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Post by feather on Feb 27, 2020 16:11:57 GMT
Thanks to midtnmama, for her thread and inspiration. homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/thread/15297/winter-seed-sowing-time-comingMr Feather got right on the winter sown with using youtube videos, his preferred learning method. So far he is at about 48 jugs (milk cartons, vinegar bottles, de-icer bottles) filled with dirt, seed, water, closed up and put outside. Tools for winter sown: scissors, tapes, jugs, dirt, water, seeds, permanent marker. It was easier to do in the warm house over the sink, than in the cold garage (clumping soil), or kneeling over plastic covered floor. The tape stuck better at warm temperatures too.
Expanding the asparagus garden with asparagus from seed. Little cost, harvest in 2-3 years, should last 20-30 years. 3 kinds of kale, one is blue/purple, one lacinato, and siberian kale, cone flowers, arnica, onion seed (we harvested last year), dill and mustard. More to winter sow, tomatoes in three kinds, and more in the coming weeks.
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Post by tenbusybees on Feb 27, 2020 18:05:12 GMT
I missed the original thread but I chanced on an article in a waiting room magazine about it while out of town. Once I got back to civilization (a.k.a a signal 😂) I bing-ed it and, hmmm, it does look intriguing. I have to start them in oct/Nov so it is on my to do list this fall.
Speaking of missing, glad to see you back! 😊
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Post by solargeek on Feb 27, 2020 18:15:53 GMT
feather, We still can get at least 2 below zero days/nights at minimum and sustained super cold. No protected area here unfortunately. Would this work or be a waste of time in my location? I will be starting all of my seeds mid to late March with Peppers started indoors on top of freezer - really warm -- and all rest in cold garage with lights and heat mats. Huge success last year so hoping it will happen again. But your way intrigues me and I know Paquebot/Martin did this. You guys are more than an hour due south of me.
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Post by feather on Feb 27, 2020 18:32:43 GMT
I missed the original thread but I chanced on an article in a waiting room magazine about it while out of town. Once I got back to civilization (a.k.a a signal 😂) I bing-ed it and, hmmm, it does look intriguing. I have to start them in oct/Nov so it is on my to do list this fall. Speaking of missing, glad to see you back! 😊 Glad to see you as well. So you plant at a totally different time in 8b? I can imagine being disoriented if I moved south, when it comes to gardens.
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Post by feather on Feb 27, 2020 18:35:41 GMT
feather , We still can get at least 2 below zero days/nights at minimum and sustained super cold. No protected area here unfortunately. Would this work or be a waste of time in my location? I will be starting all of my seeds mid to late March with Peppers started indoors on top of freezer - really warm -- and all rest in cold garage with lights and heat mats. Huge success last year so hoping it will happen again. But your way intrigues me and I know Paquebot/Martin did this. You guys are more than an hour due south of me. We're just learning this year. We may have planted too early for some things or too late, and we're about to find out this spring.
I'm starting flats of onions inside, as well as mr. feather's winter sown ones, we are going to compare the results at the middle of may. Then I'll still do tomatoes and peppers on a heated mat inside as well, and compare his tomatoes to mine. Peppers for sure can't take the cold.
EDITED to add: This is only costing us the price of packets of seeds, the tape, and the potting soil. Low cost experiment. Also midtnmama has more experience, she might be able to tell us more.
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Post by feather on Feb 27, 2020 18:51:19 GMT
Anyone can also join Winter Sowers on Facebook, if you do that. www.facebook.com/groups/wintersown/The top post today was Regina Saskatchewan, with lots of winter sown seeds in the picture.
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Post by feather on Feb 29, 2020 20:11:06 GMT
Today we are at 54 winter sown jugs outside, woo hoo. And two flats of onions from seed. The seed we harvested, long day, northern bulbing keeping onions. These flats are in an inside southern window and I'm excited to see them sprout soon. Lots of fun.
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Post by tenbusybees on Mar 7, 2020 13:16:45 GMT
I missed the original thread but I chanced on an article in a waiting room magazine about it while out of town. Once I got back to civilization (a.k.a a signal 😂) I bing-ed it and, hmmm, it does look intriguing. I have to start them in oct/Nov so it is on my to do list this fall. Speaking of missing, glad to see you back! 😊 Glad to see you as well. So you plant at a totally different time in 8b? I can imagine being disoriented if I moved south, when it comes to gardens.
