can they be moved easily in spring when babes ...

when i used to deal with this.... i would lave a couple foot area of bare soil for the seeds .. with a pile of the leaves set beside ..

and after they germinated in spring.. i would move them around ... and then mulch the bare spot ...

the other problem with just seeding around ... was i would start pulling weeds .. and when i was 90% done.. THEN.. and only then.. would i remember they might have been intended seedlings ... strewn around the garden ... the little nursery bed.. helped avoid such ...

ken

I'd collect the seed and sow in late winter--or at least after you're done mulching--to be sure you get a good crop.

Melampodium (and a number of other things) easily self-sows in the warmer areas of beds here, but if mulched more than minimally, it'll get buried to 0% sprout levels. So the years I plan to mulch, I collect seed the year before (easily done) in huge numbers and simply toss it down after doing the mulch. In my case, that's in April.

Sprout on most of my things isn't until May anyway, so no big deal.

I've already started seed collection on a ton of stuff, do have plans to mulch next year, and simply intend on collecting several thousand Melampodium instead of the five hundred or so I'd normally collect to assure that I get 36 good ones for tray starting next year.

I go overboard just in case we get a very cold winter and the outdoor seeds don't make it. No matter what happens, I can assure a good crop in the areas where I want them from seed stored in good conditions.

I love wintersown hardy annuals. I can mulch as desired in fall, plant seeds outdoors in milk jugs midwinter, then transplant seedlings into beds after they sprout.

I know you said you want to get away from wintersowing, but I'm with docmom on this one. IMO it's so much easier to just wintersow the ammi, mulch as you usually would this fall, and then just place the plants where you want them. Seems like so much less work.

But, that being said, I also LOVE ammi and let it reseed all over my garden. I usually do put down shredded leaf mulch in fall, and again in spring, and when I go to mulch in spring I find a fair amount of ammi seedlings despite the fall mulch. I try to spring mulch around them or MAYBE move them, but since I usually wintersow a few anyway I'm not as careful, because I do have so many from both WSing and self sowing. But my key point here is that they DO still self-sow despite mulching. Perhaps not as much as if I didn't mulch, but still quite a fair amount. There have been years where I didn't WS any and still had them in my garden.

If you are purposely direct sowing, will you scatter the seed, or kind of place the seeds in certain areas where you want a clump? If you are sowing them in specific areas, you can always just try not mulching in those areas, or not mulching as heavily. Or, if you are attentive enough (I am NOT, lol) you can go back out in early spring to pull back the mulch in some of those areas.

Good luck with whichever path you take. IMO, no garden should ever be without ammi!

:)
Dee