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Wednesday, April 20, 2011
A Look Inside
I must say, at first I was a bit skeptical about winter sowing. However, my broccoli winter sowing experiment has been a tremendous success. Check it out! This juice container was planted back in February. The plastic container protected it from the relentless snow. Now it acts like a little greenhouse. Look how healthy the broccoli plant looks! It looks even better than the ones I started indoors!
Here's a photo of the "greenhouse" juice container. You can see all the condensation along the sides of the juice bottle. It's important to also keep the cap off. You have to be careful if this is directly in sunlight, it gets really hot, and can cook the little seedling. Keep a watchful eye on it.
For comparison's sake, here are my broccoli seedings that I started indoors. As you can see, the winter sown ones are much larger and healthier looking. I am totally going to winter sow all my brassicas for the vegetable garden for 2012. I am not going to even deal with sowing these indoors anymore.
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AWESOME! I am going to try that next year too! It looks wonderful!
ReplyDeleteWooHoo! I've been wondering how they were doing. You should do lettuce this way too. Also perennials, annuals, they all work. And they always are more healthy than your indoor ones, and don't need hardening off.
ReplyDeleteI winter sowed my broc as well! It is working great. Although I got a much later start than you. I think I am ok though since we had snow yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI had such great luck with it last year-I'm hoping for a repeat again this year. You're way ahead of me--we still have snow!!
ReplyDeleteThey look great! You are right, they seem much healthier and sturdier this way.
ReplyDeleteI did this as well, just after you. What can I say, you inspired me! But, I am feeling like mine are a bit behind for my area. Mine are about the size of yours, but we are only a few short weeks away from putting warm weather stuff out like tomatoes! I hope they have enough time before it gets too warm! But, I do have a ton. I had to give some away. I started broccoli, cabbage, Cauli, pak choi, kale, and chard in juice bottles.
ReplyDeleteI've never tried WS with vegetables. I'm going to try with brocolli next year. WS is so great, I love that you just set it up and forget about it til spring.
ReplyDeleteRemarkable comparison! Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteThey look awesome! I have never done winter sowing, but after seeing everyone's photos of their seedlings done like this, I am definitely in on trying this next year.
ReplyDeleteWow - big difference! I just sowed my broccoli seedlings yesterday. Wondering if I should put them outside instead of leaving them inside! Very cool!
ReplyDeleteOk, I'm a believer! Sign me up! A friend of mine was telling me a month or two ago about winter sowing/planting, which was totally new to me. I didn't get on it quick enough to give it a try but after seeing your pictures you can bet I'll be doing it next year!
ReplyDeleteYour photos of this were better than any I found online when I was looking it up back in February. Such a great idea and explanation. I cannot believe how much better the winter-container-sown broccoli is doing!
This is like a whole new frontier to me...WOW. Thanks so much for taking pictures and sharing this post. I'm in!
Those do look great! Thanks for this comparing post! Looks like I"ll have something new to try next year!
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