WINTER SOWING

    

If you are feeling garden withdrawal and sadness due to not being able to get your hands in the soil in January, here is the answer:  Winter Sowing. 

Winter Sowing has been such an enjoyable and successful way for me to start multiple plants. I love this easy and prolific way to garden in the dead of winter. 

I have successfully done this for over five years. This method seems to work best with perennials seeds that need stratification, which includes many natives. Winter Sowing mimics natures way of reproducing plants. 

Winter Sowing was a great boost for me when we first moved  to Indiana. I started milkweed and many other natives  and had a bountiful harvest. It allowed me to start establishing  pollinators gardens early on in my garden planning. 

This year, I have winter sowed a variety of herbs, perennials and veggies. They are happily sitting on our back porch enjoying the snow, rain and cold air of an Indiana winter. I love that I use recycled containers and do not have to baby these guys. 

Previously I have written two articles on my blog on Winter Sowing. I went into  great detail about the process of Winter Sowing. I am not going to go over it again but if you go on my blog and enter Winter Sowing it will pull the blogs up for you to enjoy.  In addition, if you google Winter Sowing, there is an abundance of information on the Internet. I also have really enjoyed the Facebook groups on this subject. Or please feel free to ask me any questions. I am so happy to share my experiences.

I can not encourage you enough to try this fun, effortless and fruitful way to sow so many seeds. It is just one step in my seed starting, but by far the easiest. In addition, I will still begin many more seeds the traditional way starting in about a month. 

Growing my veggies, herbs, annuals and perennials from seeds is so rewarding and I am loving this learning adventure. One of my favorite podcast and websites: Joe the Gardener has so much information plus many classes line to help anyone interested in seed starting. 

If I had to say what is the most important step with Winter Sowing,  however, I would emphatically state; label, label and label again. Plus make sure you have great drainage in what ever containers you use to start the seeds. Thankfully, my husbands commands his knife and does all the hole poking and cutting for me.

Here is the list of seeds I have sowed for my 2024 garden. Now I will rest up until the first of March to start sowing seeds inside, at my growing stations. The hard part is going to to be staying away from the temptations of the seed catalogues and ordering more seeds. Believe me I do not need more, I have more than enough. But does anyone ever have enough seeds? 

What I am Winter Sowing for the 2024 Garden

HERBS ( I have promised several friends, I would help them establish Herb Gardens. So I wanted to make sure I would have plenty to share) 

Chives (common)

Parsley (Tripe Curled)

Parsley (Plain or single Italian)

Parsley (Moss Curled)

True Greek Oregano

Rosemary

Sage (Broadleaf)

Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)

Thyme English (Thymus vulgaris)

Fennel Finocchio (Foeniculum volgare var. Azoricua)

VEGETABLES

Creme Brûlée F1 Onions (2)

Bunching Onions (Flavor King)

Onion (Red Burgundy)

Broccoli Seeds (Calabrese)

FLOWERS

Pansy (Swiss Giant Blend)

Pansy (Got the Blues) 

Violas (Cool Summer Breeze)

Butterfly Snapdragons(Chantilly)

Snapdragons (Doubleshot orange bicolor)

Blackberry Lillies (collected seeds)

Hardy Hibiscus (collected seeds)

False Indigo Baptisma( collected seeds) 3 containers

Calendula - Pacific Beauty

Sweet Peas (Sweet Dreams)