Hi Tim...Your question has ended up over on the conversations side where things other than sowing are discussed - I'll see if I can call attention to it for you.
I don't winter sow a lot of vegetables, but for starters...

Dry seed stored in a freezer is only storage, it does nothing to promote germination. For those seeds that require a chill before they will sprout, the chill must be moist, and technically, only cold...freezing isn't necessary. Containers in my 8b may freeze outdoors some years, other years only touched by frost.

The types of seeds you have mentioned don't require a moist chill before germinating, which is not to say it will hurt them, or that they cannot be winter sown, they just won't germinate until temps warm. By sowing in April or May you are describing Spring sowing, which can still be done using the winter sowing technique.

An elevated deck is fine - all my containers are on a raised deck and I've done it that way for years.

If you are sowing trees, shrubs, many perennials, now is the time to be sowing, but for your vegetables you have plenty of time....

Hi Tim,

I'm fairly new to intentional winter sowing, but I am a veteran vegetable grower. I got started with the square foot gardening method, too, so I can help bridge from that to here.

Many of the cool-season vegetables will adapt quite nicely to winter sowing. In particular plants like parsley, kale, and arugula start well this way. I don't usually go out and *plant* them though--I let a mature plant go to seed during the previous year, scatter the seeds and then enjoy no-fuss seedlings the following spring.

Peas are another good one to start early, even under a blanket of snow. Those I *do* intentionally plant this way.

Winter sowing doesn't necessarily fit with the square foot technique though. Germination can be spotty, and you aren't precisely controlling the beds as in square foot gardening. So to start out, I would only use it for parsley and brassicas (broccoli, kale, etc.). The peas I would start directly in the garden soil.

Regarding your questions:
1) Freezing seed packets in the freezer. This is an excellent way of long-term storage of seeds. The seeds MUST be stored in airtight containers though and moisture reduced to about 8% (I use some silica gel with my seeds).

2) Most vegetables--especially the warm-season ones like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers--want to be started indoors under warm and controlled situations anyways. Plus, they sprout so fast and do not require cold conditioning, so there is really no benefit to be gained by this sowing method.

3) Most things can be transplanted, even if they aren't meant to be, with extra care and trouble. Corn isn't usually transplanted.

4) Sure, you can use a small elevated deck.

5) I think 6 jugs would be plenty to start with.

6) If all you are planting is vegetables, then you have plenty of time. The seeds that would press you for time are the ones that required cold conditioning--some flowers and such require weeks or MONTHS of cold, moist conditions to "stratify" the seeds and make them ready to germinate. I think the longest-sprouting thing out of the square foot gardening book was parsley at ~14 days. So yes, like morz said, you have plenty of time!

-Kris

I'm in Z:4 and have winter sown tomatoes but still prefer to start them indoors. Others that you asked about, peas, corn and cucks, grow well here directly sown in the garden so I don't winter sow them. They germinate so quickly in the soil that I don't find that winter sowing them is worth the effort.

djtim, while you will get some answers on this page I suggest that you repost on the discussion page as most posters never come to this conversation page and many are not even aware that it exists. The discussion page is mainly used for off topic items or items that don't directly affect the winter sowing process.

Click on the link that says discussion to get to that page.

Thanks everybody I think all of you have covered my questions quite well. I honestly don't know how I ended up posting here but I will try to repost it where it was suggested

Thanks

You don't indicate your zone, but here in Zone 6B, now 7, tomatoes do quite well by wintersowing. They go in a little small, but quickly catch up, although it does work better for earlier DTM varieties. The long DTMs, 85 days or so, I'm going to do on the windowsill this year.

Corn and cukes do fine planted directly, although you might get a bit of a head start by using the wintersowing method a week or so before you wanted to plant out.

I meant get a small jumpstart on the cukes by putting them in a container first, not the corn. Corn can be transplanted, but you then have to baby it for awhile.