Wintersowing 2009-2010 ... getting stared....

dmac: You won't get any sympathy from us on that 13 degrees. It was 3 here this morning, and no doubt colder for Terese and others in points north! I just sent my husband out grocery shopping- I'm not going out there!

Karen

yes Karen... i"m at 2°

I think it's gonna be frigid for about a week.

>>I just sent my husband out grocery shopping- I'm not going out there!

It's funny -- we went out to dinner last night, to our favorite sushi place... which is in the same shopping center as our grocery store. Even though DH needed a few things... he took as pass with how COLD it was... didnt want to get back out of the car til it was in the garage.

I think he will do without bananas for a few days... as i wont go shopping til i run out of half&half.

Terese: I think my husband went because we were out of bananas. I wouldn't go until I ran out of coffee. I never let that happen.

>>I wouldn't go until I ran out of coffee.

since my kid works for starbucks... i never run out of coffee... one nice "perk" they get... free coffee.
If i am really in a bind, and he's working... i'll have him bring me home some H&H so i dont have to go out.


I did venture into the garage this morning...thankfully it's attached... and I do have a halfa bag of MG.
I should go thru the seeds that i have [I've updated my spreadsheet - I have over 180 seed packs on hand]
and get a list going of what i need to get sowing.

I also spent some time on "Clothier's " site this morning... such great information.

Love Starbucks! It's only 29 degree today and it's afternoon! Did you know that you can get a bags of used coffee grounds at Starbucks (for your garden). I get a bag when I get my coffee on Saturday.

yes Lili... i do get it every once in a while, and i usually dont have to ask for it.

funny thing... one day, Jimbo, my kid... brought home 2 big bags... he reuses the big coffee bean bags that they have... i think 5#'ers ... i gave one to my neighbor... i think this was in May.

Well, i was talking to her DH this Nov or so and he asked if i gave his wife some grounds, as they were in a big pile in the back... I said... Yes, i did... back in May.

so -- needless to say... she never used it.

When i get the huge bags... I sprinkle it thru the beds and mix it in the ground. If i am using the grounds from my house, i will put that in my compost tumbler and give it a good roll.

we don't have to ask for the grounds. They bag em and put a recycle sticker on them and put them in a bucket by the door. All you need to do is grab a bag. It's pretty cool! I read it on a thread somewhere where someone was going to Starbucks asking for them and then the month after, I saw them at Starbucks.

Wasn't looking for any sympathy so that works out=) Those temps ya'll have is precisely why I won't ever move to any place north of Zone 7:lol:

I've lived here since 94 but the winters have become more and more mild over the years--so when any cold weather does finally occur it's almost a surprise and most aren't prepared for it.

Gymgirl
this time aroung I sowed all perennials.Thats what I'll do the next round too.I've got a couple of areas that I am trying to build up.Need a lot of plants with minimal expense.
Foxglove ,heucheura,monarda,baptisia,columbine,hibiscus,coneflower and a couple of others.
I used a scott brand potting soil.
Viola

dmac... I too hope to live in a zone7 one day. These temps seem to get worse as one ages.
I'm considering NC or TN ... but of course i have to get DH to agree with me.
but being able to grow hosta and salvia - both as perennials... that will do it for me. :-)

LOL I have lived in a few places but oddly enough the two places I lived the longest have both been zone 7 but with different water situations but very similiar seasons/temps.

I lived in Connecticut as a kid and the last winter we lived there, there was huge blizzard (1978) and I can still remember being out of school for almost a month. We had random snowplow drivers in and out of the house for food, bathroom breaks and to call their families. Of course for me being a kid in 5 grade the worst thing was having to make up the snow days and going to school until June 23 that summer:lol:

hey... I was a kid then too!! I think our big blizzard was 79-80 ... ones that i recall. Our garage collapsed that year. or maybe it was 78-79. anyhoo....
I've been here, in this town, since 1969 ... so i'm ready for a change... well, i'm ready to get out of these winters. I really dont want to leave this house. *sigh* But warmer will be NICE.

