OK, thanks, I think I'll give it a whirl then and WS them. Never have grown them from seed before so I wasn't sure what to do. Kmpsmom, our weather here in Zone 6B tends to be sort of similar to Zone 7, so that's great to know you had success with WS'ing them. We had a cool spring and summer here in PA too because of all that rain. Aliska12000, I think I'll hold a few pansy seeds back too, that's a good idea. Maybe I'll sow them in containers in the spring just to see how those work. Thanks again for your follow up posts! Now I just need to get more seed starting mix...

That sounds great Lisa! It's always nice to teach a class, and WS is so easy that people figure it out right away. You're welcome to print out whatever you want from WinterSown.Org. I suggest you tell the class to bring empty clean milkjugs, salad containers, soil, and you bring seeds, tape, knife scissors and printouts. Bring some bags and coarboard boxes so everyone can take their containers home easily. Do NOT do watering of the containers at the site, but instead tell people for this occasion to bottom soak the containers at home. At the class talk about WSing principles, seed saving, sowing seeds, soltice sowing, and natural germination, etc--it's your class so make it your own and do it as you feel is important. For seed sowing help them make their containers, rub in their seeds and seal the containers. Don't forget to vent. It sounds harder than it is, the bulk of the work is in the preparation, but otherwise it's a fun class to teach and goes quickly. T

Hi! My name is Karen and I've posted some questions on the geranium forum and got some good advice, but noone is terribly chatty over there so I was wondering if this is a good forum for me to join. Are you taking new members?? I'm in IL and we started over 700 (agh!)pelargoniums, or whatever they are called. We call them geraniums. Anyway, I was told to pinch and went to town and I hope I did it right because I have some sad plants. And it's about time to start hardening off...and I haven't a clue what I'm doing! We have two portable greenhouses outside with heaters in them and we put the impatiens and pansies, I think, in there. But the geraniums are inside under grow lights and in sunny windows (as sunny as it gets during the long awaited IL 'Spring' if that's what you call it!) Can anyone help me keep them alive?

When you direct sow in the ground the seeds are at the mercy of Mother Nature....they can get washed out in downpours, eaten by critters and bug and birds, desiccate in the wind, or rot in the soil. In a Winter Sowing mini-greenhouse the seeds are in a protected environment. They get the same weather as the seeds in the ground...same temperatures, and the little slits in the lids allow both rain and melting snows to keep the soil moist and the flats watered. But they ARE protected so more of the seeds will survive to germinate in Spring. The germination counts are generally astonishingly high. Trudi