Sounds like a good way to throw money away. I have done this standing and tossing wildflower seed and ne'er a wildflower from those seeds did I get. Even with vigorous wildflowers , I rake the seeds into bare soil. Nature throws millions of seed to get the few to sprout.

Sounds as if the seed are left overs. It might be a good time to spread them and get rid of them. If they grow all the better. Even if purchased new, how expensive can they be? (:

Um, I do this at the end of the season when I have a large amount of annual seeds...but never just broadcast on bare earth. At the very least, I loosen the soil around with my boot, then press the seeds down to get a good contact. Even just raking the top to get a half-inch layer of looser soil will give the little seeds a better chance...but otherwise, it is likely to be a very sparse an erratic show.

What gave me idea for this thread is that I learned how to seed grass for my lawn. After setting up the soil, I broadcast the seed then lightly rake it in. This gets the seed to be at many different levels so that which is at the optimum depth will grow and the rest is fodder for the birds.

I figure the same should work for other seed.
The main question is for when to do it.

Yes, they are left overs that I just never get around to using according to the directions.

I can do it fairly successfully here because we put in sand with river rock gravel on top. The seeds get lodged in the gravel which warms in the sun and keeps the top layer moist.

When I've broadcast seeds onto dirt or unprepared beds, my luck was dismal to zero success. I'd maybe get a sprout here and there but not much (nothing like the picture you might see on a can of wildflower seeds for an 'instant garden'--thats dreaming. I think the top of the soil dries out at times, the birds eat many of them and others never make good contact, who knows?

If its very easy, hardy, big seeds, I usually wait until the soil is workable after a rain in fall--make a hole with a dibble, plant the seed and pat it down firm, or I plant several seeds in a small area I rough up and then pat down well just hoping for one plant from maybe 20 seeds in that spot. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

I let many of my plants set seed and don't deadhead them to keep the plants coming each year but as wantonamara pointed out, nature provides bountifully abundant seeds so inevitably, I will get volunteers and call it a naturalized plant. When I'm cleaning up in fall, I often shake off all the seeds of a plant where I want more next year. For example, one blackfoot daisy is now several plants scattered here and there in an ever widening area just from the seeds that fall naturally but even so, the plants don't take over so very few seeds actually sprout and become mature plants.

Sometimes I buy a single plant rather than a small pack of seeds so I will end up with a lot of seeds at the end of the season --- I think of the plant as a seed source. Often it costs about the same amount of money to buy a single plant as a pack of seeds.

Carol, I look at old seed this way. If it stays inside in storage, it for sure won't do anything, if you sow them you have a chance. You have nothing to loose. I've often taken my old seeds or unlabeled seeds or just whatever I have in my stash and just thrown them around. Its nice to get a surprise now and then and that has happened.

By the way, I seem to be getting lazier too but my garden needs a lot less work now than when I was changing it over.

I'm a big fan of direct sowing, although I've had mixed success. I've direct sown rudbeckia and shastas with success, although they were onto bare earth (no mulch). my CA poppies were a big hit, too.

Ive experimented with sowing in almost all seasons, but I think that late fall is my favorite. It gives them quite a jumpstart over the spring-sown seeds.

What the above posters have said, which is probably better than I can express. You are basically acting as a disbursement agent (wind). I'm a lazy gardener too, who so far hasn't put too much energy into the whole seedling thing; the most I've done to enhance the above method with some seeds I wanted to give an increased chance of germinating, was to cut off entire seedheads and dig them directly into the ground (I did this with liatris a few months ago). I guess if you really wanted to up it to the next level, you could turn into a bird and ingest the seed - then go around town pooping it out. The perfect seed bomb with enhanced fertilizer!

"I guess if you really wanted to up it to the next level, you could turn
into a bird and ingest the seed - then go around town pooping it out. "

Certainly imprints an interesting picture in my mind that will be difficult to erase, (:

I'm not a lazy gardener, but there are some seeds that I'll broadcast sometimes and they just come up on their own including zinnias and cosmos. Just toss them and watch them grow.

LOL - I was having this discussion with a gardening friend of mine. basically saying how birds provide the perfect vehicle for seed distribution - they take a seed, fly away, and poop it out. So the seed is not only surrounded by a touch of fertilizer, but the bird poop is on the acidic side, so it help break down any seed coatings. Our trendy friends get weird when we go on about the down and dirty of things!

My garden buddy and I say the same thing when it comes to the birds and broadcasting of seeds. Sometimes I'll find sunflowers growing in the strangest part of the garden. I know I didn't toss seeds there, so I can only attribute this to the birds. Here's one that they grew in my garden this year:

A book I read recently says in a mulched bed remove mulch until the soil is 50% exposed then brodcast your seeds. I had good luck raking a strip of mulch away to expose the soil, then spreading Echinacea seed this past July.

Replace the mulch or leave it off?

Leave it off. Move it to a spot where you definitely don't want seeds to sprout. The strategy is to watch for weeds that sprout and clip or chop them down, leaving the desired plants. They might grow back, just clip them again and eventually they'll die and the soil with be less disturbed than if you had pulled the weeds roots and all.

I guess this also means to remove the snow too....(: