Winter Sowing for the First Time

This year will be the first time I do the winter sowing thing. I first learned of it last year from Kylee of Our Little Acre and have been itching to try it ever since.

I was in the process of picking up some pointers and stumbled upon the iVillage Garden Web Forums on Winter Sowing when I was reminded how important it is to thoroughly wet your soil before putting it into containers.

When I first began starting seeds indoors I learned this lesson after seeing all of my seeds and soil go floating off without any regard as to where it was all supposed to stay. If you have had the same problem you know what a complete mess you can end up with. Plus, it makes you feel like a total rookie.

Anyway, to prevent any future embarrassing moments I quickly realized that wetting the soil before I put it into the peat pots or starting trays is the way to go. And winter sowing is no different. I used any container large enough to hold most if not all of the soil I needed. I now use one of those Homer’s 5-gallon buckets from Home Depot. These are very versatile and easy to use. Start by pouring about an inch of water in it and then pour about 6-8” of potting mix. Thoroughly mix the stuff together with a trowel, or by hand if you feel like being a real gardening geek like me, You know you’re going to make a mess anyway, so why not enjoy it.

Then I pour in a little more potting mix and add a little more water, mix thoroughly and repeat until I have enough very damp mix for my containers. About the consistency of mud pies works great. Not those lame watery, runny pies, but something you would be proud to serve at a tea party. What can I say, I grew up with four sisters, so I know mud pies.

This method works so much better than my first experience.

The thing about winter sowing that so intrigues me is that the containers you use can be anything that was once used for something else. This so perfectly matches my philosophy of recycle and re-use. Milk jugs, two-liter soda bottles, salad take-out containers, and big plastic jars (the kind pretzels come in at warehouse clubs) are all popular winter sowing containers. The only real requirement is that the container be large enough to hold at least three inches of soil and it must have head room for the growing plants. Drainage holes should be cut into the bottom, and air transpiration holes or slits should be cut into the top of the container.

In order to get the plants in the containers you have to cut the containers to about half way making a top and a bottom. You can make them deeper but you really don’t need that much soil. The one thing I am not completely set on is the hinge. Some people say they cut the container completely through while others leave top and bottom attached to create a hinge. Why do you need to hinge? Maybe it’s because it would be easier to tape it all together if they are not two separate parts. I really haven’t discovered any other reason.

Just like when starting trays of plants, you can either place peat pots or other small containers within each larger container or you can just fill the container with soil and set your seeds. I found these square peat pots fits four perfectly in a gallon milk jugs. However you want to do it, once you have the soil and seeds or containers and seeds in place, tape the top portion to the bottom to make the container whole again. Save the lids in case you want to prevent rain or snow melt from getting inside, you don’t want to over-water everything.

When setting the containers outside, don’t place them under awnings or overhangs where melting snow might over-water them. When spring rains arrive you will want to again protect them from being over-watered. Condensation build-up inside is a good thing. If there is no condensation, it either means that you have too many transpiration holes (tape over some of them if this is the case) or your soil is drying out. If the soil is drying out, use a spray bottle to gently mist the inside of the container through the top opening, you don’t want to disturb seed placement. As spring arrives, and the air warms up, your transpiration holes should be made bigger and bigger, until you remove the top of your container entirely. This is the winter sowing way to “harden off” your plants. After they are hardened off, simply plant your transplants out in the garden.

The whole thing makes sense when you realize that mother nature sprouts seeds outdoors without the help of fluorescent tubes and heating mats and seedling trays. The seeds will sprout when all the conditions are just right.

If the jugs start drying out, set them in a larger container of water and wait until the soil surface begins to get wet, a bit time consuming, especially if you have a lot of containers. I have seen suggestions of using a kiddie pool, but who fills one these with water in the winter? Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m betting on using the kitchen sink or bath tub. If you have a garden hose attachment with a mister nozzle, smooth gentle spray, then you can use that as long as it fits into the top of the container. Of course, I’m picturing a milk jug here.

