extensive seed selections available online
Easier to find space outside than growing the plants inside (with heat mats, grow lights and other equipment expenses)
More controlled environment than putting the seed directly on the ground, which may help with germination rates
No need to “harden off” plants, which is the process of exposing plants grown inside to more sun and cooler temperatures to prevent transplant shock
Now that we’ve talked about “why” Winter Sowing can be a good option, and we’ve covered some of the supplies needed to get started, in my next blog post, I will outline the process of getting the pots and trays ready to go outside and talk about some of the annuals and perennials I will try and grow this season!
Thanks for reading my gardening blog posts. I’d love to hear from you in the comments section!
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