So exciting! I want to start but need to get a paper punch for the holes in my milk jugs to connect the top with the bottom. It is one of those things where we just plain know we have several someplace ------- someplace!!!

After I made my seed list, it hit me how long it might take to sow nearly 400 different things. So I chunked the list into parts, set the pace of getting one part done each month. Sowed half of these listed below on Solstice and the other half yesterday, am done with the must-do-in-December list. Many are in "multi milk jugs", with bottomless dixie cup cells (4-6 to a jug), labels inserted and ready to plant, jugs numbered and a "mapping list" is made of seed locations inside each jug.

Wow, last year I tried to keep track of ideal seed depths, blah blah...re-prioritized seeds each day I sowed. This "here's the whole list and here's how it's gonna get done" approach is soooo much faster. I've sown nearly as many seeds in two days of labor than I sowed all last season, my first. I only worried about precision sowing with the few tropical indoor things. Yippee!!!!!

And if I loose some to a warm snap...that's fine too!

Agastache golden jubilee
Ageratum - hardy
Ageratum - Red Sea
Anise hyssop
Asclepias - silky gold
Asclepias - scarlet
Asclepias - ice ballet
Asclepias - peach
Asclepias - swamp pink
Asclepias - tuberosa
Astilbe - Fanal
Astilbe - Heidelberg
Astilbe - Red
Astilbe - Mixed
Astilboids tabularis
Alyssum Copper
Amsonia
Balloon Flower dwarf
" " Komachi
Baptisa yellow
Baptisia unk
Blackberry lily - yel / orange mix
Blackberry lily - reg
Blackberry lily - zoo
Blackberry lily- unk
Bleeding heart - white
Campanula - com mix
Campanula - trade mix
Canna - buckshot
Canna - zoo
Cephalaphora aromatica
Cephalaphora unk
Cherry Bells
Chocolate flower/daisy
Chrysanth. blue knoll
Chrysanth. Silver & gold
Columbine- woodside varig.1
Columbine- woodside varig.2
Columbine- black heirloom
Columbine- black barlow
Columbine- lemon ice
Columbine- barlow mix
Columbine- green apple
Columbine- mcKenna giants
Columbine- dragonfly
Columbine- roman bronze
Columbine- orange
Columbine- bicolor
Columbine- double bicolor
Columbine- pale purp. Single
Columbine- black & white
Columbine- dk blue
Columbine- red native
Coreopsis- plains 1
Coreopsis- plains 2
Coreopsis- tinct. Dwarf Red
Coreopsis- tinct. Mahogany Midget
Coreopsis- tinct. mix
Coreopsis- tinct. marroon center
Coreopsis- summer sunrise
Coreopsis- unk yellow double
Coreopsis - lanceleaf unk
Daisy, shasta - Dwarf Snowcap
Daisy, Shasta - Crazy Daisy
Dianthus - Sooty
Dianthus - Black Magic
Foxglove - perennial mix
Foxglove - per. Yellow
Foxglove - lutea, strawberry yellow dwarf
Gaillardia - Fanfare
Gaillardia - Short red & yellow
Gaillardia - Burgandy
Gaillardia - Red
Gaillardia - Oranges & Lemons 1
Gaillardia - Oranges & Lemons 2
Gaillardia - Oranges & Lemons 3
Gaillardia - Tokajer
Huckleberry
Elderberry tree/bush
Smoke tree/bush
Butterfly bush "Potters Purple"

Planted indoors:
Red Sweet Bay bush
chilean Mesquite tree
Liliquoi passiflora
Guava
Strawberry guava
TX Mt. Laurel tree
Bay Laurel bush
Desert willow tree
golden chain tree
golden showers tree
Tamarind tree
Cape Gooseberry

kilngod, what kind of dixie cups are you using, plastic, paper, what size, etc? I tried making the dividers that Monte showed a long time ago but I didn't care for the way that mine turned out.

Hi Proudgm,
I'm using the small paper "bathroom" size ones - just hacked off the bottoms with one snip of the scissors. Buried them in the dirt. (plastic ones might be better, I'll know more in the spring if these fall apart too much. A little falling apart may be good - easier to remove the plants.)

To note: get the soil packed around them well to stablize them, and don't fill them too high with soil so there is still a good collar sticking up. The first ones I did were buried too low, and when I watered them, the water sloshed over into the cups and spilled back over the edges -- any surface sowed seeds might get carried up over the edges.

