Don't let all the details scare you off. Mostly it is pretty easy. The key points I'd emphasis are: get some sterile seed starting or container mix. Keep it moist, NOT wet. Do not cover containers after seeds have sprouted (not vital to do so earlier either but reduces the need to water frequently) Keep plants in bright light....your sunniest windows or within 2 inches of flourescent lighting. Gradually expose them to outdoor conditions before planting out. Try starting at least some of your plants from seed. It is fun to watch them grow. For small scale seed starting you can use all kinds of free plastics that normally end up in the trash or recyling. If they don't have holes in the lower sides or bottom be sure to make a few. Then let things grow. Also, many seeds grow well if they are planted directly in the garden. Sometimes I'm amazed to see what transplants people will buy and even more amazed to see the prices on them. Many only give you a couple of weeks earlier harvest over direct seeding...some not even that.

Yeah, I start about the same time in Massachusetts. Depending on what you are planting you could get the wall o water. It's a plastic tent that keeps heat within so you can set your plants out earlier. I'm trying them this year. Usually we don't get stuff (vegetables) until August. I hate waiting all that time. You could try indoors a bit earlier...but you do risk them getting leggy. Also, you risk transplant shock. Typical indoor planting time is 6-8 weeks before last frost. But it depends on the plant. You have to ck the packets. I'd be curious to hear others ideas of how to get plants started earlier indoors without being leggy. I think you'd really need a greenhouse for that..but I could be wrong. Here is a link that might be useful: Wall o Water article from my blog

Hi Donald, welcome to the Winter Sowing Forum. *It's recommended to basically make flats of somekind out of materials at hand, put soil in them -> sow your seeds --> set flats outside in a "safe" area --> wait till spring to see what comes up.* Yep, that's basically what it is, and the nicest aspect, I think, of the method is that you get to do it your way with what you have and within the size of your own wallet. *Wouldnt it be easier to just direct sow in the soil where you want the future plants to be?* All seeds that can be WinterSown can also be Direct Sown, but they should be sown heavily because Mother Nature takes the vast majority of direct sown seeds to feed her critters and biota. Direct Sowing, also called Direct Seeding, is a traditional method for sowing seeds outdoors. It involves preparing the soil bed, sowing the seeds, and keeping them moist throughout germination. The Winter Sowing Method is better because the seeds are protected in their mini-greenhouses. When you direct sow in the ground the seeds are at the mercy of Mother Nature....they can get washed out in downpours, be eaten by critters and bug and birds, desiccate in the wind, or can rot in the soil. In a WS 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 areprotected so more of the seeds will survive to germinate in Spring. The germination counts are generally astonishingly high. *My reasoning is that, if the seeds had dropped from a parent plant already in the garden, that successful germination is just as likely from "semi-natural" re-seeding as it would be if I used the recommended winter sowing method suggested in the FAQ's.* Plants which reseed in temperate climates are those recommended for Winter Sowing. *I guess to me it just seems like the recommended method over complicates the process and just adds more work, after I've spent the growing season pruning, deadheading, weeding, mulching, topdressing etc.* Just sow the flat and stash it outside on the picnic table or wherever your dog won't grab it or your snowblower won't hit it. *Again those are just my thoughts on the winter sowing process and in now way am I trying to gainsay the method recommended by others.* Don't worry about it, WS is very incredulous when you hear about it--you like to direct seed in your garden. I do both. I have a veggie garden and direct sow many of my leafy greens. Many posters do any or all of WS, DS or GUL. *I just have a terrible time trying to start seed indoors, and so I've amassed, what I consider a ALOT of seed packets, that are waiting to be planted but due to my iffy results starting seeds indoors "6 weeks before the last frost", which here in central OH could be as late as the end of April.* You've come to the right forum. Winter Sowing removes a lot of the frustration that comes with indoor germination, it's a big relief and gives you a gazillion seedlings. Nice plant list, it can all be WSed. Your yard will be a butterfly party. T PS, Did anyone tell you that Winter Sowing can be addicting?

