it took me years to figure this out ... pre WWW and all .... you might be embarrassed when i say it ... but sow the seed when the PLANT IS SOWING THEM ... and you will NEVER fail ... dont you think??? we fail.. or struggle.. when we buy the pack of seed in spring.. which is about 6 months AFTER when the plant is doing it ... soooo.. if the plant doesnt think it needs 3 weeks of cold.. why would you ... and if the plant is genetically predisposed to creating a seed that will lay there on the soil.. until it gets its cold treatment.. why would it be better to put them in an envelope ... and store them for later???? IMHO ... the biggest problem with the WWW is TOO MUCH INFO... lol ... be the plant.. ooohhhmmmmm .... good luck ken ps: the only way to fail ... would be to not mark the spot.. so you dont cull them all out as weeds in fall ... or next spring ...been there.. done that .. lol ... MORE THAN ONCE ... EDIT: the reason this works for THIS plant.. is that it is NOT an annual ... its a biennial.. and will over winter ... with real annuals... the seed or young plants.. may or may not winter over ... those are the seed that need to be stored if they can not handle your winter .... wherever you may be .... EDIT: .. i learned the most thru experimenting... and i presume you will have fistfuls of seed ... so direct sow some.. [like the plant isnt doing it right now anyway] ... save some for fall planting.. and try some next spring or winter sowing ... a great.. EASY plant to experiment with ... This post was edited by ken_adrian on Wed, Jun 26, 13 at 8:16

Thanks everyone. Guess I'll be popping those seeds into some little starter pots and put them in some shade on the deck today! Angela, thanks for that link, great resource. I think we have time, we're not off by too far if we do it now! I got the last pack of BS seeds at Lowe's yesterday so apparently everyone else around had that info! ;-). They didn't have rutabaga seeds which is the other thing I want to grow, but I have to go to a specialty nursery here to get those. It was funny, I asked the guy how many seeds he had (as in "do I have to rush down there?" and he said, "don't worry, you may be the only person in Wake County who plants rutabaga" and laughed. This will be my first attempt with rutabaga, so any tips on that will also be appreciated! I heard it's easy to grow. I just couldn't imagine planting cool weather plant seeds in this heat, but planting in the shade/sun and then transplanting makes sense! (Already looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner with BS and rutabaga :-)

I am in a zone CaN or a zone 4 US and the best time to sow poppies is in the spring like any other annuals. As for columbines, wait for another few weeks closer to the first frost. Columbines can be wintersown and so best to get them to germinate in the spring. Get them to germinate now would probably kill them off. There won't be enough time for them to lay down deep roots. As for those living in zones where there is hardly any snow and there's hardly any freezing, Iwould suppose it's safe seed columbines now but would wait till spring for the annuals

I did a late planting of both "Sugar Lace" snap peas and "Green Arrow" shelling peas, for a Fall crop. They were planted on July 17th, and the first shoots are breaking ground today, 7 days later. Full emergence should be in another 3-4 days. In my experience, sugar snaps need warmer soil than most other peas, to get good germination. I had several years of very poor stands when Spring planted, but have much better germination when planted in mid-Summer. I hope the pair of sandhill cranes that dug up my entire late corn planting doesn't return for the peas. They were just walking out of my rural garden when I drove up... one hour too late. :-0 The DW & I put up a fence today, which will keep out the deer & rabbits... but I'm not sure how much good it will do against pests which can fly!!!