Oh, yes. I get everything in the ground late Feb/early March and we start shutting down end June/beginning July when it's blistering hot and dry. I missed my window this year though and buying starts. It's ok though. We have two full garden seasons. I get to start seeds again in Aug and have had the garden until December before. Globally warming is a grand thing. 😆
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Post by wally on Mar 7, 2020 14:05:08 GMT
I don't know what I would do with all the produce from 2 full garden seasons, one is plenty for us. Plus extra for friends..like I said we don't need 2 seasons, but being a gardenholic. I know where I would be..lol
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Post by feather on Mar 7, 2020 14:18:03 GMT
When we grocery shop, all winter, buying kale, tomatoes, and potatoes and onions when we run out (about now), then I wish we had two gardening seasons. The grass is always greener south of us.
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Post by feather on Mar 10, 2020 20:34:14 GMT
In my milk cartons outside, I have: kale, mustard, blue kale, sprouted! I can't believe it and I'm afraid it might be too early. We checked all the cartons for moisture, and they all show moisture on the sides but the asparagus soil looked drier, so I added an ounce of water to each.
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Post by midtnmama on Mar 13, 2020 15:25:51 GMT
I have sprouting in my jugs: lettuce, kale, spinach, rocket, 1 cabbage seedling. My experiment of making newpaper with flour dots and putting in the jugs to control spacing doesn't seem to have worked well. Did you try that, feather?
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Post by feather on Mar 13, 2020 15:40:23 GMT
I have in my jugs: lettuce, kale, spinach, rocket, 1 cabbage seedling. My experiment of making newpaper with flour dots and putting in the jugs to control spacing doesn't seem to have worked well. Did you try that, feather? No. Mr Feather has for the most part taken over this project. I'm allowed some input and to sometimes help as long as I remember my place as helper but not decider. Which is really impossible to remember. But I did mention it to him.
Last year I spent some of my winter putting lettuce seeds on toilet tissue using flour paste and then in spring, put those in the garden. They seemed to work well.
We have currently 58 jugs in operation. This just kills me, laughing. 10 inside the family room cut and ready to fill. And more than 30 more jugs outside because if you are going to do something then over do it to the best of your ability. We are both guilty of this.
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Post by feather on Jun 2, 2020 18:42:31 GMT
We ended up with more than 70+ winter sown jugs in winter, in snow, in freezing and they are pretty maintenance free. So when we planted (are now planting) it's been nothing short of fabulous.
Blunders we created:
The permanent markers didn't always make it so we relabeled them about a month ago, some of which were forgotten. We'll have to figure out a better system because even permanent marker won't hold up in the sun for very long.
We had one we couldn't identify, so I smelled it, then tasted it. I think it is cone flower. My tongue tingled and our immediate reaction was OH no don't poison me, go wash out your mouth, lol.
Some seeds weren't viable in the first place, like the arnica which wasn't seed per se.
We opened one that was full of leaves today, it had lettuce growing, and an onion, so we aren't sure which it should have been in the first place.
The successes outnumbered the blunders 10 to 1. Our new asparagus bed was started from winter sown seed which sprouted into lovely little plants. Mary Washington. The onions, a huge hit from seed. We won't waste inside space with trays next year. My friend took one bucket of onions and she was totally impressed and she loved that they are critter proof.
All the kales are gorgeous. The mustard plants were also gorgeous. All the lettuces were ready to go into the garden early.
The thyme is going into a pot. The basil is going into the garden. The celery is also going into the garden. I don't know if we'll do tomatoes this way next year, if we could get that many jugs to make it work.
We won't do peppers just because they are so sensitive to cold temperatures, and I'm not sure it would work. I'm sure I missed a few more of the successes we had.
Things we didn't plant in this method: beans, beets, carrots, squash, pumpkin, zucchini, radishes, garlic, potatoes.
We started at the end of February. What a blast. Thanks midtnmama. It has changed things for the better for us.
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Post by midtnmama on Jun 2, 2020 19:26:06 GMT
feather, It makes me so happy to have someone see how easy and terrific this method is. I had a pot that never germinated and kind of forgot. Looked at it this week and I have 2 passionfruit vines. Now I have to find where to put them where my husband won't weed eat them. I'm not very good at training husbands or dogs. I even had him plant some gooseberry bushes thinking then he might remember... Back to Winter seed sowing (wss, donchaknow). --My experiment to make seed tape in the jugs was an utter disaster. Really a mold accumulator/damping off disease killer --I winter sowed tomatoes in the spring. Did beautifully. Need to plant out --I emptied and hung my jugs in the basement from yarn. Really efficient and space conserving. Ready to go 2021! --Experiment success mixing old soil with fertile soil from woods. Boiling water to kill weed seeds first. Saved a lot of money at the nursery this year. --
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Post by mogal on Jun 2, 2020 20:03:09 GMT
Feather said: "Blunders we created: The permanent markers didn't always make it so we relabeled them about a month ago, some of which were forgotten. We'll have to figure out a better system because even permanent marker won't hold up in the sun for very long."