In this first experiment I started Thunbergia White-eyed Susie, Sweet Pea Winter flowering Navy Blue and Mammoth Mix, Rosemary, and Marigold Cracker Jack Mix. I will add more later as I find more containers, I have already put the word out to neighbors and friends. If they don’t start their own seeds this way I should have more soon.

I found listings of plants that can be winter sown and honestly the list of seeds that are NOT good candidates is much shorter. The seeds that would probably not work as well would be those seeds that start easily by direct sowing, such as beans and peas, and those that don’t transplant well, such as root crops.

Some of the seeds I am using this year are leftover from last year but over my years of gardening experience I have seen many plant seedlings that I would have bet would never re-sprout or volunteer themselves in the strangest places, some far away from where they grew the previous year. So not much surprises me any more. My advice is to experiment. If you aren't sure something will winter sow well, just put a few seeds in a container and see what happens. What do you have to lose?

In reading about how others are doing this I found that some people set their containers outside a couple of weeks ago, in zone 5! Yikes! I really need to get this thing going.

I also started some other seedlings the conventional way because we want these for eating sooner. Radishes Helios Yellow and Purple Plum, Lettuce Little Gem, Chives Garlic, and Basil.

Next on my checklist of things to do before spring is to buy more seeds, get more containers, widen my current plots, build trellises. You see, it’s always something.

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My chain link fence is ugly! I need some vines

Our backyard is completely fenced in. On two sides is chain link fence. Let me emphatically state right up front that I hate chain link fence. It was here when we moved in and I cannot afford to replace it. In order to help me live with this unnatural abomination, and maintain my usual sunny, positive disposition, I have decided to accept the only positive aspect of it and that is that it provides a wonderful opportunity for climbing vines with which to cover it up.

Most of the eighty feet along the back has these hideous vinyl slats stuck vertically to form a lame attempt at relief from having to look into that neighbors weed-filled yard. Weeds that, as you might imagine, mount a never-ending assault on my yard. I can feel some of you shudder at the very thought. These ‘privacy-slats’ are what I would charitably call ‘earth-tone’ tan. The section of fence that does not have these slats is covered at one end by a 9’ x 12’ shed (mercifully the longest side is against the fence) and at the other end by what used to be a 10’ x 10’ dog pen complete with a concrete pad. Why anyone would subject their dog to a concrete pad is beyond me, but, there it is. I currently use the ex-dog pen area for a compost pile and to store rocks I dig up out of the garden plots and tree trimmings I might find useful in building trellises, etc.

Part of this back fence is also blocked from view by a Plum tree that may or may not be replaced by some other ‘huge’ shrub to cover up as much fence as possible. It’s a wild plum tree native to Utah and produces wonderfully sweet fruit. We and the birds love these plums but the tree is getting old and is dying.

With these sections of fence already covered up, the total remaining section amounts to roughly fifty feet of empty space that needs to be ‘decorated’. In front of this fifty feet is a raised bed that reaches out two feet. Two feet is not much space to grow anything that has anything width to it, so I have planted bulbs, hollyhocks perennial alyssum and violas. With the exception of the hollyhocks, very little fence is being covered. Vines to the rescue.

Vines always bring to mind voracious, space-grabbing plants that seem to outrun the most dedicated attempts at pruning. I am not one to invite that kind of workload into my garden. And some vines make you wonder how the poor fence they are growing on is able to withstand the weight.

The vines I want will have to do more than satisfy my sense of aesthetics, they will also need to provide something for beneficial insects and the many birds that I have been able to attract to my yard without turning my garden into a jungle able to support lions, tigers and bears, oh my. Of course coaxing a jungle out of my backyard would require talents that I am pretty sure I don’t possess, so not too much to worry about there.

Another limiting factor for choosing vines are those that will survive our zone 5 winters.