Hank, I have grown tomatoes for 25 years on my own, and grew them with my parents and grandparents for virtually my whole life, and I have NEVER had such a bad weather year for tomatoes....although there were a couple of rainy years in the 1970s that came close to being as bad as this year. Tomato yields were affected negatively by the weather in several ways, including: 1) Very Late freezes, including some very late sleet and snow, killed a lot of plants that were already in the ground. The colder soil temps then drastically slowed down regrowth and stunted the plants. This is the worst thing that can happen to tomato plants...even some of the ones that survived remained somewhat stunted and slow to produce. 2) Excessively wet weather impacted tomatoes in several ways, but primarily by keeping the soil so waterlogged that the roots could not grow. In addition, continuous heavy rains leached nutrients out of the soil big-time, so even the plants that survived sitting in waterlogged soil were nutritionally deprived and grew slowly for a long time. 3.) Excessive humidity made pollen sticky, causing it to clump and slowing down/preventing pollination. 4.) Excessive clouds slowed down both the growth and ripening of the tomatoes that eventually formed. Any single one of these four factors is enough to really mess up your tomato production, and having all four at once is highly unusual. I would say that we are unlikely to ever see such awful tomato-growing conditions again, but.....this is Oklahoma, after all, and our weather will do what it will do. Hopefully, though, we will have a better year in 2008 for growing tomatoes. As you learned this year, planting tomatoes at the earliest reasonable time is very important in our climate because we have such a brief period of time in the spring when the nights are warm enough for pollination to occur and the days are not yet too hot to slow down/stop pollination. I tend to plant too early as opposed to planting too late, because most years I can cover up plants and protect them from a late freeze, but you can't do anything to counter the effects of the heat. If you are only going to have 8 plants next year, you probably want the ones that are most productive, so you get the most tomatoes possible in the space you have. If I were growing eight plants and I wanted maximum production for the space available, I would probably plant these: 1. Better Boy--heavy production, excellent disease resistance, very reliable, good to great flavor 2. Jet Star--heavy production, good to great diseaese resistance, usually reliable, good to great flavor 3. Early Girl OR Bush Early Girl OR Early Girl Improved--early tomatoes, good disease resistance, good flavor. Of the three, Bush Early Girl always gives me the most tomatoes per plant. 4. Fourth of July (simply COVERED in 2 to 4 oz. tomatoes all summer long)--Very early producer that continues to produce all summer long, excellent disease resistance, and fair to good flavor. Please note when I describe the flavor as fair to good that they are not bad at all--and certainly taste better than ANY grocery store tomato. They have typical or average hybrid taste, and if you have never had the wonderful flavors of heirlooms, you would think these are perfectly fine. It it just that I am spoiled by the wonderful flavors of all the heirlooms, but most heirlooms produce 1/10th of the yield that Fourth of July will give you. Bloody Butcher is an heirloom that reminds me of 4th of July although it has not been quite as productive in my garden. 5. Sweet Million cherry OR Husky Red Cherry. You probably only need one or the other of these. Husky Red Cherry is a short internode plant. Sweet Million can easily get 8 feet tall if caged or trellised. Sweet Million will give you an abundance of smaller cherries. Husky Red Cherry will give you fewer, but larger, cherries. 6. Porter is a small tomato that is larger than a cherry but NOT a round beefsteak, more of an oval salad type. Fruit are reddish-pink and these plants produce all summer long no matter how hot it gets. They are very disease resistant and VERY heat/drought tolerant. 7. Burpee Porterhouse will give you the huge, tasty red tomatoes of your dreams. New on the market and one that has greatly impressed a lot of tomato maniacs. 8. Celebrity. Chosen for its outstanding disease resistance and reliability. If you could squeeze in 2 or 3 more, SunGold is a great golden-orange cherry that produces in about 57 days, Cherokee Purple and Black Krim are heirlooms that give you some of the tastiest tomatoes you will ever eat. Dawn