Hi All! Advice for my first winter sowing try?

12 years ago

Hello enthusiasts!

Here is the instruction on my seed packet for true comfrey:

"sow in cool soils of early spring with germ in 30 days as soil warms. Or, give 30 days refridgeration in moist soil in a sealed plastic bag or glass jar and then sow in the garden or in pots"

This seemed to call for winter sowing! Which I have never done and haven't quite understood....

I have a gallon plastic bottle. It is whitish - not clear is that ok? I cut the top off - forming a bottom for the soil and a top for the "cold frame" part, add soil, moisten, and put in the seeds. pop the top on, place outside.

Now my questions: keep the round bottle top on? Seal the top to the bottom with tape? At what outdoor temps do I remove the bottletop?

Any other points to make this a success? 10 seeds were $4, so I need to get it right pretty quickly!

I was going to put 2 seeds into the bottle for winter sowing, try 2 in the fridge per directions, and 2 out of doors in march. that leaves me 4 seeds for next year if I completely fail....

Thanks so much for any advice!!

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Comments (13)

bakemom_gw
12 years ago
Start with the FAQs. Then, if you have questions, post them here. We are standing by ready to help.
t-bird
Original Author
12 years ago
Where does one find these FAQs?
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t-bird
Original Author
12 years ago
found it! I looked and looked and as soon as I asked, it popped up and bit me!
t-bird
Original Author
12 years ago
ok - so slits on top and bottom, and tape it back together.

Do you think that an opaque whitish bottle is ok? If you hold it up to a lamp, you can see the light even through 2 layers, so I'm thinking only 1 layer against the sun is fine...

Any thoughts?
tomva
12 years ago
Hi t-bird,this will help you and welcome to wintersowing..
Tom

Here is a link that might be useful: The Rule of Thumb for Choosing Containers
t-bird
Original Author
12 years ago
excellent tom! That answers it!!!

Thanks~
northforker
12 years ago
Good Luck t-bird. Those seeds sound like excellent candidates for WSing. Anything that is perennial in your zone will do well with WSing - YOU WILL BE AMAZED!

Welcome to our community and we stand by ready to help and applaud when you get great germination on those seeds.

Nancy
micki
12 years ago
I'm a newbie too T-bird, and I know how you feel. It seems all a bit odd. There's so much time to wait from now until germ time. But from others here, they say its a success, and what a space saver, and I can earn a buck while I'm at it, so I'm in. I've really run out of garden space, since i only rent, but what I do is dig up something I've had for awhile and give it away or well it. I am trying to start a little business but for the most part I just give it away, especially to a certain fellow who donates it to his church.
Just have faith T-bird and bank on the experience of these knowledgable gardeners. Find someone who will adopt you, then you'll be off and running. I believe there is a site for getting adopted. Can someone help me out here? I'll see if I can find a link.
Are you interested in sowing other seeds?
If you ask people will send you seeds, they love to help out us newbies.
Trudi also gives out free seeds at Wintersown.org.
If you go there you take a little fun quiz and at the end of it you get a paper verifying you went through the process, and in so doing you learn about WSing. Trudi is our greatest help, I guess she got this all started. her site is amazing, Check it out.
Micki
t-bird
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks Micki!

My comfrey is out in it's little container....I will see what comes of it!

I may well do more now I've got the hang of it....I've loads of seeds....lettuces, spinach, brassicas, that likely would do well. This may well be a better venue for the parsley than trying to sprout it indoors in the usual way....
terrene
12 years ago
Hi Tbird - the WSing technique works very well for many herbs and it is much easier than growing them under lights. I have sown parsley, basil, dill, fennel, rue, savory and oregano in 1 or 2 ltr bottles, or cups and usually in the Spring (not much cold treatment required apparently).

With parsley and basil I get a nice bushy little clumps that we call "hunk-o-seedlings" (HOS) which can be divided and planted. They grow into large plants by mid-summer. Several of these herbs are host plants for the Black Swallowtail butterfly which I have raised for the past 2 years.
t-bird
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks Terrene!

I added a jug with the parsley, and then 1 each of chives and garlic chives - wow it sure felt good to actually feel started out of doors (have some containers inside too...), and while I found preparing the cantainers to be fairly labor inensive, that they are practically "set" until transplant seems phenomenal, as compared to the indoor starts....

Will see how this turns out....I am very hopeful! I'll enter in my meager tally on the zone wars.....not sure if I want to do too many till I feel more secure in my technique - but likely will do about 5-6 more, as I have the containers.....just need to decide which crops to sow....
dieg01991
12 years ago
I have been winter sowing for a while now, and I like to write about my experiences on my blog. Here's a post I recently wrote with links to previous posts about containers I've used, cleaning containers, and general winter sowing tips. Hope you'll find it helpful.

Here is a link that might be useful: Winter Sowing Experiences
t-bird
Original Author
12 years ago
UPDATE!

Welp - I was pretty worried with the crazy weather, and if I neglected them if they got too hot then too cold etc. etc.

But success!! lots of parsley and chive sprouts. 2 out of 3 comphreys came up (3 seeds into the jug). garlic chives, just 1 think the seeds were old as they should be similar to reg chives and everything was the same!

With the early spring, never got to do more, just these 4 jugs.

Will definitely do more next year!

Thanks for all your help and encouragement winter sowers! Sow on!

Hi All! Advice for my first winter sowing try?

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bakemom_gw

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Hi All! Advice for my first winter sowing try?

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