winter sowing and cool weather vegetables

This past winter, I decided to try winter sowing. I have lots of beds to fill, and I also wanted to get back into vegetable gardening in our new home. Putting plants in can be an expensive proposition. I wanted to get the most bang for my buck by doing traditional indoor sowing and winter sowing.

Developed about 20 years ago in collaboration with the USDA, Trudi Davidoff’s winter sowing method is relatively simple. Collect containers, generally gallon milk jugs, prepare them, and put in your seeds. Set the containers outside and let Mother Nature do the work. Winter sowing works for pretty much any type of seed, according to what I read.

I collected lots and lots of containers last fall. From what I’ve seen so far, the gallon milk jugs and soda bottles work the best. They are easily cut and appear to hold moisture better than the fruit containers on the left side of my collection. They also have withstood the March winds better than the fruit containers.

Basically, poke about 4 to 6 holes in the bottom of the container for drainage, then cut around the middle of the container leaving a small hinge. Fill with potting soil, water the soil, and then put the seeds in. I used an under-the-bed storage container to hold my jugs as I worked on them. I could carry the big container outside without dripping water all over the floor.

Once the seeds are in the soil, secure the top and bottom together with tape. I found duct tape worked best.

I wrote the planting date and name on the seed on the outside of the container with a Sharpie. This was another issue with the fruit containers. I noticed the Sharpie labels faded over time, but not on the milk jugs or soda bottles.

When I ran out of milk jugs, I tried using plastic storage containers from the Dollar Tree. I would not recommend this. It was hard to poke holes in the bottom, or I ended up damaging the bottom when I did poke a hole. I also didn’t like the messy nature of using a clear shower curtain over the containers.

I plan to do winter sowing next winter reusing the containers from this year, plus collecting more.

Finally, here’s one of my crop cages. We’re discussing how to use this bed which will probably become a vegetable garden, however, we have other projects to tackle first. I’m not sure if I like the crop cages. Unfortunately, the netting has not done well with the wind. I think we will need to build more permanent solutions to use this method of protection for the deer.