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Does Anyone Do Seed Starting With Winter Sowing?

 
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I just bought a small piece of land in NW Alabama. I used the wintersown.org process for years for my ornamentals, but has anyone used this method for perennials or food forest type plants?
 
pollinator
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Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada -- Zone 5a
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I have also wintersowed for a number of year, but mostly for flowers. I do find it works beautifully for perennials in general, but this year I did only a small amount of wintersowing and mostly annuals. Two years now I've done the seeds from a package of "Butterfly Blend", and it has worked really well. When big enough to handle, I transplant them spaced out to my butterfly bed. I also did some Bee's Friend this year and it worked out really well.

Sorry I can't speak to more food forest type plants being wintersowed, but it's an excellent idea and I'm going to give it a try this coming winter.
 
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Location: Central Kansas
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I've sown coriander (cilantro) seed in fall after hearing that my friend's mother's backyard was absolutely chock full of gorgeous volunteer cilantro from dropped seed in fall. It worked wonderfully, and I no longer have to worry about them bolting before I have harvested my fill of leaves. Instead of planting in containers, I just direct-seeded.

I'm considering experimenting with tomatoes, since I consistently get volunteer tomatoes from dropped fruit. Those seeds definitely overwintered. How many seeds survived out of those that dropped is another matter.
 
gardener
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Location: WV
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Not on purpose. I had my best potato harvest ever from some volunteer potatoes that were left behind. Thinking about purposely leaving some in the ground this year.  I've also had the mystery tomatoes popping up too.
 
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Location: Zone 9a, foothills California, 2500 ft elevation
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Planted fava (broad) beans in latter part of September, as we love eating them. The plants became big and beautiful before frost and were green all winter in our mild climate. They started flowering in March but didn't get any pods until May. Also planted some in the spring and they came up and podded out at about the same time... Will plant again in the fall but in a more out-of-the-way place rather than in beds I want to use for other veggies.
 
pollinator
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Location: Kachemak Bay, Alaska (usda zone 6, ahs heat zone 1, lat 59 N, coastal, koppen Dfc)
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We always spread mustard and kale seeds around once they ripen in the fall and always have hundreds of plants coming up everywhere in the spring and early summer.  Mustard should work for you too...  We also plant some potato tubers quite deep at harvest time and even this year after a cold winter they have come back.
 
gardener
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Location: Cincinnati, Ohio,Price Hill 45205
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I've not quite done this,  but I expect to in the future.
I use sub irrigated planters extensively.
This year I started potatoes in  5 gallon sub irrigated planters with 5 gallon bucket cloches on top.
As the potatoes grow,  Ive added rabbit bedding and poop.
The cloches are now full and the lids off.
I've not harvested yet,  but if they turn out OK,  I will probably try this overwinter.

My barrel sized sub irrigated planters have hosted volunteer greens cilantro and tomatoes.
I think tenting them with white trash bags will be similar to winter sowing.

Since my planters have been around for years they tend to have their own seed bank.
I will probably sow seeds very thickly to suppress "weeds" and hope for the best.


 
pollinator
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Location: Missoula, MT
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In Alabama you may not have enough chill hours to effectively cold stratify things outdoors, but that will vary from one species to another.

Here in Montana, there's a chance the winter can get too cold (-30F and below some years), so I do moist cold stratification in the fridge over the winter and germinate a fair number of fruit tree seeds and move them out into the greenhouse starting in like february through the rest of the spring. Works good with apples, pears, plums, elaeagnus spp., black walnuts, thuja spp, osage orange, aronia,

Apricots I mulch under the tree after the fruit drops and then dig them up the next spring.
 
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