Monday, January 30, 2012

Trying Wintersowing Again

Last year, I tried Winter sowing for the first time, and I loved it!  I only did a few plants last year, broccoli and cauliflower.  The broccoli and cauliflower plants didn't do well in the garden... it was plagued by bugs and mites, and never ended up growing any crowns, so  I decided this year that I wasn't going to waste garden space on brassicas at all.  Waste of my time in my opinion.  But the seedlings from winter sowing were so strong, much more so than seeds started indoors. If you are a non-believer, just look at my seedlings comparison from last year.  The brassica seedlings had thicker stems and were larger than the ones I started inside.  Last year, I had volunteer tomato plants all over the garden.  Dozens and dozens of them.  Since there were dozens of volunteer tomato plants, I knew that winter sowing would work well for tomato seeds.  I have been saving these plastic juice bottles to use as mini greenhouses to plant in.  Here's a great explanation from Dave over at The Home Garden that explains how to winter sow, or check out the Wintersown.org website's article
Here they are all sowed and outside near the house.  I labeled each one using the plant tags that I made out of plastic milk cartons.  This is soooo my kind of lazing gardening.  Sow and let nature do it's job.  Now all I have to do is wait until spring to see if this worked!  Fingers crossed.



8 comments:

  1. What a great idea! Never tried it, but might have to...

    BTW--if you're into such things, I have an award for you over at my blog. Come by!

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  2. I have never tried winter sowing anything. Good luck!

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  3. I forgot about this! I need to give it a try again! I have LOADS of containers I have been saving to repurpose for seedlings :)

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  4. Mimi! I'm about to do my winter sowing today! I got all my containers prepped yesterday and today the seeds go in. I was wondering if it was too soon to start the tomato seeds, if the seedlings would be too big too early...but I guess that's why I built a cold frame last year! To use it if I need to.

    Your broccoli seed comparison is so cool to see - incredible! I hear the same report from everyone - they are sturdier, hardier, and all around better plants started outside this way. Off I go!

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  5. I'm gathering jugs to do this too. I have some new flowers to try.

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  6. I need to clean my containers from last year. Yours look so nice and neat! I will def. winter sow broccoli and cauliflower this year though. I can def. see a difference!

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  7. I've done a lot of winter sowing, but this is the first year I'm going to try winter sowing broccoli and cauliflower.

    Last year, I planted both (transplants my neighbor gave me) and they did really well (I'm on the South Shore of Nova Scotia); however, I sprayed the little transplants with Neem for the first month, once a week. Then I switched to BTK, about mid-July (for all the cabbage pests). I was pleasantly surprised at how well they did, and how the pests were controlled using Neem & BTK. I've had problems with cabbages before, in fact, it's not worth planting as it takes up so much space and is so inexpensive at the grocery store. Broccoli & Cauliflower are a different story, so hopefully, the strong, healthy plants we get from winter sowing in combination with the organic pest control will work and we'll have a great crop!

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