Winter Sowing

I read about winter sowing nearly a year ago and I was hooked. Seriously. Look into it. It will blow your mind.

Not sure where to go? Start here. This is by far the best information I have found to date.

Need a synopsis? Here it goes:

Winter sowing is planting seeds on or after the winter solstice and leaving them outside. They get rained on, snowed on, wind blown and chilled. This is especially beneficial for those plants that require scarification to germinate (think Peas). The end result should be seedlings that are used to temperature changes (no sissy greenhouse plants for us) and a higher success rate of germination and plant survival.

Making a winter sowing seedling container is easy. Take a milk jug or any liquid container, rinse it out and poke holes on the bottom. Cut almost all the way around the container about halfway up and fill with prepared potting soil. Plant your seeds, tape the container shut and label with a Laundry Marking pen. Leave the cap off and put the container outside where it can sit undisturbed and get a reasonable amount of sun.

Here is my "garden" Luckily I have a little balcony off of my craft room.

As you can see the sky is the limit as far as containers go. I do like the milk and beverage bottles the best, but the cookie and cake containers work well also. Just be sure to poke holes in the tops of them.

I am only growing vegetables so I didn't need to plant very early. We are also experiencing a strange warm winter here so I held off until the first weekend of March. Then I planted in a frenzy.

This morning I checked on my containers and I was delighted to find some seedlings making their appearances. Mostly the cold weather crops like lettuce, onions, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. Still, it gives me great hope to see that this is working!

Here are some pretty purple cauliflower plants:

Actually Purple! How fantastic!

And the broccoli:

Am I weird to think that baby plants are adorable?

Don't forget to check back because I am definitely documenting this entire journey!