To tell you the truth the only two I would wintersow are the peppers and tomatos,I would direct sow everything else

Lisa, my wintersown tomatoes had an extremely high germination rate, to the extent, in fact, that I have 30 or so plants needing homes, and that's after I planted out at least that many.

What kind of container do you use to ws? I found the milk jugs the easiest to work with, and they also had some of the best germination rates -- one of my tom varieties was 9 out of 9 in one.

Also wintersowed broccoli and cauliflower and they're some of the most beautiful plants. They thrived. I've tried both before and never got any head formation. Now, one broccoli is already going and the others probably aren't far behind. Some of these seeds went out Jan. 24, the others Feb. 28 and were transplanted sometime in late March. One of my problems with these before was being too hesitant to put them outside while it was still cool. WS took that out of the equation since they were outside from inception.

Onions also wintersow well. I've still got three containers I didn't transplant growing like crazy. The ones in the garden are going to get choked by weeds because they're only inches apart and I can't get in between to weed. I'm beginning to see the value of a raised bed for these.

Caryl

See I'm embarrassed to say I didn't do milk jugs for my veggies. I had a steralite container with a shattered corner, so taped plastic (window proof) over the top and xs cut over each container. Back to good old milk jugs for next year. I'm thrilled that I've filled my beds as much as I have, so need to focus on veggies for next year, I'm excited. Looks like I can put out things Jan., Feb. and expect better germination.

caryl!
Are you looking to maybe even ship them to a new home??? All but one of my 40+ that I sowed bit the dust for some reason.

Lisa-
you could probably get away with the cole crops in Feb, but not the rest of the garden. I WS my veggies with the 'latest' WS items- the annuals, and usually even after April 1. The only thing that I'm considering NOT WSing next year is the carrots...I always end up waiting too long to plant out, and the roots are a mess. This year I tried ripping off the excess roots that had amassed in the bottom of the milk jug before I planted out, but I bet that fails miserably.

And don't sow too deep. Keep well watered.

I waited until the end of May to sow squash and beans and .....cukes and.....ummmm, something else.

They germinated in a couple days.

I even got a couple melons going that way!

:)

I WS'd tomatoes, peppers, squash, leeks, celery safir, lettuces, spinach, broccoli rabe, broccoli, cukes, and eggplant. Cukes did not do so well, peppers were a little slow, but I think they are going to make it. I was so busy planting and cleaning out flower beds, I never used the broccoli rabe and now it has bolted and flowering. Oh well. I'm getting lots of pea pods,which we eat raw. Yum! I planted everything the same way I do my flowers - pop bottles, milk cartons, etc. Some of my peppers were eaten by slugs while in the jugs.

Seriously, April and May then I definitely planted those out wayyyy to early. Glad that's all it was. Now that my main beds are pretty much filled I want to focus on vegetables next year. WS is so addicting isn't it? There's always something new to try.

I understand what is meant by winter sowing for perennials and annuals which are hardy but can someone help me out understanding exactly what is meant by wintersowing in the context of tomatoes and other tender vegetables? For example Doris1 mentions sowing in May. Is that considered winter sowing? Is anyone sowing tomatoes outdoors in winter? I am really puzzled by what different posters mean by winter sowing. It seems to cover a lot of techniques which I would regard as normal spring sowing. I sow favas in November, but that is the normal time for my area. Is that winter sowing? Help. Please explain.

Hi Flora,

I sowed my tomatoes outside in milk jugs around Feb. 20. They germinated in late March to early April and are doing well in the garden now that it's warmed up. For a long time they stayed pretty small, and the seedlings I haven't transplanted are still on the small side -- they probably need more room for their roots.

Many people seem to wait till early spring to sow some of the more tender stuff (using the ws method of jugs so I guess that's why they refer to it as ws), but at least in my zone I've found that it doesn't much matter if you do it in late Feb. or early March -- they won't sprout till it's warm enough anyway. I did some petunias in Jan. and got a number of healthy plants even though I probably should have waited on those till March.

