Tag Archives: winter sowing

Garden Dreaming in Winter

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Our winter temperatures have finally arrived. We had a dusting of snow the other day, and temps dropped down into the teens and single digits a few nights. Brr! The birds devoured everything in our feeders before the temps dropped off late last week, and I’ve been enjoying checking out all their tracks in the snow. The deck railings seem to be a high traffic area for the birds, and the neighborhood cat appears to gone ice skating on the frozen pond.

When I haven’t been watching the birds hop around through the snow, I’ve been working on planting the first of this seasons seeds. January may seem an odd time for planting in Ohio, but there’s quite a few seeds that need the winter cold to properly grow. These seeds need a period of colder weather to germinate, with temperature changes and precipitation helping to break down the seeds tough outer shells.

Day-dreaming about spring planting in the raised beds…

In the past, I’d put seeds in the fridge to reproduce winters conditions, but I never had much success growing anything this way. Last year, I learned about the Winter Sowing Method and I had much better luck. I described the process in a post last winter, but the basic idea is that you start your seeds that require stratification outdoors. I was able to grow a bounty of native plants from seed this way, and I decided to try it again this year. I grow these seeds in recycled milk and juice containers, with a little seed starting soil mix. The deck is already packed with containers full of prairie blazing star (Liatris pycnostachya), little blue stem (Schizachyrium scoparium), swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), and purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea). I have a bunch of native grasses to start with the rest of my recyclable collection, as well as some coneflowers.

Most of my seeds, however, won’t see soil until March. I’m going to start quite a few herbs and veggies indoors, under grow lights. And then, I have a few things that will be directly sown in the ground, like carrots and lettuce in the springtime. I’ve been scouring seed catalogues, adding entirely too many seeds to my collection. I have a few left over from last year to use up this season, in addition to quite a few that I harvested from plants. So, it’s going to be a busy spring, is what I’m getting at!

What seed-obsession?

Along with planting too many seeds, I just started my Master Gardener Volunteer classes this past Friday! Thankfully, in addition to my gardening addiction, I’m also quite a fan of notebooks, pens, and highlighters, because we’ve been given a ton of materials to study. The first class gave an overview of the Master Gardener program, from its history to all the great work Master Gardeners are doing in our community. Next, we learned about soil, what makes it such an important resource, how and why it’s important to test it, and how and what to add to it to help plants grow. I remained overwhelmed with gratitude that I managed to skip Organic Chemistry in college when “Soil Cation Exchange Capacity” was brought up… if you ever want to make your head spin, give that little ditty a Google…

Looks like the neighborhood cat stepped out onto the ice of the pond and did a little skating.

After learning about the ins and outs of soil, we covered the Scientific Classification System, scientific names for plants, and had a plant biology overview. There’s so much to learn, and I’m excited to be a part of the program. I imagine by the time classes wrap up in mid-March, I will be a fount of planty know-how!

I think that wraps things up for this first few days of January. I hope to spend time this week doing a bit more winter sowing, and I ought to get all my seeds organized so I can figure out the order of operations for this years planting. Hope you’re staying warm and healthy. Happy gardening!

I left up our pokeberries for the birds to snack on this winter. I love the way the berries look in the cold.

Winter Sowing Palooza

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Last weekend, I set out a few more suet blocks for the birds. It took a couple of days, but suddenly, the yard was full of woodpeckers and a giant gang of feisty grackles. The grackles swoop into the yard in droves, yelling at anyone in earshot and driving our cats wild as they jockey for the best spot at the feeders. Grackles have really pretty iridescent feathers that they use to lure you in before attacking your face with sound. Seriously. There cannot be louder birds out there anywhere.

The commotion in the yard feels good, though. Winter days are isolating, especially in the pandemic, and it’s nice to be reminded of all the critters that I’m connected to (even if it’s just as a caretaker of their outdoor home).

  • Georgiana the Bird Watcher, caught sleeping on the job.

Back inside, I’ve been working on my seed starting spreadsheet. There’s a lot of dates to keep track of and I do better when I over-organize projects. So, step one is to list all of my seeds, with the planting method (will I direct sow them/winter sow/start indoors), sowing dates, and planting instructions.

Each seed packet gives a lot of information. Take, for example, this borage seed packet from Botanical Interests. The back of the packet tells me that these seeds will grow better if I directly plant them outside, just before the last frost date. The seeds should be planted 1/4″-1/2″ deep, and I should see growth in 5-20 days. While I’m planning to grow this borage for the bees to enjoy, apparently, the flowers, leaves, and stems are edible. Who knew.

I’m tracking these details on my spreadsheet, and then sorting the sheet by planting method. The majority of my seeds will be planted directly in the ground after the last frost date. Some of the more fussy plants, like the tomatoes and peppers, I’ll be starting inside, under grow lights. The seed packet will give a good idea of when to get things going, usually by stating how many weeks before the last frost date to plant. Know Thy Last Frost Date. Everything kind of lives by this when gardening. Literally.

While I’m still a few weeks away from starting my indoor seeds, now is a great time of year to start winter sowing.

Winter Sowing is something I’ve seen gardeners doing for awhile, but this will be my first year trying this particular sowing method. Basically, the idea is to start seeds outside, in containers. Seeds that need to stratify over a cold period to break their dormancy will thrive in this method, as will many other plants, from vegetables to herbs. Winter Sown Educational provides free, downloadable lists for which plants work well with winter sowing. I highly recommend looking through their website to see if you can try out some of your seeds this way.

Starting seeds by winter sowing has a lot of benefits. It’s very cost effective. You don’t need grow lights, or a lot of space. All that’s required, material-wise are your seeds, some seed-starting soil, and an empty container like a milk jug (grab one from the recycling bin and feel extra good for re-using your plastics). Finally, winter sowing saves water, since you don’t have to water your seedlings at all unless they seriously dry out. And plants that are sown this way won’t have to be hardened off, because they’ve grown up outside. (Hardening off is when you slowly expose your growing seedlings to the outdoors before planting so they can adjust to the sunlight, wind, and temperatures of the outdoors).

The process is pretty simple. Collect some empty milk jugs or other plastic bottles, seed starting soil, tape, a marker, a knife or scissors, and your seeds. Puncture a few little holes into the bottom of your container.

Next, cut your container in half. I cut mine most of the way around, leaving a little spot to act like a hinge. Lightly wet down your soil, and add it to the container, a few inches deep. Check your seed packet for planting instructions. Gently pat down the dirt over your seeds so they make contact with the soil. Lightly water them, then tape the container back together. Duct tape works great for this, as does the packing tape you randomly found in the box with your Christmas wrapping paper. Mark the container with the type of plant, and the date. Finally, set the container outside in an area where the top won’t be blocked by anything. You want to keep the top of the container off so the rain and snow can get in and water your seeds.

Check on your seeds every so often if it’s been dry, but otherwise, this is a great “set it and forget it” method of starting plants. Happy gardening!