I'm also keeping the cups at the perimeter of the jug, so the center part where the rain will come in is open -- and am sowing more behaved (larger, not surface sowed) seeds there without a collar. I also tried a few where I also cut the cut vertically, so it was a "strip" -- and used 4 of them to make a larger corral/pen in each corner of the jug. (only for non-surface sowed seeds)

I'll be sure to report how this technique works out. I might end up with some inadvertant mixes in the earliest ones in particular. Worst case, some of the named columbines may become "mixed named columbines". Can always seperate them after they bloom I guess.

I had seen someone's image of dividers inside the cut-in-half milkjug style container. I like the flap method better and couldn't figure out how to use the same cardboard dividers while keeping the flap without completely annoying myself.

Hi kilngod,
I am a complete newbie who just made some of the index cards dividers for the milk jugs. I noticed that trying to assemble them inside the jug with a flap was very annoying, but if I assembled them on the outside they folded on themselves easily so long as there is only one card going through the middle. (Could have up to 6 nice sized cells that way). Then, you could just put the folded thing in there through the flap and "de-collapse"/make it 3D once its inside. I am mostly using HOS myself, but thought I'd chime this in. Good luck with all you beautiful varieties, and to you too Vera!

Hi bramasole, Very cool! I'm going to give that way a try on the next batch. Thanks for putting up these details.
--Tina

I dont know if this will work, this is my first year. I had plastic ice cream containers that held four styrofoam cups in them. I just labeled the cups and placed them in the container and put the vented lid on. I also put holes in all the cups and bottom of the container. Barb

Stood out in 36 degree weather today to do my first WSing ever. I did some in individual water bottles (tree, shrubs, etc). Did some in soda bottles and clear plastic water bottles. I don't care for the duct taping. Had the best luck with milk jugs. Easy to punch holes in with a heated ice pick and to wire shut with a hole punch and floral wire. Here is what I sowed today:

coneflower white swan
glory of the snow
Russell's lupine The Pages
smoke bush
wisteria
climbing roses iceberg and lavender lassie
noble fir
crape myrtle lavender
mimosa tree pink
crape myrtle red
green wizard coneflower
allium azureum
sundrops
lavender
catmint
painted daisy
malva mystic merlin
obedient plant
delphinum blue mirror
dianthus Siberian blue
gaillardia Indian blanket
columbine magpie
Joe Pye weed
salvia splendens white

Only 132 more containers of perennials to go. Then at least that many annuals this spring.

Sure thing! This forum has been so amazing with so many helpful people, I'm happy to finally be able to contribute something back ;)

kilngod and proudgm!! you must have a lot of garden to fill. Your lists are very long!
I keep making a list and then looking at it and then at my garden (not big :(). As it is my first year to try this,I want to plant EVERYTHING, but I know that I really couldn't plant it all. At least I have an excuse to continue to pour over my seeds and make lists and garden sketches and dream.....I have a lot of planning to do to fit as much in as possible! LOL
Lois

greylady-gardener I probably won't have enough room either! But I figure what I don't have room for I can give away and start someone else on winter sowing and start them on a life of seed collecting addiction! There's always the Farmer's Market to try to get rid of a few!

Yup, I do have a lot to fill. There's a lot of old wood mulch here, and very few plants when we moved in -- and I want to fill it up so there's no need for mulch. And no need for that aweful english ivy area. Boring!! Will be systematically removing parts of it: Clear one section and get other things growing, Repeat. Plant things close and spread them out as more gets cleared each year.

I like a "full" look too. And have neighbors' mostly empty flowerbeds for back up.

I do have my MILs garden to look after so could plant a little more for her :)I would also love to be able to give lots away.....I will either be very popular or people will run when they see me coming! LOL
My list of things that I want to start with keeps changing. I won't be able to actually plant for a couple of weeks as I want to wait until the January thaw is over with. It is supposed to be about 10(C) next week, so I guess I should wait until it is colder and has a good snow cover....shouldn't I?

Hee hee.
this is why I'm just going for a ton of things -- if I lose some, oh well, no big deal. What I've done with some of them is prepped the container, sown the seeds, but have NOT watered them yet. So they are still "stalled". If you're worried about a warm spell, you could do something like this and just not water & not set the container where it can get rained into.

Or just go for it, and know that some seeds will sprout and die...and the late sprouters in the same container might make up for them, just like they'd do in the wild.

Last year I waited for the same reasons you mention. (still lost things to dry spells) This year I have to take advantage of the time off work over the holidays.

Whenever you start sowing, don't think too hard about which things to sow first. Just sow until they're all sown! You can find homes for them later -- and if some don't make it, you'll still have enough for your garden.