Saturday, March 24, 2012

Winter Sown Success!

When I first began this blog, I tried out the concept of winter sowing.  Winter sowing is a great way to get a head start on your spring garden.  You simply take a milk jug, deli container, or other transparent plastic container and do your planting inside, then place it into your garden and let mother nature do the work.

It was very exciting for me, and seemed pretty easy, so I decided to give it a try.  I had been warned that it may not work this year, since the winter had been unsually mild and I was starting late, but I'm originally from the desert southwest.  I figured my knowledge of warmer climates could actually work in my favor.  A friend whose thumb is greener than mine made me realize that, and I couldn't argue against it.  So I began.  Things went well.

Then it rained.



And rained.

And rained.

The canterbury bells I used as a test crop were flooded.  This saddened me, but I decided that since mother nature was in charge, I'd let her continue to do her work in her own way, and I left the container alone.

This morning I was rewarded for this choice.  I looked through the spout of the milk jug and discovered several seedlings poking out of the soil.


Originally I had planted the seeds in rows, but the flooding caused the seeds to scatter.  I'll need to pluck away several of the seedlings in a couple of weeks in order to ensure that the strongest of them have room to grow, so germination went even better than I had imagined!

I'll also need to remove the top portion of the container at that time so that the seedlings don't get overheated.  At that point, they'll stay in the bottom half of the container for a while longer so that the roots can grow out enough to make them easy for me to transplant.

I'm so excited!  So far, this DIY project is a success!

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