Thank you everyone!! I got my top choices too Thank you! LOL I did it from work.....trust me I was ready with my phone in hand lol

@rockpile1369 I didn't get any seeds from mine to share this year, but you can get live plants in the spring from Almost Eden Plants or from any nursery that buys from Monrovia. Despite the pollinators snubbing it, it's one of my favorite plants in my yard.

However, it will NOT outcompete English ivy. It's not even remotely aggressive enough. It'll get run right over and suffocated by aggressive vines, all while it says, "oh pardon me, excuse me, so sorry, am I in your way?"

I almost missed out, I was up to my elbows in finally potting up a bunch of sundews, and now I remembered I was going to put sundew seeds up for trade and oh man there were so many seeds I was gonna put up for trade but I ran out of time and energy. I have like three billion people coming for Thanksgiving so I have had to clean up and pack up all my plant stuff and get rid of all the stinky and unsightly stuff. You know, the GOOD STUFF 😂

I got all of my top picks!!!! Thank you everyone! This is always my favorite time of year!

I'm thrilled with my picks, too! Thank you everyone

Then I told my husband, "Oh, you wanted supper tonight? How does Ramen noodles or Carl's Jr. sound?"

@Joolie - you know you can still add items? With Thomas having medical issues (get well Tom!) I was thinking I need to go through my veggie boxes and see if I can put up a bit more than I've put out there. There had been so many up, hadn't gotten to it. Will try to make the time.

Yeah, I was thinking if I get a few moments I'll try to get the more interesting/rarer/recently collected stuff up but I'm so pooped! But almost ready for the holiday so

Seems a shame to not offer sundew seeds so I'll have to go dig those up. Had to put all the unpackaged seeds away to clean up! 😱

I got my top picks too and was so happy that I was able to be here for the opening this year. In fact, I was nicking myself while making supper, probably being somewhat distracted. Fortunately, I didn't damage my clicking finger! If anybody know an easy way to peel winter squash, please let me know. (That's where all the nicking comes in.) I know squash is supposed to be baked in its shell, but we prefer it peeled and mashed like potatoes. The peeling can be a real pain, though!

I'm kind of thrilled with my 4 picks! It's such fun choosing seeds and fun seeing what others are choosing also.
Someone snagged a lovely pink Lavender that I had my eye on but that means that when they grow it out they might offer those seeds again next year!!! 🤗 Everyone seems to be excited with their seed haul tonight. More fun choices coming soon...
Btw, I got a new grow light recently and I'm so tempted to get some seedlings going! Patience, I tell myself!
Anybody else getting impatient for winter sewing yet? 😉

I'm hoping to winter sow "successfully" this year. Last year I had my pop bottles with drain holes in tubs without drain holes, and did not realize that they were right where the rain runs off the eaves. Most of the seeds floated away, but some Dianthus sprouted anyway. They haven't bloomed, but if they survive this winter, maybe I'll be able to tell what they are. Then I tried covering the tubs when it rained but forgot to remove the cover one hot afternoon and baked all the seedlings. Eventually, Columbines sprouted out of some of those pots, and maybe they will bloom next year. I have a totally different set-up planned this year, but I don't know if I'll have it together in time to wintersow everything I hope to or not. I'm finding there's quite a learning curve to this seed growing. I still cave in and buy potted plants here and there. I hope to get over that.

I'm happy with mine too! Got my #1 so I'm super thrilled and excited

DraDiana said:I'm hoping to winter sow "successfully" this year.

Are you using any particular set of guides? My problem is planting everything that sprouts !! Maybe I'll be successful in 2020.

Max,
Your dilemma can possibly become mine, if my plan works. Maybe I shouldn't plant every seed. My failures may have saved me a lot of work. Some of my grow light/rented greenhouse successes kept me very busy last year. Eg. 200+ tomatoes sprouted. I managed to get one of each of 83 varieties planted (at my CSA farm - not my house), only to have them munched by deer just as production was about to peak. (So much for collecting seed.)
No particular guide - I've just read everything I could find on this site, and a bit on the net. The new plan is to grow directly in Purina cattle feed tubs. I got over 75 of them free from local cattle farmers. Hay/straw is inexpensive here, and goes in the bottom to take up extra room until can get more good compost. I found a heap of 45 year old sawdust compost - free if I do the digging - to fill the tubs to about 8 inches from the top (they are 2 foot deep). I plan to get Promix for the top, and seed directly. Then I can cut the bottoms off my pop bottles and stick them directly into the pots over the seeds. So far, I only have 10 set up with potting mix on the top. They already have mums, daylily seedlings and onions in them. I just found a source of more nutritious free compost, but it could be a while before it is thawed enough to dig and dry enough to lift.

