Welcome Farmer!! All the information you need can be found at Wintersown.org. You can get started by doing some trades for seeds, sending for free seeds, or buying your own. Whichever way you choose, once you start you'll be hooked. Everyone on this site is very willing to share helpful information. If you go to the gallery (home page of this forum) you will see lots of examples of winter sown plants. Happy Gardening.
Northerner.

Him Farmer. Welcome to wintersowing!

If you haven't found them yet, also see the FAQs, located at the top of the first page of the forum. Those and Trudi's site (wintersown.org) will explain the basics. After you review these come back and ask your specific questions and folks will jump in and answer. Everyone here is very friendly and helpful so don't be shy. Once you are around here for a while, you are a member of the family!

We're happy to have you on board.

Karen

Here is a link that might be useful: Wintersowing FAQs

Hello, I just saw the post on the Seed forum where some of us "surrounded" you!

Some of us do both Wintersowing and growing indoors under lights. There's only so much room indoors! And, you don't need sterile seed mix for wintersowing! Plus, some seeds need cold treatment before they'll germinate. So, you can still use the light setup you bought, if you want to.

Some people report that their wintersown annuals put up with the summer heat better (this is usually people in the warmer zones) but in my zone 5, the wintersown plants and the store-bought ones do equally well. Wintersowing can give you hundreds of annuals for the price of a pack of seeds, but you still need to buy some plants if you want that instant burst of color on your last frost date! The nursery plants are started around Jan 1, so the wintersown versions obviously aren't going to burst into bloom until later. There are some annuals that bloom quite early, though: poppies, bachelor buttons and larkspur, for example.

I made up a brochure with a lot of material I lifted (Trudi oked it) from the wintersown site, it's a nice brief introduction to this method. If your email is activated, I'll email it to you. If it's not, please email me through my page.

And, be sure to ask whatever questions you come up with!!!

This was my first year winter sowing and after reading all the FAQs and the Wintersown.org I thought "this is too easy". Well if you find yourself wondering the same thing, it really is. So easy it feels like cheating :)

This will be my first year wintersowing and I'm so excited. I hope you're right dirtbert!

Hi, Farmer! I see you're a zone 7 - covers a LOT of territory. Most people think we're zone 7 here (Buzzard's Bay, MA), but I'm in the process of moving to the Greenville-Spartanburg area of SC, and that's a zone 7, too. If you're a true z7, you have a huge array of plants you can WS. This is my 6th year at it, I think (kind of lost track), and I had to cut back to only about 300 varieties this year because of the impending move - still, those 300 containers produced enough for my yard, all my relatives' yards, and the church plant sale. I absolutely love it, learning more each year. And yes, my WS plants do better than my indoor sown plants - I don't have a light set-up & have to rely on good windows - but legginess and damp-off are problems with some varieties - I don't even try to grow petunias or snapdragons indoors anymore.

Like Stagerat, though, I purchase a few annuals for early color - I don't see the majority of my WS annuals bloom until June (a few, like alyssum, are earlier), and by Mother's Day I need a little color.

Welcome to the forum; you're going to like it here.

Hey all! Although I'm not new to gardening or gardenweb, I have never wintersown. I've been lurking on this forum and your enthusiasm is definately contagious! I just received an order of seeds from Thompson and Morgan. I've never been so excited anticipating winter. I've looked at the link to wintersown.org and checked out the frequently asked questions. Now I'm wondering how in the world I'm gonna get containers. I rarely cook so this is definately going to be a challenge.
Stage rat, I'd love to see your brocure if you wouldn't mind emailing it to me. Thanks! Nikki

Nikki,
I have found that co-workers with children are a never ending source of milk jugs. Especially if you offer to share plants in the Spring. Unless of course they become WS too. It is contagious.

Nikki,

Clamshell take-out boxes are deep enough, and the McDonalds salad bowl and lid work fine too. Sushi containers are way too flat--they won't be able to hold much water in the soil and they will dry out way to quick. A lot of people here use clear dollar store shoeboxes.

BTW, I love this thread!

