Hi Susan,
Welcome to Winter Sowing. It really is fun. :-)

GW forum is awesome! In the past two weeks, I have learned about composting and set up a compost bin. I learned about vermicomposting and got my 2 lbs. of worms in the mail today. I ordered a mantis tiller to begin to improve my soil and get it ready for spring. And tonight (!!!) I learned about winter sowing! I am searching around my house/garage for things I can WS in. Kids better finish off milk in fridge so I can use that jug!

I teach kindergarten and our custodian brought me a huge box of heavy duty toilet paper rolls. LOL! Wonder if i can use those?
Also, cafeteria ladies are saving the leftover lettuce for my worms.

Obsessed? Maybe....

I think it is awesome! You are going to love wintersowing, and you could probably somehow incorporate that into your classroom! Little children love to see how stuff grows. When my son was in K. his teacher brought in a plant she was growing once a week and the class measured it and drew pictures of it and learned what plants need in order to grow. He told me about it each week! Good luck with your wintersowing!

Wow--you have a mantis tiller! I'm envious. Welcome to wintersowing, where we send our tillers on a Round Robin, so our members don't have to break their backs...ok, just kidding!

Some people do put tp rolls inside containers to sow individual plants, there was just a thread on it, a search should bring it right up.

Maybe you'll soon be thinking kindergarteners need a little decaf coffee in their day, so you'll have more coffee grounds for your worms and your compost? Or do you teachers drink enough for a good supply? (Just think of your little kiddies going home with coffee-breath!) :)

Obviously I'm in a very silly mood, but welcome to wintersowing! Check out the exchange boards for free seeds and trades, too!

LOL - definitely decaf for my students! Ha!

I have a question about tomatoes. Have any of you saved seeds from tomatoes you bought at a store? I read somewhere that you have to ferment them to get them to grow. But I was thinking that if they're in a mini-greenhouse for a few months, will they do it to themselves naturally? As you can tell, I have little experience with collecting my own seeds and trying to grow them.

Thanks!

By the way, I bought the electric mantis tiller so my neighbors won't see me kicking a gas machine that won't start. That thing has POWER. I am almost 6 feet tall and am not a dainty little thing and it was all I could do to hold onto that thing IN LOW GEAR!!!! Very pleased so far...

Susan

Susan, tomato seeds will grow without any fermentation. The fermentation is primarily because that microbial soup tends to kill off some diseases, so it's great to do that if you plan to trade. Seed gel supposedly has germination inhibitors, but it can't last long, as you can plant a glop of fresh tomato seeds and they will sprout just fine in a couple of days.

With seeds saved from a supermarket tomato, you are likely to have seeds from a hybrid. The babies are not likely to be like the parent, but one never knows. If you bought an heirloom or open-pollinated tomato, those are types whose seeds will make plants just like the parent--unless a bee cross-pollinated it!

That sounds like a powerful tiller. I've heard some good stuff about the Mantis, maybe I'll have one someday--after all the beds have been created by hand!

Welcome Susan!! I am new to WS this year and can't wait to see how my WS garden turns out. I am also in Zone 7 over in Virginia.

Happy planting!!

DL

You're going to love the Mantis. We've had ours for about 15 years and it's still going strong. It worked well in the hard clay of Atlanta and now, in the white sand of South Carolina, it thinks it's retired!!!

Supermarket tomatoes may be hybrids, but they're stable hybrids which will reseed true. There is profit in stability ;-) They're grown in hothouses and vibrated to assist with self-pollination. Because they're grown with thousands of tomato plants of the same variety in that hothouse they will, should chance cross-pollination take place, still make offspring that are the same as the parent plants.

In the past I've grown out several supermarket tomatoes. Grown in the garden they are far superior to the store version because at home you pick them while ripe. Supermarket toms are usually picked just as they're turning from green to red, stored in warehouses and gassed to induce ripening when needed. Toms grown at home from supermarket toms will still have some of their firm flesh and will have the same disease resistance as the parent plants. That doesn't mean that your plants will be disease free, it only means that they have the genes to resist whatever the parent plant was bred to resist. You may have different diseases or pressures in your garden and the hothouse tomato seeds you're growing may not be resistant to what is there.

It's always a fascinating process to grow out the seeds of any hybrid because you can learn that so, soooo many of them them reproduce truly.

If you need tomato seeds I have a SASE offer for them on my trade page, I'll past in the link:

Here is a link that might be useful: My trade page.

Welcome,teacher, from one Oklahoma girl to another. This will be my second year winter sowing and I'll bet you love it as much as we do. The people here are exceptionally nice.

I experimented with toilet paper tubes last year. Generally speaking, they are tremendous wicks for moisture loss and IMHO not worth the benefit you get from seperate seedlings. The only things I plan to use them for this year are things with taproots, that generally don't transplant well.

See if the cafeteria ladies will save milk jugs for you as well?

Take advantage of Trudi's seed offers, and well as bakemom's and others. I look forward to seeing you around.

Thanks for the tips, everyone! I am going to decide this weekend exactly what I'm going to plant. Next Friday is payday (teachers get paid once/month....ugh) so i'll be ready to buy some seeds and get started!
Yippee!
have a great weekend!

Susan,
I'm a teacher also (adult ed now), and well remember the days of once a month paychecks (our district now pays every two weeks). I too am in love with my Mantis which makes bed-making sooo much easier. I just got one of the Worx trimmer/edgers for Christmas, so I now have no excuse for shaggy weeds (well, I have excuses, just no good ones, lol).