I don't know how many winter sown plants you plan on growing but... This is how I set it up before I had a greenhouse and bought nursery pots.

16 ounce styrofoam cups (these are 6 inches tall) with 3 holes poked in the bottom with a pencil for drainage. I filled them with about 5 inches of pre soaked pro mix. Those cups were then put into a dollar store crate and covered with dollar store clear shower liners cut to fit around the entire crate and taped. A hole was punched through the liner above each cup using a knife to allow water in and out they went!

I would start looking here in MA. for sprouts around April. When I saw things sprouting, I would make the hole above a bit larger.

I also used 8-inch rapi clip plant markers. this held the shower liner up above a few extra inches for the ones that sprouted first..

I winter sow in anything that will hold a few inches of dirt, milk jugs, juice jugs, take out containers, plastic baggies over cups. I don't do anything special and have great germination here in PA. I always over plant and always wind up with more than I'll ever use perennials get started in January after the Holidays and cold hardy annuals in Feb and March and warmer annuals in April.
I start some stuff inside like coleus, petunias, pentas, and impatiens since they are slow to get started and any tropicals I may try.

I have a few different ways of starting things - including the jugs outside, heat mats and shelves with lights surrounded with those reflective blankets (a few bucks at Walmart) in the garage and some seeds I'd even put in the pot they'll grow in and clothes pinned floating row cover over the top (my big pieces for the beds rip in the wind - so I'd cut some up). It won't keep the pots that much warmer but will keep the birds off say - the Patio pea (4 inches!) seedlings I grow on the back porch (and sorry, I eat them - don't save seed, buy each year or two).

This is reminding me I need to check the thrift stores for a crock pot (won't use my good ones). With shelving in the garage - one thing I've seen folks do is put a crock pot with water on the bottom shelf on low - warms up the shelving unit if you have it enclosed. You do want the kind of shelves that are not solid - this is either a HomeD or Costco hefty but inexpensive plastic one (and those are the older pruners I need to scrub, sharpen and oil - or toss - so ignore them).



The other thing I do is put more soil in my jugs than a lot of people / sites do - that way if I end up planting out later, the plants are ok and not root stressed.



And, like most here - I start A LOT.








After planting, the worst is carrying them in and out for hardening off. My poor back (all the heat mat / light inside ones). I grow for our Master Gardener sales in addition to myself (MGs here are non-profit, we participate in a school garden in every school in our unified school district and do lots).

@luvsgrtdanes. I'm too much of a neat Nick to use any old thing to plant in. I bought 400 nursery pots so everything would be uniform in my greenhouse.

Lisa

My husband says I'm nuts to try to grow so many plants, but compared to some of you I'm quite moderate!

So many ways to get a jump-start on the growing season! Love it.

DraDiana said:but compared to some of you I'm quite moderate!

Diana -- 7 dozen tomato varieties! 'moderate'?? I cannot keep track of seeds for half a dozen. But having a CSA farm makes the scale of your plantings reasonable. Sorry to hear about the deer. We have hungry ones too.

I've pretty much stuck with Sheryl Mann's WS process (FB group) because it's the first place I found with a lot of detailed info when first looking into it. People try out different things and share successes and failures which is nice.

Lisa -- I like order, but cannot seem to maintain it -- ever! The cups in crates w/shower curtain liners sounds interesting. I'm now comfortable sowing 2 seeds for each variety of tomato -- won't need to toss or find homes for the other dozen that sprouted in the milk jug!

Maggie -- I thought one of the big advantages of WS was not needing light/heat pads/hardening off. But maybe that depends on the plants and goal -- if you have a target date for a sale then hoping nature will cooperate could be stressful.

luvsgrtdanes said:I winter sow in anything that will hold a few inches of dirt, milk jugs, juice jugs, take out containers, plastic baggies over cups.

I started w/ milk/bottled water jugs, but now like the rectangular lemonade containers from Costco best -- more orderly I guess. Eyeing small-sizing via a variation of Lisa's cups in crate method.

I'm like Ronnie, if it holds dirt then it's fair game (for winter sowing or for growing out). I save our yogurt cups & use them mostly, 2 cups of yogurt a day means lots of cups. But I have to put everything in our front yard, the dogs have the run of the backyard and unfortunately don't respect the mama lady's garden fence. So everything has to be fairly orderly to keep the yard police off my back. Last year I half buried my milk jugs, then hid them with a line of larger nursery pots. They still had plenty of sunlight, but it wasn't such an unsightly mess.