Winter Sowing of Seeds for a Beautiful Season of Flowers. When you winter sow these seeds you get a head start on blooms and beauty for the following season!
Winter sow seeds for masses of flowers you can easily transplant into your garden in Spring. A budget friendly way to get lots of flowers and earlier blooming from some of your favorite perennials, biennials and annual flowers.
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Why Winter Sow Your Seeds
Did you know many biennials don’t bloom until the second year? Unless you sow them early! That is one reason winter sowing is so wonderful plus it is just fun if you love to grow lots of Spring and Summer flowers and have a tight budget.
If your potting bench looks like this ….. (click here to DIY one of these for yourself)
but you still want to get started on some seeds…
Winter Sow your seeds!
Have you heard of it? I read about it about 10 years back in a garden online newsletter and love how it worked. Many use milk or water gallon jugs but cutting them apart is too much work for me. I am a Lazy Gardener. (click here to read how Lazy!)
How I Winter Sow Seeds
I save different plastic containers that have a separate lid already. I like the Organic Spring garden salad mix from Costco. Yummy salad but what makes it even better is a container that is perfect for winter sowing of seeds.
Once we have eaten up the salad I give the container a good wash in hot soapy water, dry then poke drainage holes in the bottom and a couple in the top with a hot skewer. You want it to drain very well so make sure there are plenty of holes.
I use a regular potting soil, nothing fancy needed, but I do lighten it up a bit with some perlite. Perlite is the little white dots you see, it just makes the soil mix have really good drainage.
I don’t fill the clean salad container with the soil mix, I just use maybe an inch and a half to two inches deep.
In the depths of winter I sow hardy annuals or perennials. Ones that I can direct sow in Fall or Early Spring work great for this. Many are listed in this post on cottage flowers that reseed themselves. This is a great way to start seeds that need cold stratification for best germination. Here is a great selection of seeds at a great price, most can be winter sowed except the Zinnias and Sunflowers.
I follow the directions on the seed packet for depth to plant the seed but I tend to sew them more thickly or closer together than the seed packet suggests. I just fly that way.
This year I am trying something new to me, I top it with a light, light layer of Horticultural Sand. It supposedly helps with many issues of seed starting in containers.
I think it looks pretty.
here is what the package looks like.
Once I have gently watered in the seeds I label them and put the covers on. You can put them outside in the winter weather but I will keep mine in my greenhouse, we have pesky critters around that like to dig mine up. My greenhouse is not heated and it gets plenty cold inside so they will do just fine.
In a couple months I can do the same with the more tender annuals and perennials. Click here to see how I start seeds indoors!
Here is to tons of beautiful flowers in our future!
Have you tried winter sowing? If you did, how did it go for you?
Happy Gardening!
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Dawn says
January 26, 2017 at 6:43 amIt’s lovely seeing you dig in the dirt again. I can’t wait for winter to turn to spring. I have a few raised beds that need planting with some continuous blooms (something I didn’t get to last year). I always used to start my veggies inside under lights but I hate fighting the deer so I go to the farmers market instead now. We’re getting snow again here today.
Pamela says
January 26, 2017 at 8:42 amWe get sunshine for the rest of this week and a high of 50 on Saturday. It will feel like a heat wave after the cold temps we have been getting. Next week we get more rain but I hope it will melt some of the snow piled up around my house. I don’t dare hope it will melt far enough for me to see the actual dirt. I won’t fret on it much, as long as this wet and snow stops come April. Though it can continue on through May here, which that does drive me bats. I keep telling myself we really do need this to end the 5 year drought so I don’t go stir crazy.
Donna Harvey says
January 27, 2017 at 7:00 amI’ve never heard of starting seeds that why. That would be for seeds that need to have the cold to germinate, right? Well, you learn something everyday! Thanks for sharing that, I’m looking forward to digging in the dirt too. I’ve been seeing Seed Packages in the Stores, so I guess there’s hope.
Pamela says
January 27, 2017 at 6:14 pmThis works especially well for the seeds that need cold stratification but many other hardy annuals and perennials respond well to this type of start too. The more tender ones I will start in April. Our last frost date is typically the third weekend in May.
Allie says
January 27, 2017 at 2:41 pmThank you for this posting. New to me, but so is a garden. It’s been cold here in Shingletown also though the sun is out today (and yesterday). The days are getting longer which is very noticeable on the first sunny day after many gray skies. In a few days, we can kiss January goodbye 🙂
Pamela says
January 27, 2017 at 6:10 pmWe have had a few days of sun too, what a mood lifter. I am noticing the bit of added daylight too, love it! We usually get a false Spring in February where we get about two weeks of sunny skies with temps near 60 degrees. After the cold, cold days it seems like a heat wave. Then March can be cold and snowy again.
Anne says
January 29, 2017 at 11:37 amThanks, for sharing such great ideas! This is the time of year I start itching to plant.
Pamela says
January 30, 2017 at 8:02 amI know, I have to restrain myself at times.
Debbie says
February 6, 2017 at 8:54 amWant to get out and overturn the dirt in my yard. It’s been raining and I heard something about not overturning when wet. I can’t remember why. Can you? I do get out there after it rains to pull weeds. Makes it so much easier!
Pamela says
February 6, 2017 at 3:41 pmTrying to till or turn the dirt when it is very wet can tend to cause it to compact and clump rather than be crumbly.
Debbie says
February 6, 2017 at 7:10 pmYes that was it! Thanks Pamela!
Monique godon says
March 30, 2017 at 10:10 amHi from Canada.
I was wondering how you heat your greenhouse?
Pamela says
March 30, 2017 at 7:15 pmI don’t, it isn’t insulated which is a bummer. I had a fabulous insulated one when we lived in Idaho, I loved it. The one I have now is not in a spot that gets any sun in the winter, we have way too many huge evergreens that surround us. But by about this time of year when the sun is higher in the sky and the nights do not drop too far I can get a start on the more tender plants, and I have some christmas rope lights I use as bottom heat which helps.
Laura says
October 24, 2017 at 9:58 amDid you have any success with winter sowing kniphofia? I would love to try. Thank you! 🙂
Pamela says
October 24, 2017 at 10:20 amI must confess, no I did not. But I was not the best steward of my winter sowing project either so I am not sure you should judge by how well I did. 🙂
lisa says
November 25, 2018 at 4:00 pmDoes echinacea need to have cold weather to germinate? I have 2 seed packets with different instructions. When I grew it 25 years s ago I just sowed it directly in the late spring.
Pamela says
November 25, 2018 at 4:31 pmYou don’t HAVE to cold stratify to germinate echinacea but you will supposedly get a better germination rate if you do cold stratify. Late Spring for me is still cool enough. I should do a test and see.