Hi East, welcome to the forum.

Wintersowing begins on the winter solstice. Any time after that begin with anything hardy in your area. This is, hardy in your zone (perennials and hardy annuals.)

Best to wait until close to spring for anything that will be damaged by frost- half hardy annuals, and tender perennial and tender annuals. I'm not sure when that is in zone 4. For me it's late March or April.

Karen

Just taking a quick glance at your list it looks to me like you are on the right track as far as now goes. I don't use an unheated greenhouse, but it seems like as long as you water and keep them moist when needed and make sure that they don't cook they should be okay. Someone else will come along who has experience. Welcome and good luck!

HI Gardenluv and Karen,
Thank you for the input.
So then if i have done my homework right then half hardy annual,tender perennial, and tender annual I can start sowing around April to May in my area. So has either of you and anyone else winter sown vegatables? If so, what did well for you and what didn't? Also I know that I will have extra of the flower seeds I listed so i don't know if its ok here to do but i'm more than happy to trade and share a few with someone else.

East

Yes, veggies work, too. I've done cabbage and broccoli before, and I am trying spinach, lambs lettuce, carrots and parsnips this year. While more folks seem to do flowers, if you do searches of the forum on the particular veggies you're interested in, I think you'll find information on most of them. Cool season veggies are the most obvious choices for someone with a short growing season.

In addition, Trudi's wintersown.org site has a fair amount of info specific to wintersowing tomatoes. I will say that in your zone, for heat loving veggies like tomatoes you'll want to be sure to get varieties that mature early. Again, if you search this forum specifically for tomatoes, you'll find more input from others in zones similar to yours.

Welcome to WS!

This is my second year winter sowing and my first year experimenting with my unheated greenhouse as a walk in container.

I have done several veggies via wintersowing. Tomatoes and peppers do great, but don't produce until very late in the season since we have a short growing period. Greenbeans and cucumbers did great, but for me it is easier to just direct sow those. Herbs do fantastic!

I still feel like a newbie but been here awhile, welcome! That's quite an ambitious list. The only ones we have in common as to exact variety are bachelor's button and the wallflower.

I'm not one of the better WS'ers, did read a lot of faqs and followed directions to a point the best I could at the time and just did it. What I wanted the most didn't germinate but most of the rest did my first year. This is only my 2nd year because I wasn't motivated last winter.

One, you are bound to get something on that list and probably a lot.

Two, suggest you hold back some of the seeds you want the most so if they fail, you can have a second shot with spring sowing in containers (different method) or trying again next year.

Before I got the courage to try WS'ing, I was having pretty good luck spring sowing with a strategy I worked out myself, just more work, sometimes necessary for me.