With these goals in mind, my research has happily uncovered some beautiful possibilities.

Foliage type vines
Boston Ivy, Parthenocissus tricuspidata, the vine you see growing up the sides of buildings, has maple shaped deep green leaves and also provides blue-black berries favored by birds. Very attractive, its growth rate is slow and its tendrils will creep along the fence without my help. I personally would never allow this vine to attach to my house or shed because its tendrils drill through brick mortar and will eventually cause the bricks to crumble. Aluminum siding would be ripped from its supports.

Ornamental Sweet Potato Vine, Ipomoea batatas, eye-poe-MEE-ah bah-TAH-tass. This plant is a perennial in the warmest USDA zones and needs to be considered an annual in my neck of the woods. Its light-green foliage is a beautiful contrast to almost any other plant. It is considered to be low-maintenance but doesn’t provide any berries for birds and I don’t know if it attracts beneficial insects. The cost of replacing it every year could be a major drawback.

Flowering Vines
Clematis vine. This has always been one of my favorite flowers. I have had limited success growing clematis in the past, they have all succumbed to our summer heat, except for one, Jackmanii. It is written that this is the easiest clematis to grow and since it is the only one to survive my attempts, I tend to agree. Ours is beginning its third year of life in our garden so I emboldened to try again. I haven’t noticed any birds or beneficial insects hanging around them but they are just to beautiful not to have them.

Trumpet Honeysuckle, Lonicera Sempervirens, is an evergreen offering a showy bloom that provides nectar for hummingbirds and butterflies. Bright red berries appear in the fall after bloom ceases. It’s dense evergreen habitat, often reaching lengths of 20 feet per tendril, also provides cover throughout the seasons.

Two pictures come to mind when I think of honeysuckle, actually three. 1) they are invasive; 2) older honeysuckle have unsightly bare trunks; 3) you can pluck a flower, grasp the lower end and pull the stamen out and be rewarded with a dollop of honey on the end, very sweet. Let’s address the invasiveness character. Japanese honeysuckle is the offending vine. There are many other species of honeysuckles that are non invasive, such as Gold flame and Brown’s. Each of these is suited for zones 3-9.

Black-eyed Susan vine, Thunbergia alata, This vine grows quickly and easily, as most annual do, duh, it can easily reach 10 to 12 feet. The flowers on this thing are amazing. Petite but colorful with dark brown ‘eyes’, just like their namesake, but no relation to rudbeckia. They need additional support on walls but they might be okay alone on a chain link fence. The one drawback I see here in Utah is that they don’t like very hot, dry conditions. I think I’m going to try them anyway just so I know for sure. There are two varieties Sunny Orange Wonder and Sunny Lemon Star I will probably try.

Winter jasmine, Jasminum polyanthum, is more of a viny shrub which reach four feet in height and about seven feet wide. This should cover my fence pretty well, except I fear it being too wide as to cover the pathway near the fence. The blooms appear in late winter/early spring prior to leaves but are not fragrant. The big drawback is that the stems put out roots wherever they touch the soil, but if trained as vines this should not be a problem.

Edible Vines
Melons and squash. I’m going to place a couple trellises against the fence in a lean-to fashion and train squash and melons to grow up. The fruit can hang down in their own little hammocks made of nylon stockings, or silk scarves or any old rags. I probably wont use silk, but it is a pleasing image.

Grapes. My wife wants a grape arbor in our yard. So, with this simple request we are going to embark on a new quest. My grandmother had one in her backyard, my wife’s mother has one in her backyard. Neither of us helped much in maintaining these vines, but we both have enjoyed their fruit. Granted this isn’t something you would normally find on a chain link fence but I’m thinking one end of the arbor might go up against the fence to help hide part of it.

I am planning a separate post series to follow the progress of this quest so stay tuned. All I can say right now is: it is going to be interesting to see how this turns out.

