I'm trying wintersowing for the first time this year. I've planted seeds for

Mirabilis (4 o'clocks)
Delphinium "Pacific Giants"
Lupine "Tutti Fruiti" and wild lupine
Peony-flowered poppies
Aquilegia (native eastern columbine and McKana's Giants)
Bearded Iris (from my plants)
Digitalis (foxglove) (from my plants)
Asparagus (from my plants)
Parsley (flat leaf and triple curled)
Winter Savory
Common Sage
Redskin Dahlia (seeds)

Although it seems somewhat counterintuitive to be putting this stuff outside at this time of year, I've been assured that it is a very stress-free method of growing plants!

I also have a flower box with lettuce and a smaller planter with micro greens sprouting under my fluorescent lights, and alfalfa and radish seeds in my Bioset sprouter.

Wednesday 2/15 I plan to get my onion seeds started (indoors, under the lights), and by the weekend i want to plant a few tomato and pepper seeds for plants that I can hopefully put out in my unheated hoophouse by April 1st.

Feels good to be digging in some dirt, even if it did come out of a bag!

I'm zone 7 and I plant all my onion, leak, garlic in the fall. I get an excellent harvest every year doing this.
I'm not sure how this would work in colder zone, maybe someone else with experience can say for sure if you can plant them in the fall as well.

Do you pIant onion and leek seeds directly in the ground in the fall? Or plants? I do plant garlic cloves in the fall and have good success with those. If you're direct-sowing seeds, do you have a problem with weeds overwhelming the tiny onions and leeks?

Weeds are one of the reasons I don't direct sow. My garden is surrounded by fields full of weeds, so even the containers are hard to keep free of weeds. I have my onion seeds started in my greenhouse right now. And a couple of garlic plants in pots. I'm not sure how well those Mirabilis will do being winter sown. I grow them from seed every year here, and I've never had any volunteers show up the following year.

Mirabilis -- good thing I only used some of my seed; if the winter sowing doesn't work I'll start the other ones later on! Woofie, what are you doing with the potted garlic, do you use the tops or are you going to wait for it to make heads? I understand about the weeds, my veg garden is pretty good now, after years of weeding and using LOTS of grass clippings to mulch, but my poor perennial flower garden is quite a challenge for me!

Now, don't take my word for it on the Mirabilis; I mostly don't winter sow, so I don't really know. I've just never had volunteers come up the next year. I'd love to get some of the ones they call "broken colors" to try. I have pink, magenta, yellow and white, but none of the mixed color ones.
Ha, I only have the garlic in pots because some of the cloves I had in the kitchen started to sprout, so I stuck them in pots. I sampled the greens and may go ahead and use some in salads. I'm hoping to be able to grow some early greens in a cool greenhouse.....but the sun keeps coming out and heating the darn thing up!

oh don't worry - everything that is out there is going to have a chance to sprout no matter what anyone says to the contrary...

I'm planning to sow some lettuce and maybe some other greens in my (unheated hoop house) soon -- last spring some lettuce that I had planted the previous July came back and grew into beautiful heads; I never did a later planting last year, so I'm going to try seeding it and hopefully will get very early lettuce.

This is some of the lettuce that re-grew for me (the photo was taken on 5/20/2011)

Yum! Is that butter lettuce?

yes, 2 are butterhead types (Buttercrunch, I think), the other was a cos type. It was probably the nicest lettuce I've ever grown!

Drool! For some reason, I have had no luck growing lettuce and/or spinach here. I had no problems growing in down in Eastern Oregon, and the climate here doesn't seem that much different, but *sigh* it's fighting me here.

i have prob. 40 flats of seeds that i have already winter sowed. prob. have 200 more to go. lol. i already have babies too. this is my favorite time of year in texas........AT LEAST THIS YEAR. lol.

All I can say, Barb, is that it's one heck of a long way from the Michigan Upper Peninsula to Texas!

and that is one heck of a lot of plants you are growing!!!

well what i want to do will be a lot more than what i actually accomplish. the real trick will be to keep them alive thru their first texas summer.

Hopefully you will have more rainfall in Texas this year, at least!

that would be too much to hope for. i only hope for maybe a few weeks of 100 plus degree days instead of 3 months. lol.


at what point do you fertilize seedlings? and what do you use?

We were discussing that over in another thread. Some people use weak compost tea, but several others (myself included) just use a dilute solution of Miracle Gro, about quarter strength or less. And wait till they've been pricked out and re-potted to start fertilizing.

i saw a fertilizer at my garden center that was something like this.....3-8-4 and it said it was especially for seedlings.

i have miracle grow...........so when you say dilute it...........if the package calls for a tablespoon for a gallon pot.........would you then put only half that? or a quarter of that? what i have is granules. dry.

I'd probably use something like a teaspoon to a gallon... I use the granules as well, and just look for a very light blue color to the solution. Not very scientific, I'm afraid!

And Barb, that tablespoon per gallon is per gallon of water, not per gallon pot!
Sounds like Sandy and I use about the same strength, too; about a quarter to a third of full strength.

thanks for the recipe woofie. great. so i will dissolve my granules.........1/4 tsp. in a gallon of water

and then do i just pour it on the soil or do you use foliar type fertilizer? and what's the difference anyway? would i burn the leaves of a plant by spraying nonfoliar fertilizer on them?