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Can’t wait to get your hands in the dirt? You can rush the season
By Bonnie Blodgett
Why less interest in horticulture when the planet is facing environmental catastrophe? Is there a connection between the two? Maybe our growing addiction to technology is making us more comfortable in virtual reality than in the great outdoors (earthworms? yuck!). Or maybe the decline is just a function of our stressed-out lifestyles. If so, wouldn’t planting things be more relaxing than cleaning those giant barbecues that seem to have outflanked a beautiful landscape as our most coveted outdoor-room accoutrement?
But enough cosmic pondering. One of the many delights of being Minnesotan is that we usually buck the national tide. We like seasonal ups and downs. They build character and stimulate the imagination. We like working with Mother Nature. Which is probably why I’ve found that Minnesota gardeners are more likely to grow their plants from seed than people in most places. We’re thrifty by nature and seeds are cheaper than full-grown plants.
We’re also desperate for a shot of summer in February, just about the time indoor seed starting commences. Certainly, you can start seeds under lights. In last month’s column, “Seeds of Spring,” I offered a rudimentary how-to guide. Now I’m also going to urge you to try winter sowing outdoors.
I first heard about winter sowing from the Minnesota Horticultural Society, which offered a class on it in January. I went online to find out more and landed at Long Island garden blogger Trudi Davidoff’s website (www.wintersown.org). She lays out the fundamentals in delightfully plain English and even shows you how, step-by-step, with a few snapshots sprinkled down the side of the page. Bottom line: winter sowing outdoors is remarkably like indoor sowing under lights, but you don’t have to worry about the dreaded damp-off sabotaging your efforts. In Trudi’s words, “The chilling temperatures and fresh winds prevent the damp-off that sadly causes young seedlings to fail.”
Another benefit she doesn’t mention: Winter-sown plants turn out hardier and tougher overall than their hothouse counterparts. For those of you who are bewildered by how a seed could germinate in the depths of winter and its seedling survive, just think about all those volunteer seedlings that show up unexpectedly—offspring of last summer’s marigolds, snapdragons, cosmos, and columbine. How did they sprout beneath all that snow and ice? Your winter-sown seeds face far better odds because you’re going to give them a proper head start and then look out for them.
Here’s how you do it: Gather recyclable flats (tin foil takeout containers and the like will work); make slits in the bottom for drainage, pick up a pack of cheap soil at your local hardware store; and sow seeds. Any seeds that come up on their own will do (good-bet perennials include columbine, coneflowers, hollyhocks, and rudbeckia; for annuals, try petunias and snapdragons). Cover the flats with identical plastic containers with slashed bottoms-turned-tops to keep in moisture, and protect the plants from strong winds. Presto! You’ve got a mini-greenhouse.
Put the flats on a picnic table—out of reach of pets and rodents—and keep an eye on them, adding water as necessary when the temperature is above freezing (it will drain out the holes). Freeze-thaw cycles are nature’s way of scarifying the seeds that need to be coaxed out of their shells (morning glories, for example). Direct sunlight does the rest of the germinating work.
A couple of caveats: Stick with the indoor method if you want to germinate rare tropicals and other winter-resistant seeds, or if you’d rather have a garden under lights to tend and admire than none at all. On the other hand, if any kind of seed looks like too much bother, you can always drop a bundle at the garden center and plant fully mature specimens come May. Either way, it’s better that than paving over your garden for an outdoor room.
Bonnie Blodgett publishes The Garden Letter and is writing a book about smell.
11 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