Beans and Peas. I figure why not use the fence as a trellis.

Espalier fruit trees. This is something I have always found interesting. Training a fruit tree to grow into a form it is not meant to do sounds like something I want to try. The minimal space requirements coupled with the productivity is well worth the effort. There are three techniques of espaliering (is-`pal-yer-ing) so determining which is the easiest for a beginner is the first step.

What ever vines we decide on using, I hope the added dimension of height will greatly add to the overall look of the garden.

Oh, and about the other two sides of my yard, one side has eighty feet of chain link with an unobstructed view of my other neighbors ugly junk pile. How charming. The third side is a wooden fence with three fruit trees, raspberries and the 9’ side of that shed I mentioned earlier to break up its monotony. Perhaps I can hang some planters or bird houses on it to ‘spruce’ it up. Maybe later.

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Know your plants habits

Getting enough information on plants requires some work. You don’t ever want to purchase a plant based solely on what one source tells you.

Luckily, I have not yet put a plant in my garden that is aggressive enough that I have to give it more attention than anything else in preventing it from taking over its neighbors. Mint is like this. I know mint is an aggressive spreader and therefore it is only grown in containers. If I want to place it in the open garden, I will simply cut a hole in the bottom of the container and plant it, still in the container, in the ground.

I don’t know enough about all plants to know their aggressiveness and potential for crowding out everything around them. I don’t know which plants demand the extra attention required to keep them in bounds.

In researching for vines to cover up my ugly chain link fence, and my neighbors uglier habit of piling junk in his yard, I am learning that it is very difficult to get enough information to make an informed decision. I am not going to name websites that fall short of giving enough information, it is virtually all of them, but when I was gathering information on what vine will fulfill my need, I would find that a flowery description on one site was countered on another site by learning the plant was considered invasive, or poisonous.

I don’t want invasive or poisonous plants in my yard. I don’t want to have to take the extra time to fuss over one plant to keep it in bounds and I don’t want them creating friction with my non-gardening neighbors by giving them something to cut back several times a year.

Maybe it is just the nature of vines and I should learn to have to deal with it, the same goes for shrubs. But I believe that if a site is going to play up the virtues of a given plant, they should also tell you of its bad points, like being on a list of invasive plants. Knowing whether or not the plant is poisonous is a major plus for children and pets.

Here is a prime example of how one site describes Akebia quinata (Chocolate vine) as a beautiful, fast growing vine that produces spicy scented, brownish-purple blossoms that hang like pendants. The vine sounds like exactly what I want. But upon further investigation I learn, from another site, that this woody perennial plant, that can be grown as a twining vine or a groundcover, forms dense growth that crowds out native plants. Now the attractiveness of this vine is beginning to fade. It is reported as invasive in six states. The site lists it as found in 16 eastern U.S. states, while on the original site, where I first found it, I am told it grows in my USDA growing zone. I am in Utah (not an eastern state, for those of you who are geographically challenged). This plant, I am told, naturalizes in warmer climates, like mine. If I were to grow this plant here, I would be contributing to the spread of a highly invasive vine that grows up to 40 feet per growing season! I don’t want that on my conscience.

For a horror story concerning this particular plant see Just Another Pretty Face.

The bottom line is don’t trust everything you read, gather information from several sources and then make an informed decision.

In learning this lesson today, I vow that in the future, when I report any information on any given plant, I will try to present as much information as I can about that plant. I will try to find out if it is considered invasive, or poisonous, or only survives in eastern states. It was very disappointing to think that this plant would grow here and then to find out it is only found in the eastern U.S. and even further disappointing to learn it would have become a full time job trying to control it.

This is a case where USDA growing zones and lighting requirements can be misleading. I may have voiced this opinion before but I think it is worth repeating. Growing zone 5 in the western states is not the same as growing zone 5 in the eastern states.

My search for a colorful vine that has berries for the birds and flowers for beneficial insects and hummingbirds and is not invasive continues. Let the buyer beware!

