If only I had room for half of those! My crop variety wish-list is even more wildly optimistic : maybe I have room for 1/3 of these?:

That's a great list too! I popped in at a little garden centre store yesterday and they had a bunch of their left-over seeds for 1/2 price. great deal. I picked up some Alyssum, Blue Flax, Pansy and Zinnia. I didn't have much time and I might have to go back for Snapdragons, Impatiens, Marigolds and others. They had a bunch of tomato, veggie and herb seeds too. Yup, gotta go back...maybe tomorrow

>> they had a bunch of their left-over seeds for 1/2 price.

Envy!

I USED TO have a nursery nearby that marked year-end seed pkts down to 1/2, then $1, then 50 cents, then 25 cents. That was a super-great deal for Territorial crop seeds in larger pkts! They had an entire WALL of Botanical Interests seeds, as well as Territorial and Ed Hume. (The last two seem to focus on the NorthWest.)

I went back so many times for that year-end sale, checking on what was left at each price break, that the clerks recognized me and waved.

In fact, they still recognized me a year later when I did it again.

The third year, they STILL recognized me, but comiserated that the owner had found she could send unsold seeds back for some kind of refund, like unsold paperback books.

Coincidentally, they went out of business in the fourth year.

Ambitious lists

Karen

Keep us posted on how everything grows.
I had not heard of some of those plants.
Rick ---the table is a good idea.
I see you have the Laurin's Grape poppy----it is a favorite of mine.
Last year the seeds did not germinate so I have ordered a new batch.

I had great luck wintersowing poppies, transplanting while tiny. Direct sowing works well too, if you have enough seed to spare.

Karen

RC, Great lists.

I always have long, ambitious lists of what I "plan" or hope to start, then a shorter list of what fit into the trays, then an even shorter list of what emerged.

I used to lose most things during hardening off, until I realized that "hardening off" was actually "Hors d'Oeuvres For Slugs".

Lol .. Hors d'oeuveres for slugs .. love that .. if you haven't discovered diatomaceous earth yet you've discovered it now .. stuff is amazing .. totally inorganic, non-poisonous and it's death to slugs, snails and walking insects. It's used to worm animals on farms and the food grade stuff is totally edible. Only two down sides to it .. has to be reapplied if it gets wet and you want to wear a mask if you use it in an enclosed space and can't get up wind of it - use a duster to apply it. DE is the broken shells of diatoms .. to us it's powdery to insects and slugs it's like walking through shattered glass and when walking insects groom themselves after walking through it it shreds their digestive system. It will knock down a really bad whitefly infestation 36 hours. You can usually get it at feed stores or certain hardware stores .. also available online .. the food grade DE is most excellent for food crops and the non-food grade usually has a bait in it.

A quick word about snails .. there is one snail you do not want to kill. The Rosy Wolf Snail - a good guy .. it's a cannibal and eats other snails!!!! Here are some pictures.

I think Rick gets too much constant misty rain for DE to be effective for long.

I swear by iron phosphate. Slugs used to kill all my seedling in our wet spring weather. Not anymore! Iron phosphate even works in rain. Can't be beat.

Karen

>> has to be reapplied if it gets wet

Unfortunately, that would limit it to the m iddle of the summer for me - the dry season. Also, I recall a gallon jug was pretty expensive ... but that store had a lot of thigns that seemed like rip-offs to tempt Yuppies, not many bargains.

And bait + beer does pretty well for me, now that I know I have to set up a moat around any seedlings being hardened off.

Wow--what an awesome list, Xeramtheum. How do you have space to start everything? Can't wait to follow your progress.

I won't start thinking about which seed to start until after the first of the year. There are a few "slow growers" that I'll start in early January, but not much else will get started til March indoors. Still need to formulate my WS list--didn't do much wintersowing last year and really regretted it in the spring. I've got lots of milk jugs saved up this year.

Me too. After all the Christmas junk is packed away, I'm be able to think about seeds. I will start those few begonia seeds in January, and wintersow a few jugs of perennials. I won't think about other annuals, either under lights or wintersown technique, until March.

