I’ve finally braved the snowy wilds of the backyard and placed my winter sowing setup in our fire pit. (It’s above freezing right now, and it felt like the tropics!) Sadly, we still have many weeks left at subzero temps for ample cold stratification of these seeds. I’m only trying it with a few of my crops this year, mostly flowers and herbs. Here’s what I’ve planted this way, with in some cases a blend of several varieties of each:

-agastache

-calamintha

-catmint

-catnip, lemon

-doucette d’alger

-echinacea

-evening primrose, showy

-greek mountain tea

-hyssop

-phlox, perennial

-salvia

-shungiku

I’ll start the rest either under my grow lights in a few weeks, or by direct sowing. I haven’t had the best of luck with winter sowing over the years, but I’ve also been hesitant to use new seeds for doing this. So I’ve probably wrecked my chances both by using older seeds and also sometimes using my nursery flat pots, which can dry out easily.

And it’s also so much easier to use plastic bags than to store, cut, and tape plastic jugs. If this method works for me, I’d love to keep doing it. It’ll free up some precious space under my grow lights for a lot more of my crops.

I’ve chosen to put the bags in our fire pit so that (hopefully) the dogs won’t be able to get to them. My fingers are crossed! I’ll keep you guys posted.