Caryl

I agree with Tom. I don't wintersow any summer veggies except for tomatoes. I didn't sow pepper seeds this year. I bought one plant instead.

I will summer sow my cabbage in late August. Just to have decent transplants for the beds when the last round of beans and squash are finally done.

Flora,

In Chicago, May is still freaking cold, especially at night, so it's weather is still cold enough to WS. Some might call it early-Spring sowing, but very cold night temps with frost are quite possible. I used to live up in the mountains and into June we wore heavy coats in the evening.

If a plant will reseed in your garden then you can WS it. Winter Sowing is meant to be adapted to peoples climates, gardens and needs. So, what works for me, might not work for you, or anyone else, and conversely, what works for you might not work for me, etc etc. In my garden I have pole beans reseed each year. Abundantly too. But that might not be the case with other people. I have hardshell squash reseed each year in my compost heap and they WS fine for me, but I have low percentage germination with zukes. Hot peppers reseed but I have low germination with bells. So, to each their own.

T

Caryl - can I have a little more info? You say you sowed tomatoes outside on Feb 20th and they were up in late March/early April. Then you planted them out when the weather was warm enough. Do you think there is any advantage in doing this over sowing the tomatoes later indoors and then planting out at a similar time? I sow mine in modules in my glass porch in April. They're up in a week and I also plant them out when the weather is warm enough (Late May/Early June.) I'm pretty sure if I had sowed them outdoors they would still not have germinated yet. The limiting factor is the soil temperature, not when the seeds are sown. I am still trying to get a picture of the advantages of sowing outdoors in winter for tender crops. I can see the reasons for doing it with hardy ornamental plants which would naturally self sow, but not for tender veggies. I do get tomato and pepper volunteers from my homemade compost but the plants germinate so late in the season that they never get to cropping size.

I raise all my vegetables from seed either by sowing indoors in my porch or direct sowing outside. I've done it this way for many years but I am genuinely interested in discovering if outdoor WS has any advantages in my climate. So far I'm rather thinking it doesn't.

Hi Flora -- Since you've got a porch and the room I don't blame you for sowing indoors. For many, the problem is space and/or grow lights, not to mention damp off. Plus, for me anyway, the hardening off process always claims some tomatoes since I invariably forget them at some point. Wintersown plants don't need to go through that since they're outside from the beginning.

Are your zones different from ours? A zone 8 or 9 here would usually have warm soil much earlier than May or June. (If the 9/9 after your name is referring to zone, of course).

In w/s you're providing a climate in the container that's a little warmer than the outside temp. so plants will be ahead of the volunteers by a little bit But if a plant will volunteer under normal circumstances it is a viable candidate for wintersowing.

Flora, WSing toms does not provide you with the earliest tomatoes, it does provide you with the hardiest plants, and that is the purpose of WSing ;-)

Trudi is right. The plants are very hardy with nice roots.

Speaking of which, Trudi, the marglobe, siberian, mortgage lifter and Florida Pink I grew from seed you sent me are all thriving. The Great White got its stem a bit damaged when I was hoeing around it about two weeks ago so I planted it deeper and mounded up the dirt and it seems to be recovering. I'm hoping to be able to send you seeds from those as well as some other varieties I'm growing so you can continue to spread the word :)

caryltto - the zone I put on my tag is one I found on a map but I don't think zones mean much in the UK. Basically it means that our minimum winter temps are similar to your zone 8/9. However, we have nothing like the summer heat of a US zone 8/9 or even zone 5. 80f would be an exceptionally hot day here even in mid-summer. The ground doesn't freeze in winter but it takes a long time in spring to reach a temp at which a tender vegetable would germinate. An example is that my indoor sown and transplanted runner beans are about 5 feet up the poles now while beans which I direct sowed are only just germinating. (This is intentional as it gives a successional crop). It is actually quite hard to get many tomatoes to ripen at all outdoors. For outdoor growing it is recommended to only allow 4 - 6 trusses of fruit to develop as more will not have time to ripen.