Here is a pic of my bare yard. It doesn't even grow grass good. I have a few trees and one lonely, sad-looking rose bush. I also have some yellow cannas on the left side that grow like crazy. That's it. I have big plans for the next season! :)
{{gwi:353322}}

Backyard
{{gwi:353323}}

Backyard with Storage Shed that I am going to paint!
{{gwi:353324}}

Make sure you keep those pictures for comparison. We'll want to see what it looks like later! Welcome.

Wow it looks like you are starting with pretty much a blank slate! How exciting to plan!

I've been organic gardening for many years, but this is my first year for WSing. It's been so much fun, and eased the abrupt gardening withdrawal I suffered this year.

Check out Lasagne gardening - I know you have the tiller which is great for instant beds, but lasagne gardening or sheet composting is a great way to make future beds. Kills any grass or weeds underneath and adds lots of organic matter to the bed with relatively little effort.

I would second the advice of lasagna gardening, depending on where you are in Oklahoma. My parents lived there for a while when my dad was in ROTC, and my mom talks a lot about the red clay soil there and how hard it was to get things to establish. I've also read that parts of the state have periods of excessive drought (although if you got the rain TX got this year, perhaps that's broken for now). If you have the clay, amending the soil with organic matter (and maybe even some sand) would help with drainage issues around the plants. Lasagna gardens end up being slightly raised, so that helps with the drainage too.

Nonetheless, I would recommend looking into xeriscaping plants and prairie varieties that do well with intermittent or little water. Things with long taproots once established will also likely do better than some other species. I would also recommend spacing your plants closely so that they shade the soil between each other and using mulch as well. Both of those things will help limit water losses. With your blank slate, I would also consider burying soaker hoses in the beds to enable more efficient watering and less evaporation (and less mildew). Lastly, if you want to keep a lawn, my friends in Texas and Colorado grow buffalo grass lawns instead of Kentucky blue grass lawns because it doesn't require hardly any water or fertilizer to stay looking nice. Supposedly the most economical way to get that going is by planting plugs of the stuff and letting it spread.

I think there's an Oklahoma and/or Texas forum, but if you're looking for ideas, here are some suggestions of a few things that might do well for you (do your own research to confirm):

echinaceas (lots of different colors, long taproots)
liatris
rudbeckias
ornamental grasses
gaillardia
lavender (in very well-draining soil)
agastaches
salvias
bougainvilleas (depending on your zone)
crepe myrtles (depending on your zone)
Texas bluebonnets
morning glories
Russian sage
wisteria
penstemons (in good drainage)
rosemary
Mexican hat
asclepias (different colors)
sedums
roses ( if you're not bothered by grasshoppers or other pests that will defoliate them)
yucca

What a great porch you have!

If you used cinderblocks you could make a deep bed all the way around your porch. You could garden it from the ground, but if you were planting herbs in that, the awesome smells would be present when you were sitting on your porch.

I didn't garden last year so have a ton of work before this year, but it looks to be fun and I'm going to try winter sowing for the first time.

If you want an example, I have a cinder block set up info here:
http://the8catgarden.blogspot.com/2006/12/cinderblock-garden-setup.html
and pics of the garden here:
http://the8catgarden.blogspot.com/2006/12/overview-of-garden.html

The soil here in NE oklahoma does seem fertile enough to grow more trees and weeds than I've ever seen, but it's not very good for gardening for some reason. I get the garden ready and then have landscapers bring me some compost usually in late Jan/early Feb, that is cooled down a bit and ready for planting come April sometime.

Susan,

Before you spend all of your hard earned money on seeds, check my list. If I have seeds that you want I will be glad to send them to you for a sasbe.

Ginger

Here is a link that might be useful: My list

Welcome - I'm so envious of all that space you have, just think of the possibilities! Please do make sure you post photos this summer once you have all your winter sown seedlings planted, I'd love to see the comparision once you have your gardens established.

Happy winter sowing!
Linda

Oooh la la Susan!! The potential in that yard!! Makes me drool!

Welcome!

Ok, just got back from Wally World. I have two empty milk jugs and I bought 2 of those aluminum roasting pans with clear lids for $1.19. And (!!!)I bought some seeds. Only a few because payday isn't until next weekend. LOL! But I couldn't WAIT!!!!! It's too late for me to sow anything this afternoon because we are going to eat dinner with friends, but tomorrow after church I'M GOING TO PLANT something! I bought mostly flower seeds, but plan on having a veggie garden this year, too. I have so much work to do. :) Still very excited .... I told two people at Wal-mart about WS. Ha!

My granny used cinderblocks for all of her flowerbeds. How much are they, anyway? I never really thought to price them.

sometimes you can just go places and people just don;t want cinder blocks. so check that out too!! and if they are doing tearing down a buildin check there, sometimes they will just give them to you.

You can try the yahoo freecycle group near you for things like cinderblocks and bricks. I agree the monthly pay does stink, but it is nice to see a few grand in the checking acct on Tuesday that wasn't there Monday (annoyingly mr fishy direct bill pays it all out on the same day). Don't forget to incorporate some of your love of plants with your students as well. At our school we have an "adopt a granny" program, where we w/s seeds and then transplant into 5 gal drilled buckets a fruit or veggie. These "bucket gardens" are then donated to seniors, who have a concrete patio or balcony, but no dirt in the retirement home.

Welcome. You have some great spaces to fill up! I can picture so many beautiful flower beds in in my mind, and I see a trellis with morning glories on it in your future!

{{gwi:353325}}

{{gwi:353326}}

(Do you need seeds?)
Maggie