WinterSown Update

I officially love winter sowing my seeds!

This is my first year trying this method. There are already some things I would do differently, but I think I will keep utilizing winter sowing.

First, here are some of the sprouts in my home made "green houses".

Radishes:

Pumpkins:


Mesculin Salad Mix:


For a planter I used an inexpensive ($6.50) under-bed-storage-box (Rubbermaid). I poked some holes in the bottom for drainage and added some top soil.




One of the advantages I've noticed so far is that it's easy to transplant the sprouts. All I had to do was tear open the bag and then gently lift them out and place them in the new soil.


Wash, rinse, repeat...

And then I got this:



From left to right: Mesculin Salad Mix, Garden Bean Dragon Tongue, "Mystery Greens" (the label had faded), Lettuce.

This afternoon I'm heading to the store anyway so I'm going to pick up a couple more storage containers and some organic compost. As soon as the soil starts to dry out I'll make some "compost tea" to water the plants with.

What's "compost tea"? Take some compost and put it in some cheesecloth. Steep it in very warm (not boiling... you don't want to kill all the good organisms in it) water. When the water is cool, squeeze the water out of the cheese cloth. Then water your plants with the compost water. It's a good way to get some extra nutrients to the plants without overwhelming them (or between mulching).

Things I'm fixing or will do differently next year:

1. Put my note cards into baggies before leaving them outside. This is how I got my "mystery greens." The labels might get a little sun faded, but they won't get wet.

2. Put plants directly into planters and then build a home-made green house around it. Especially where I live, the mini green houses aren't really needed. The plants in the pots seem to do just as well (or even better) than those in the mini-green houses. This also saves me the trouble of having to transplant.

So far that's about it. Not too bad, huh? Pretty soon it will be time for me to directly sow some seeds. I'm looking forward to that! Before that, though, I have to transplant the other sprouts that are coming up (I have a LOT of cabbage coming up - I suppose I'll have to learn how to make kraut).