Flowers! 🌺 🌷 🌸 🌹

1173

i didn’t do any seeds in milk jugs last year — i just put some stuff like feverfew, nigella, and bachelor buttons in the ground on a mild day at the beginning of march. since i was growing in a raised bed at the community garden and in containers at home, nothing was really frozen, though it was still chilly.

the cool flowers book will tell you which things prefer to be direct sowed vs. started indoors. i did some experiments last year with sweet peas — i started some inside and direct-sowed others and the ones i started inside had flowers faster, but the direct sowed ones did fine, too. might be fun for you to try a few different methods and see what works best.

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1174

I’m a milk jug winter-sower (Chicago, 5a if that matters). In general, you don’t want to start indoors and then move them out to freeze, as the jugs aren’t that insulating. The winter sowing theory is that the plants emerge when they’re ready outside and acclimate from germination to the cold, so they don’t have the shock that an inside plant would have.

It might work :woman_shrugging: but it’s not typically the way the jugs get used. They are best for starting seeds outdoors for perennials which required cold moist stratification to germinate and for fairly hardy annuals like sunflowers and zinnias. I have done a lot of winter sowing these types of flowers, and I plant them in the ground in early May.

Cold sensitive annuals or anything that says sow after the last frost it is recommended to “spring sowing” and put the milk jug out in March-ish. I don’t grow as many cut flowers as you guys, but I use this method for basil. It’s important to keep these watered and with lots of ventilation.

All that to say I agree with Madgeylou, the nice thing about seeds is you can try different things, and don’t lose too much if it doesn’t work well!

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1175

Thanks! I just watched a few YouTube videos and saw that they immediately put the jugs outside. So much easier than I thought!

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