T

YAY! farmer, I am glad you decided to take a gander! :)

This past ws season was my first,and will not be my last! I was so impressed by the results! Some of the plants I ws did way better than store bought ones. I had given up on a few varieties,because I just thought they hated my yard,but my ws versions are doing awesome and I couldn't be happier! I would rather wait for Nicotiana blooms and have a large full plant, than purchase them and have blooms on a scrawny,anemic looking plant ,which is what happened year after year before I just gave up!

Anyway,ws has many bonuses,for one I don't know any other way you could start large amounts of plants at one time, costs you very little money and takes up very little space.
Then there is this forum,you will find it to be a place you can come for help or just to show off what you have accomplished,and people really appreciate your questions and enjoy seeing your success! Even if I dont post,I usually at least lurk and read the threads. You can learn so much just by looking at someones pictures,well that and of course it is nice to see what your fellow gardeners have going on! :)

Anyway,I hope by the end of this thread there are many others interested,it has already got a few others intrigued,I agree Trudi,this is a great thread,it shows the spirit of ws'ing! :)

Hi Farmer,
It is a wonderful come spring and you go out to your planted wintered milk jugs and you see sprouts and think to yourself wow I planted that.

Especially neat for children. Passing the love of gardening onto the next generation. Welcome to the family..... Barb

Welcome, Farmer!
This is one of the best forums on GW (Really want to say THE best). You will find the gardeners here to be friendly, most helpful and very generous with their seeds. Winter-sowing is a great way to beat the winter blues and keep your hands in the dirt all year. :) I have numerous plants from my WS efforts and have learned SO much from this forum. Before WS, I never even knew that some seeds needed cold to germinate, or that I could sow just about anything and get it to sprout. Now I'm an addict! LOL I collect seeds from anywhere and everywhere, and freely pass on extra plants/seeds. It is so much fun!
Again, welcome and enjoy!
Rosemary

Thanks all for the info here, and yes it's a great thread full of information. Lately i've been stuck between winter sowing or indoor grow light methods. The second being much more expensive. The thing is my friend has a farm stand here in Ronkonkoma L.I. and he asked me if i wanted to grow some flowers to sell at his stand. So I think I'm going to give it a shot, sounds like fun, but to do it you need the flowers to be in bloom by spring I would think. Maybe I'll try both methods. Going to try and grow Zinnia, Calendula, Marigold, Snapdragons and some Columbines. Thx all and lets here more opinions! =)

Ron Kon K'maaaaahhh. Well, that's how they announce it on the LIRR ;-)

WS works great on LI, it all started here in East Meadow.

Hi Farmer! This was my first year Winter Sowing as well and I was a little "conservative" with what I chose to grow. Now that I know how easy it is I'll be doing way more next year. That's the addiction part.

A majority of the seeds that I'll be growing next year will be as a result of seed trading with other GW members.
Northerner and Rosemary are right, you wont find a more generous or helpful group of people anywhere.
Even if it's weird questions like "What's this jelly in my jugs?" or pictures of somebodies WS'ing setup, there's no shortage of help and ideas. :)

Selling flowers at a farm stand sounds like an awesome opportunity!
I'd like to suggest growing Sunflowers to sell.
A supermarket down the street from me had a rack of dwarf Sunflowers for sale @ $10 ea. and they were GONE in one day.
Considering you can buy a pack of Sunflower seeds for around $2 (or for postage if you decide to trade)....it's a pretty good investment.

Good luck in whichever direction you choose and dont be a stranger. :)
-Lysie

Thanks again all! Yes my friend did say that he also seen Sunflowers forsale and they were gone in a matter of days. I'm trying to specialize in a few flowers that i'll be selling, most others will be planted in my yard and the seeds will be for trade here. I'm still looking for some Lavender and Baloon flowers. Gonna give a shot at a cottage garden with a mostly purple/blue/red flower theme. Thanks again!

Farmer: Yes, don't rule out some perennials for yourself. Many won't bloom until the second year but some will give you some flowers in the first year. Still, the cost of buying perennials is sometimes pretty prohibitive, but you can fill your yard with them for pennies with WSing.

Karen

So far in my yard I have Pink Phlox, Red Astillbe, Canna Lilies, Blue Bachelors Buttons, Purple Rose of Sharon, Pink and Purple Spider FLower, a Butterfly Bush and of course lots of Hostas oh and Heather bush. I think next year I want to mix in some Lavender and Lemon Mint.