Growing unknown seeds

Hi, I'm in Eastern Portugal.
Over the past year I have gathered over one hundred varieties of seed from various sources like gardens, fruit and vegetables I bought and from harvesting local wildflowers, plus all the seed packets I must have access to over one hundred different plant seeds.

However I made a mistake by not labelling and sorting everything, with most of the seeds being foraged, and me not being a great botanist, there's no way of ID'ing some of them - I don't know their requirements or when it's the right time to set everything up and how it should be done, to ensure that most seeds germinate.

I think that I should do winter sowing in jugs to make sure most of the stuff grows, my logic being that the seeds that require stratification will germinate after going through winter, and the stuff that doesn't will germinate when the temperature warms up.

Q1: Could I winter sow in plastic containers ensuring everything grows?

Q2: When should I start winter sowing?

Q3: Is there any way to get rid of pre existing seeds that come in the dirt used in the container, I don't want to have my seedings smothered by nettles and amaranth, I don't want to have to buy the dirt unless there's no other way.

Ângelo Dias wrote:
Q3: Is there any way to get rid of pre existing seeds that come in the dirt used in the container, I don't want to have my seedings smothered by nettles and amaranth, I don't want to have to buy the dirt unless there's no other way.

You can pre-germinate them before planting your desired plants. Water and sun will make most of them grow. You won't get the ones that germinate at different temperatures, but it's a decent temporary solution. Once they're growing cull them all.

If it were me (and it's not). At that point of chaos I'd probably just designate a "chaos bed" and broadcast them randomly, maybe rake the soil a bit here and there and poke some thumb deep holes to give different conditions. Then just let it run rampant and see what I got.

Dear hubby has always told me to plant seeds at a depth equal to two or three times their size and that it is better to plant seeds too shallow than too deep.

Though I prefer the paper towel method of germinating seeds.

Using seed balls might be a good option for you:

https://permies.com/t/101245/Seed-balls-seed-starting-place

https://permies.com/t/151617/Correct-seed-substrate-ratio-seed

https://permies.com/wiki/112201/pep-foraging/lbs-seed-balls-PEP-BB

I'm particularly enamored with the idea of seed balls, perhaps next year when I try a wildflower meadow I will keep that idea in mind and it seems like an activity the kids could get involved in.

I'm gonna stick to winter sowing in milk jugs, since I really want them to succeed and so far that seems like the option that will yield the most success.

Does the milk jug winter sowing method work for every plant?

Ângelo Dias wrote:
Does the milk jug winter sowing method work for every plant?

In my experience some plants only germinate under very particular circumstances. For example the only way I could get celery to grow was by sowing a whole lot of it in a wide pot and then covering it with newspaper which I had to keep moist for about two weeks. Then I had to prick out individual plants.

Probably other growers could get celery to grow in other circumstances, but I doubt that one particular method will work for "every plant"

The only way to know for sure is to try it though!