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Clematis woes

When we got back from vacation this week the biggest disappointment that faced me was losing my clematis jackmanii flowers.

This is what they looked like before we left.



And a closer view.



This is what they looked like the day we got bak.



Very disappointing. The flowers were supposed to last through September. I don't know if the heat is the culprit or a lack of water. My neighbors said they watered but the flower just wilted and fell off. I'm thinking they were not watered as deeply as they should have been.

I'm hoping more buds will appear. This is the first year I ever got this many flowers from a clematis.

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Clematis is leafing out

I love Clematis, it is one of my all-time favorites. I have not been able to grow it and have killed more than one plant. This year looked to be no exception.

The first time we lived in Utah we were in a apartment building and there was a little plot of land that was available to us to grow what we wanted. No one else in the building was interested so I had the place to myself. I planted tomatoes, peas, clematis, Jacob's Ladder, columbine as well as a few others. The clematis is the only plant that did not survive the first winter.

After moving to California I thought I should try again. You would think that with weather as nice as it gets in San Diego that I should be able to grow anything. But that is not the case. By the second year I had managed to kill yet another clematis.

We moved into the current house three years ago and I was determined to not fail again. I was in the process of building up several perennial beds with compost to combat our clay soil, and thought I would plant a Clematis 'Hania' (pictured above) right in the full sun, just as they like it. I watered it carefully, I mulched it carefully. I fed it carefully. It struggled. Perhaps the clay was too much.

The next Spring, 2006, came and I kept a close watch to see if it would come back. It looked like it would by the fact that I saw a couple of green leaves sprouting from the bottom. Within a couple of weeks it too had succumbed to my ineptitude. It seemed I was doomed to never grow the one plant that I wanted so much to grow.

Then I saw a Clematis Jackmanii' in a Bluestone Perennials catalog. The phrase that stood out most was 'it is the easiest clematis to grow'. That is pretty powerful bait to someone who wants so desperately to have a Clematis. Then I thought that statement was made without me in mind. It looked too inviting to pass up with its big blue flowers. I fell for it again and ordered one.

This time I was going to try something a bit different. I know they like their 'feet in the shade and their head in the sun' so I decided to take care to create a space just for this plant. I put it on the other side of my raspberry plants where not only its feet are in the shade but about half of its height would be in shade. I also placed a couple of rocks around its base to provide extra coolness. Then I placed one of those pre-made trellis (the kind with the criss-cross wooden slats that you see everywhere) against the shed and stapled some garden netting on it for the vine to attach to.

The first year there was one lonely, but beautiful, five inch, deep dark blue flower. It looked all the more beautiful because it was the only bloom. But, I could not consider this a success because I have been here before. The real test (the scary part) was yet to come.

I read from someone's blog that they used Tomato Plant food every couple of weeks throughout the growing season and so I gave that a try. I had also read about other more complicated feeding formulas but thought that I probably wouldn't stick to such a stringent schedule and opted for the Tomato food plan.

I mulched about 4" deep around the base of the plant and waited through the winter.

Spring came and when I looked at the plant my heart sank. It appeared that my legacy was continuing. The stems were all brown, brittle and generally dead-looking. Should I give up hope now? This plant is a 'schedule 3' pruner which means it needs to pruned to about 18"-24" in the Spring. I wasn't sure if it was worth it but I cut it back to 24", pulled back the mulch and sprinkled a handful of bone meal around the base and replaced the mulch. Now here it is April and much to my amazement there is new growth from the base. I'm trying to temper my hopes, because, again, I have been here before. But it sure lightened my heart when I saw that new growth.

They say that it is supposed to produce more and more flowers each year so I have visions of many more flowers than last year. There I go again getting my hopes up. Maybe this year will finally be the year that a Clematis, under my care, will make it. You see, I am tragically optimistic. But it just has to be this year.

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