They do help develop eye/hand coordination. I'm hopeless at the ones my son plays where you have to use two hands and they're doing different things like jump and go left, shoot, etc. They make me very anxious. Seeds don't.

I 2nd the thought that once you start growing seeds you see plants differently. Now I go to nurseries to see what kind of seeds I want.

Ok, back to important talk about seeds...I planted some of the aztec lily seeds I got in the swap and 2 have already sprouted! Now to keep them alive long enough to plant outside.

Good job!!!

I about died laughing when I read the following instruction on doing cottage style gardens:
"crowd your traditional cottage garden more than you would other gardens".
I have to crowd mine to get the plants from all my new seeds in.

Seeds are already sprouting, zinnias, tomatoes, basil...many from the swap (especially zinnias, oh my, I really indulged.) I participated in two swaps this past winter/fall and hardly purchased any, so including swap postage I barely spent $30 on seeds. Seed starting materials I buy in bulk and it lasts a few years, trays are reusable, I make my own compost, get free chicken manure, etc.. so I don't think my gardening habit is very expensive. Now knitting, that's where I spend some money..maybe I need to raise my own merino sheep or alpaca. LOL.

I have not gotten much sown yet, but this morning several of the ones I sowed last week have emerged. Dave's special Crepe Myrtles have germinated. The "other" Mimosa from teefaha01, the unknown Cuphea from Lara, and Val's Luna White Hibiscus have all germinated to a greater or lesser extent. Rattlebox's Purple Porterweed shows no signs of life, not surprising based on what Danita shared about viability, but I won't give up this quickly in any case. Thank you all. The Calotropis I shared has germinated as well, though I planted only 1 seed. 1 seed=1 plant; all I have room for.
This weekend I will be sowing a lot more.

I had fun yesterday setting up experimental containers. A couple I had a lot of, or especially wanted, I did by the jug method and then the vermiculite only method and the soil method in 4x4 pots. The latter two are sealed inside gallon ziplock bags.

When I came back into the house later DH said "What are you doing out there all this time anyway?". I told him I was busy saving money.

@poisondartfrog Dave's crepe myrtle have germinated already? I thought they were supposed to be cold stratified for 60 days Mine are in the fridge...maybe I should take them the out

Ronnie, I sowed one in a little water bottle greenhouse and put it on a heat mat. My notes say I did that 1/28, so that's about a week to germinate. I've grown Crepe Myrtle seeds before and that has worked fine for me. I also wintersowed a couple of seeds. I've always been an impatient gardener so I hedge my bets while going for immediate gratification.

Something I didn't mention is that I left my crepe myrtle seeds outside in their pods until quite far into the season. I think I actually harvested them and brought them indoors in late November. So they did get some natural stratification already. I'm not surprised that you got some germination by sowing them right away. I can't wait to see what results people get from these!

It will be interesting for me to see how the wintersown examples (I should have two) develop and bloom vs. the progress of the two started earlier in the season with heat. This is the fun stuff!

That is great to hear about the crepe myrtles germinating already. I have some in the fridge I put in last week but just got some ready to try now after reading this.

I also have a few things sprouting up after only a few days of germination. It looks like we might be close to having an early spring here with all the birds migrating back through. I have butterflies and no flowers in my garden for them right now.
I started about 20 something different things that like warmth and it is taking all my will power not to start more until spring is officially here. I know if I start more we will get an artic blast again for sure.

Thanks Alana and Dave, good to know on the Myrtles in case I am impatient and can't wait the 60 days

OK, I know it's different for different plants and age of seed, etc., but is there a rule of thumb for how many seeds one should plant vs the number of plants desired?

With corn we always put 3 seeds in the hole. One for the birds, one to fail, and one to grow.

I wrestled a frozen bag/bale of ProMix into the house Friday night. Having to "shave" potting mix off the frozen block makes for slow sowing, but I'm catching up on indexing/plant-date filing between thaw cycles

'Hope everyone enjoys the Super Bowl!

dave said:With corn we always put 3 seeds in the hole. One for the birds, one to fail, and one to grow.

I love that.

I helped my grandfather when I was a little girl. He used four per hill and it was my job to drop the seeds. He always said: "One for the gardener, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow".

@dave My great-grandfather used the "3-seed method" of planting too. After having most of my small garden damaged or eaten by Mother Nature and her critters the last few years, I remembered his seed planting philosophy. I don't have the space to plant 3x as much as I need, but the expense of trying to thwart the critters may force me to find a way to do so.

There is no "rule of thumb" for flowers as far as I know Leslie All I can say is if you fill the jug with seeds thinking only a few may germinate they all do and if you fill the jug with a couple not wanting a lot, none of them germinate

I tend to over sow if I have enough seeds, I can always give the extras away.

What a surprise I got today when I went out to the greenhouse to set up more shelving. I didn't get these seeds in this swap but darn...look at this in my currently unheated greenhouse in massachusetts!





The top is godetia collected from my 2015 garden and the bottom is crimson clover from 2014 seeds shared with me by @greene

Lalambchop1 said:OK, I know it's different for different plants and age of seed, etc., but is there a rule of thumb for how many seeds one should plant vs the number of plants desired?

I tend to overdo it usually for most things. I usually plant out chunks of seedlings from wintersown stuff, rather than individual plants. So for those I sprinkle smallish seed over the whole surface of the potting mix. If seedlings seem really overcrowded early on, I just pluck out some seedlings to provide more space. If you're direct sowing outside, do it heavily. Wintersowing in protected containers decreases the number that get lost to animals, rain wash out, etc. compared to direct sowing. When sowing older seed or those of an unknown age, I also sow more heavily. If they are seeds that should come up really quickly and you will have plenty of time to start more if necessary, then you can sow more sparingly. For a lot of the things that need long cold moist stratification I tend to sow heavily. If you get poor germination with those, you won't really have time to easily start the whole process over again this year.

For things like tomatoes where I only really want one of each plant and the seeds are not old, I might sow five seeds. Then I keep up to three seedlings until I put them in the ground. Once they start to grow a little, I will pick the best looking one and pluck out the other two.