Begonias are my nemesis. I kill them by merely looking at them. Whether I grow them from seed, or buy at a nursery, their lives are at risk with me. I love them, but they don't seem to like me much.

Karen

I can grow the 'wing' begonias but can't seem to keep those tuberous begonias alive and I'd really like to be able to grow some of those - they have such beautiful flowers!

My list is about average of what I start each year .. I begin the 3rd week in January. I have a table in front of the a south facing window and use heating pads. They are the old ones that aren't digital so they don't automatically turn off .. I have an old glass encase thermometer from my dark room days to keep tabs on soil temperature. Here's my list from last year

Bells Of Ireland
Bomarea
Brugmansia - Atahualpa
Brugmansia - Vulcan Angel Trumpet
Carnation - Cascading Clove Drops
Castor Plant - Carmencita
Chilean Bell Flower
Chilean Bell Vine
Chilean Fire Bush
Chilean Jasmine
Corkscrew Vine
Corydalis
Four O'Clock - Broken Colors
Four O'Clock - Limelight Rose
Geranium - Pink Lace
Geranium - Raspberry Ripple
Globe Amaranth
Heuchera 'Emperor's Cloak'
Hibiscus - Simply Love
Hibiscus - Thai Red
Honeywort - Blue Shrimp Plant
Linaria aeruginea 'Neon Lights'
Lisianthus - Sapphire Pink Rim
Mariposa Lily
MG - BP-MBR - F4 Cross
MG - Firecracker Vine
MG - Man of the Earth, Big-root Morning Glory
MG - Moonvine - Lavender
MG - Moonvine - White
MG - Plata Ipomoea Caudiciform Morning Glory
MGJ - Beni Chidori - Rare Leaf Dwarf Climber
MGJ - Blue diatube Mutant Leaf
MGJ - Blue Silk - OP
MGJ - Cocoa Chocolate
MGJ - Mixed OP - Fearadyn - F1
MGJ - Platy Blue X Fujishibori - F2
MGJ - Q751 (Tenten)
MGJ - Rose Silk X Fujishibori - F2
MGJ - Shidare - Weeping Morning Glory
MGJ - Split Personality Mix - OP
MGJ - Sunsmile Blue
MGJ - Sunsmile Pink
MGJ - Sunsmile Purple
MGJ - Sunsmile Purple
MGJ - Sunsmile Violet
MGJ - Xiong's Chinese
Painted Tongue
Pasque Flower
Pink Hawksbeard
Snail Vine
Trumpet Creeper - Morning Calm
Unicorn Plant - P. lousianica
Unicorn Plant - P. parviflora v. h.
Unicorn Plant - Dbl Devils Claw
White Sky Flower – Alba

wow big list too!!!

I think I want to invite Xeramtheum to my house to help me start seeds this year

mom2goldens said:I think I want to invite Xeramtheum to my house to help me start seeds this year

Me too

Lol .. seed starting part is easy .. transplanting into individual pots and finding room in the greenhouse for all the seedlings is the hard part .. learned many years ago to always start aggressive vines like Morning Glory last because by the time they are ready to go outside they are all trying to grab on to something and hug their neighbors .. nothing worse than trying to extricate 20 some odd MG from other plants. At the moment I'm having to spend a few minutes almost every day cutting tendrils off of victims of all the rooted cuttings of passiflora in there.

Here is what my GH bench looked like by the beginning of March this year.

I agree--transplanting and finding room under the lights is always an issue for me. The next battle is being able to get everything outdoors to get hardened off--our spring weather can be so unpredictable. I spend a LOT of time moving flats of plants inside, then back out, (rinse and repeat many times).

I grow a lot of plants for our Master Gardener plant sale in May. I'm always so glad to see those plants out of my house by then!!!

I usually start moving things out by the end of March - at least the plants that I can grab quickly and throw them back in the GH's on a moments notice. The GH's are so depressing by mid March because everything in there looks so pathetic!