WOW, I remember that storm in 1978. Matter of fact i was just telling my sister about it because they are expectinng lots of snow today in New York. It didnt start till that afternoon and I was able to get to work no problem but by late morning it dropped a load and they let us go home. I had such a time getting home, hours, and was chilled to the bone cause I had to walk part of the way.

The winters here are much milder and the growing season is longer April to almost November. Plenty of time to get my WS plants established.

TC, I remember the blizzard of 78 and i think we had another bad one soon after. During that time we had oil for our heat source. The truck couldn't get to our house to fill the tank. We were trying to heat our house from the stove for a few days. What a mess!

I didn't know Coral Bells could be WS! I guess i could add those to the list. I was reading info on Clematis and Hostas. It sounds like they are unpredictable germinators. I was lucky enough to start Hostas once only because I completely forgot about them...could take 30 days to germinate.

>>I didn't know Coral Bells could be WS!

Yanno -- I got "Firefly" seeds last year, and i figured.... what the heck.... and sowed them.
it grew like a chiapet. ... i divied it into 3 plants. I hope to see some blooms this summer.

The coral bells I have that reseed are mainly a no name with mid green leaves and red flowers and Palace Purple which is a sort of purple/brownish leaf w/ white flowers. Guess they wintersowed themselves:lol:

My dad worked at Electric Boat (made nuke powered subs) and he ended up ditching the car on a bridge and walking home in the blizzard. Mom thought he was an idiot for doing that--she was probably right.

Our yard was on a rise and about 3-4 feet above the street and our porch was about 5 ft up from the yard and I can remember the snow being almost level with the floor of the porch--couldn't see any of the cars or fence tops in the other yards that sat lower than our house.

Where I grew up I can remember almost freezing in the Winter, and we had to walk to school. It would get way down into the 50's.
Okay, so that wasn't fair. : )
To make up for the above tropical weather, we went through a record breaking blizzard in Eastern Washington. It was several weeks before we could get to town. We lived in the Wenas Valley working for a cattle ranch. Thank heavens we heated with wood as the electricity was out. Had to keep the horses in stalls because all the fences disappeared. Elk at our back door and coyotes trying to get in the chicken house.
We did have 10 degree weather here in the Willamette Valley, OR (record breaking) last month (Dec). Cold and windy, no snow for ground cover. Now we are back into the 40's at night and 50's daytime.
Will be planting lettuce, tomato, chard, ruds, echs, and oriental poppies tomorrow.

If you get any seeds from Firefly--keep me in mind:) I've been wanting that one:lol:

>>It would get way down into the 50's. Okay, so that wasn't fair. : )

ROFLMAO.... here, 50's in the winter is shorts weather!!

Will do.

I also have Plum Pudding ... similar to Purple Palace ... I'll look for seeds next year. I also have Peppermint Spice.

I never thought to look for seeds.

LOL. I love our Willamette Valley. It's in between my childhood climate and child rearing climate zones. : ) Perfect for me. Not to hot, not to cold. We do get winter weather, but relatively mild.

I got mine from just letting the flowerheads go to seed on the plant. They form on the flower sprays and are super fine like dust. I ended up just cutting off the stalks when everything was very dry--I'm sure some had already shaken loose by then--but there was still plenty on all the stems. I cut them into smaller pieces and stuck them in a gallon ziplock bag and shook em up pretty hard. Since they're small you can't really separate the seed and chaff easily so I just left it.
I'd definitely love to try any seed you may be able to collect from your heucheras.

I'll make note in my tradetracker [that is the only way i can keep track of everything]

TC Plum Pudding is my absolute favorite Coral Bell other than the Georgia Peach. I found one of the Puddings a few years ago and it hasn't multiplied. It has gotten bigger. Finally this year I tried to harvest some seeds. LoL I couldn't tell the seeds from the chaff so I kept everything. I harvested seeds from the peach CB as, well. I know I will probably get the parent plant and not the true plant but I will try to WS those too.