Trudi - regarding the hardiness of WS tomatoes. In my experience the volunteer tomatoes which have appeared in my garden are no more than few inches high before the winter starts. So, however hardy they might be they are not much use if they don't get to even flower before dying off.

I did actually try winter sowing some tomato seed a few years ago. None of it came up. I suspect that it just rotted away in our cool damp weather. I was just interested to find out if I was missing a trick here.

Thank you for the feedback on your maters Caryl, I will be delighted to share your seeds in the future.

Flora, you're describing a climate which is extremely similar to our Pacific NorthWestern area. Choosing the right tomatoes for your region is important to achieve success--which is fruit ripened on the vine. I'm pasting in a link from Washington State University Extension which has some advice and a list of varieites that will work well in the cool summer climate.

Here is a link that might be useful: WSU Extension: Tomato Varieites.

"Winter Sowing" is very much about the method, though the name implies a season. We do most of it in the winter, but the method "Winter Sowing" is the same no matter the time of year you actually sow things.
The only difference in the other seasons is the location of the jugs and how much (more) you have to babysit them due to weather conditions.

---I sowed my tomatoes outside in milk jugs around Feb. 20. They germinated in late March to early April and are doing well in the garden now that it's warmed up.----

Do you bring them inside if it gets too cold? I'm asking because get frosts into May sometimes.

I'm still a bit confused on just how much hardier a WS'd 'mater is.

Thanks for the link, Trudi. Quite a few of the varieties are not available here but we can get some of them. I do always sow a variety suitable for my climate and with some blight resistance. To reciprocate I'm giving a link which shows you what we're up against trying to get outoor tomatoes here. There is a list of UK varieties on it.

I am trying yet again this year. The tomatoes I sowed in April are ready to plant out and I hope to get around to it today. The variety is Harbinger.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomatoes in the UK

teeandcee, I took the ones in containers into the garage one night when we were expecting a late frost, and by that point (early May) I had planted out a bunch and put a plastic sheet propped up with some stakes over those. All survived with the exception of a couple very teeny ones that I think got crushed by the tarp and weren't very healthy to begin with. Fortunately I had many, many replacements ready to go. But I'll wait till May 15 next year no matter how warm it is before that :)

Sowing them in Feb. probably doesn't make any difference from putting them out in March -- the seeds won't germinate till the conditions in the jug are right. They're not susceptible to frost till they sprout.

Caryl

Since I am trying to decide which vegetables I am going to winter sow, I read over this thread. I have had some experience with winter sown, indoor grown and store bought tomatoes. I have a small garden of raised beds, due to a lot of shade from neighboring trees, so I can only grow a few tomato plants. I did try them winter sown and they did great. Germinated, and were hardier and healthier, stockier. However, they did develop fruit later than I'd ever had them.

So I switched back to store bought tomato plants. Which seems to work out better for me for just a few plants. I have done indoor grown tomato seedlings and those did the best for me, because I could put out really large size tomato plants and had earlier and therefore bigger yields for my tomatoes. The only trouble with that is that it was a LOT of work. [g] So I'm not going back to doing that.

I've decided this year, I'm going to try winter sowing tomatoes again. However, I plan on using season extenders to try to help them out. I may even experiment with a store bought organic tomato plant from my favorite nursery and use season extending for that too and compare. I have used Wall of Waters in the past and it really made a difference in speeding up growth. I may think of trying something more than that if I have the time, like a small poly tunnel or some such. I would really like to increase my tomato yields.

As for other veggies to winter sow, I think I am going to spring sow pepper plants, cukes, zucchini, basil and beans and winter sow onions and the brassica family, dill and parsley. Peas tend to rot if you leave them wet too long, so I'm going to direct sow those in early March.

Would love to hear anyone else's strategies with growing veggies and herbs.