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-> winter sowing

It is a site for sowing seeds outdoors all winter! I am very excited by it, cuz the one year I tried growing from seed indoors, I did everyhting according to "the book" as far as I could, and I lost 50 out of 50! vowed never to seed again.

Now I know many people on this list are confirmed "seeders" and you do well but anyone who hasn't had good results or just wants to visit a very nice, active forum, chekc it out.

ellen

I tried this method one year and didn't have much success with it - not to say others won't/don't. It might have been my seed or a million other reasons. I agree with you though - very cool alternative to waiting for spring and/or doing the grow light thing. It's nice to have options for those of us that are having a fit waiting for the warm weather and want to get our hands into the soil sooner than mother nature is ready for us!

Might just give this a try again and see how I do...thanks for telling us all about it!!

Ellenr,
I read some of this thread on that site. Still can't figure out how someone with my yard would go about winter sowing with umpteen frozen feet of snow on the ground and howling winds to 40mphs.
Do you know?
I love my baby plants indoors,too much.

Hi Franelli,
Well I buried my containers under the snow and plan to leave them there til the snow melts.
If you go to the FAQ on site there is more detailed info. I didn't believe WS could work the first time I read it, but there are a *lot* of people doing it. And, yes, it does give one the chance to smell the dirt!

i'll let y'all know how it turns out for me.

ellen

I'll be starting a bunch of seeds in March outdoors -- that is, I'll be doing the planting work indoors, and moving the containers outside. (I'm Canadian, not a masochist.)

I plan to use old sushi trays (love sushi take-out!) for things like carrots, onions, and lettuce. That way, I can get a head start on the season. And even if I lose everything, at least I'll have been gardening instead of whining!

franeli,

Check this out. I posted it last winter/spring, and there are a couple other links included for info.

http://forums.rodale.com/og/thread.jsp?forum=3&thread=8610

I did try it last year, but "Buddy the Wonderdog" tipped my table over and had a high time tearing my containers apart. This year, I will be much more careful where they go, and hopefully Buddy is a little more "doggy-mature", and won't be so frisky.

Either way, I will be doing this again. In fact, I should get started! We got around a foot aof snow in the last couple days, and that gives me plenty of places to bury them and keep them out of his way!

BG

Wow,thanks for the links.
Sounds like a really neat experiment to try on some seeds,the ones that self sow in particular...makes sense to me. Wonder if I could do some nasturtiums since last year I had volunteers come up....hmmmmm

It's absolutely worth a try. The nasurtiums should work great if you had volunteers. I was surprised by some cherry tomato volunteers last spring, so I will definately try some wonter sowed tomatoes. They'll get a better head start, and be bigger sooner, and produce more. What more could we want? It may just replace my seedling starting in the house if it works once!

BG ;\