I agree with Ken, in principle. However, the longer the seeds sit out on the ground, the more chance they have of being eaten or washed away or forgotten and mulched over and dug into. I'd try to wait until at least late fall. Though, if you have plenty of seed, planting them now might allow some to germinate immediately and put down enough roots to have a head start next spring. I'm not being very helpful, am I? There's probably no absolutely correct answer. Martha

heartzlink , I did nothing special at all. All of the info I am using to start out with is all on wintersow.org+ what others have so generously shared with me on their own experiences. I just took all the info and broke it into a seperate excel sheet for each month. For zone 7, here is the link. For zone 5 I copied all of this, deleted anything that did not germinate, ordered it but month sowed, seperated it into excel sheets on germination start month. No creativity here. Just cut and paste :) This is my first year wintersowing and I was feeling the newbie nerves. This just helped me feel confident on where to start. http://wintersown.org/wseo1/WS_Database_Z7.html I hope that helps. For anyone else in Zone 5. It was a bit of work so I would be more than happy to just send you a copy if you want it. I hope by next year- I will have an expanded detailed sheet.

laurelin, where do you normally get the white heliotrope? I didn't find any last year around here. You can email me off line or post here. Like laurelin, I normally do my annuals in early to mid March. Last year I did petunias, alyssum, godetia, marigolds, celosia, calendula, salvia, lobelia, hyacinth bean, and amaranthus with great success. I tried heliotrope last year but they didn't start to bloom until the end of the season so I will start mine inside real soon. I think it's good to experiment - I've tried almost all my hardy annuals in Jan and Feb and had success and some not. I just find it easier to do the annuals in March since I'm doing perennials earlier and feel I'm guaranteed to have success with the annuals when wintersown in March. Last year I did not buy any annuals except for Proven Winners Diascia 'Flying Colors Coral'. I still plan to purchase this since I can't find these seeds (not sure there is). However I am wintersowing a few other types of diascia - I hope it works since it's my all time favorite annual(tender perennial)! :)

Hi, I am also in NJ. The only one of your list that I know for sure about is zinnia. It is a tender annual, so I would wait to sow until about 2 weeks before the last frost date, which in our zone is I believe May 15, altho that could be different depending on your micro-climate. I never can wait that long, so I usually plant out around end of April/beginning May, and if a frost is coming, I use row covers to protect. ellen