I cut up any reasonably rigid plastic from cottage cheese containers, milk cartons or even old blind slants to make markers. Then I write just the name of the plant on one end and the rest of the pertinent info--variety, source, planting date--on the other end. I insert the marker so just the name of the plant is exposed for quick reference with the other end facing into the soil. If it fades, I pull out the marker, wipe it clean and rewrite the plant name since it's still legible on the other end.
Mdtnmama, I'm far better at training dogs than husbands. I wish I had even a dollar for ever plant DH has mowed down--tractor, lawn mower, weed eater--over the years. The first were some sapling pecan trees, between 10-15' tall. He asked me to mark them so I tore an old sheet into strips and tied them as high as I could reach so the ends fluttered in the breeze. He'd just bought our old IH tractor with a bush hog and was going to mow the overgrown pasture. They were in rows, not randomly planted. A couple of hours later, he came back to the house. His first words were, "Honey, I thought you were going to flag those pecan trees for me." Now, I mow all the soft fruits and do trim mowing around beds that aren't contained in some way.
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Post by midtnmama on Jun 2, 2020 21:01:15 GMT
feather, mogal, I find that crayon (cheaper than buying a china marker) or pencil lasts longer than permanent marker on markers or the jugs. I no longer mark jugs, just put a marker next to the edge so you can see it inside. Markers made like Mogal mentioned or better from plastic blinds from the dollar store.
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Post by feather on Jun 2, 2020 22:38:01 GMT
midtnmama, mogal, Okay got it, blinds marked inside the container, both sides, great idea. Who trains husbands? he said he wanted to build a raised bed for asparagus, I said no they need moisture, raised beds need to be watered, so he built a raised bed but pushed it down into the ground. I still don't know what to think of it.
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Post by mogal on Jun 3, 2020 1:01:46 GMT
Not both sides, Feather, both ends.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Jun 17, 2020 16:11:27 GMT
So that's what I'm doing wrong with my asparagus....it's in a raised bed. Doh! I thought it needed richer soil and it's easier to enrich the soil in the raised beds than to plant in my sandy, rocky ground and try to enrich it enough and keep it that way. 🙄
Every year I mean to try wintersowing and every year I am so far behind that I don't get there. Maybe if I prepare everything this summer and only need to drop in the seeds, I'll get there, lol.
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Post by feather on Jun 17, 2020 16:47:25 GMT
manygoatsnmore, many people can and do plant asparagus in raised beds. It's like pulling teeth here to water it when it isn't producing food, for us. Most of our attention goes to what is producing but a raised bed still needs water when it is just growing its roots and gaining strength for the next season. A lot of our winter sown took place while we were in february and march, so it's too cold to be outside all day and we need to keep our activity level up in winter while stuck in the house.
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Post by midtnmama on Jun 17, 2020 18:47:22 GMT
manygoatsnmore, Starting now, I will cut milk jugs (donated) and put holes in suitable recycleable containers. I store them in the garage or basement until after Christmas. Then I fill, plant and stick outside! Easy peasy. What are you doing after Christmas? Not much in the garden. mogal, feather, I mark both sides of the blindmarkers, but I only cut a point on one end to go in the dirt easier. After cleaning the porch and around the porch, I found a Christmas present surprise (forgotten)winter seed sown jug filled with pepper plants (really need them) and one eggplant (really need that one). It does not take much to make my day!
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Post by feather on Jun 17, 2020 18:57:41 GMT
midtnmama, I have 4 sets of blinds going up in the kitchen, and I'll cut the blinds for markers and put those in the gardening box for next February.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Jun 19, 2020 18:27:57 GMT
midtnmama, I'm already cutting up 2L bottles for watering my garden this year, so I'll clean them up and have them ready for winter sowing. I'm using the bottle bottoms as mini-cloches for seed starting right now (to keep the chickens from eating seeds before they get a good start), but I can tape up the slits and add a few drain holes to match the number of holes in the tops of the bottles (water in, water out). I'll also have Abby start saving her milk jugs for me. I really want to do this!🤩 feather, I cut up so many vinyl mini-blind slats into plant stakes that I don't think I'll ever run out! I use a pencil to mark them. Sharpies fade quickly in the sun, but pencil stays put until I erase it to use for something else. 😉
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