The Potager

The Potager

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Winter Sowing

There's not enough sunny windows in my home, so I was very excited to learn about winter sowing at this site: WinterSown.org.

The idea is that seeds will germinate when they are supposed to, but by creating a little "greenhouse" you help bump up the time a little. The seeds that are used to the outdoors will be stronger because they haven't been babied in the house. Sounds good to me!

I started by cutting four water jugs in half. My daughter says I am a water snob. I am. I will not drink our well water. Thus all the Poland Spring jugs.



I used a fondue fork to poke drainage holes in the bottom of each jug.



I then added a few inches of potting soil and watered them well.






The drainage holes worked.

My sink was a mess.

I hope dirt doesn't clog drains.



I decided to try flower seeds: Lavender, Delphinium and Echinacea. These are all perennials. If they don't grow this way, I can just plant them the traditional way.

In fact I planted two of them the traditional way because it was time to do so according to the seed package. It will be interesting to see how the winter sown Lavender and Delphinium compare to the house sown.


After sowing, I wrote the names of the flowers on the jugs and taped the jugs shut. I put the tops on the water jugs because it is supposed to rain/snow tonight. I will take them off in fair weather to vent the mini greenhouses.


They are in the Potager where they can get full sun. I am not sure how they will survive intense wind like we had last night, but I guess I could always move them somewhere more sheltered in that event.

This is not a plant and forget thing, like the fall planted garlic (see post about that tomorrow!).
I have to check them to make sure they don't dry out and are properly vented. I'm so excited to see if this works.

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