Ya'll are making me so cold, just reading your post. We are going down to 26 tonight, but our days are in the high 40's. And we are cold. Must be the humidity. LOL Or my age. My son said that when he was stationed in Nevada and had night watch duty on the flight line it would get down to -3 some nights. But, it was a dryer cold, he said , than here, so it didn't seem so cold. I pray each of you get warm to your toes. Thank you Lord for putting me in the deep South. LOL

It never got past 30 today and now down to 26!!! Brrr! Coldest winter in a long time!

Um, is this where I post my WSing progress?
Karen you made good sense about the different size potting mix particles being necessary, so I opened another bag of MG and WSowed emerald Giant and king of the North bell peppers and southern broadleaf mustard seedlings. I LIKE winter sowing!

Linda, just wait until you peek through that hole and see a little green thing waving back at you. Then you'll really be hooked.

Karen

Linda... yes, you can post your progress here... once the thread gets long, [around 200 posts] we will move on to a new thread, though its just a continuation.

isn't this fun?? and ask Karen said... it's such a joy to see the "green thing waving back at you" for the first time.

You all are too funny! Have anyone ever winter sown Red Veined Dock?

TCS,
I thought I had fallen into the Weather Channel Twilight Zone. That's why I asked! ^^_^^

Lookie at this, ya'll!

And this one.

Last One!

Hi gymgirl. Just thought I'd mention that you might have a bit of a challenge getting plants out of your large water jugs in the spring unless you want to cut the jugs. I had trouble with any container that was smaller at any point than at the bottom. However, cutting them down the side would certainly solve that problem.

This will be my second year with WSing and I am just as excited as last year if not more so. Had great success. I did save many of my jugs from last year (in the attic) to try to save some prep time. We'll see how that works.

Been lurking here and enjoying the reminders and new info...

Tonya

Yesterday evening, it was like clockwork to grab a jug, 4 trowels of MG potting mix, sprinkle those seeds, pat down gently, water in with the sprinkler from the sink, close em up with a coupla pieces of tape, and out to the concrete launching pad!

I did 7 jugs in 45 minutes. Mighta done more, 'cept I didn't wanna drop the squirming
4-month-old sitting in my lap.....shoot!

Very cute infant with those diamonds sparkling in her ears.

"Concrete launching pad". I like that. I have a concrete launching pad, too. Unfortunately, take-off takes a little longer up here, doesn't happen till late Feb (rare, if we get a warm spell) or early March.

Karen

How wonderful, getting your little one started early in life with Winter Sowing. : )
I love the 'Concrete Launching Pad', now I know where to put mine. : ) No dead grass that way. So much to learn and so little time.
Lynn

That's the beauty of us all being in this together! The Learning Curve gets flattened in no time flat.

Um, that is NOT my baby. She's my great granddaughter, and she KNOW'S how to play a room, already!

K,
They had to go on the concrete launching pad, 'cause I don't have a cement pond to sit 'em around all winter!

NB,
Thanks for the tip about those water dispensers. It's all I can do to keep the DH from going ballistic over the 45 milk jugs on the patio table. Not a problem to cut stuff open and discard until we start all over again next year.

Linda

This message was edited Jan 4, 2010 2:59 PM

Linda, I often chop up the milk jugs to remove seedlings, too. I like to dump out the whole blob at once then cut up the blob with a knife. Sometimes it's not easy to get the entire blob out in one piece so I cut the jug.

Great granddaughter? Geez, with a moniker like Gymgirl I guess I pictured you as being in your 20s.

Karen

Um, that is my DH's great granddaughter. I don't have any children. I'll be 53 this Friday, and living on the younger side of life.

The women in my family all look younger than we are...

Kell,
When you say, "cut up the blob" do you mean take a sharp knife and then just cut it into little sections/chunks? You're not teasing the roots apart? How do you not damage the roots? And, do the the plants feel this surgery or is anesthesia used (smile^^_^^)

This message was edited Jan 4, 2010 3:56 PM