Stratification: Not my idea of a good time... unlesssss....

Maybe a more natural approach to it would be planting in Autumn? My attention span and life combine with the typical refrigerator/ freezer stratification process to typically result in science experiments lost in the black hole of the freezer &/or fridge. So, I MUCH prefer to plant those seeds that need it, in Autumn. And, here in the northern hemisphere, that is coming up pretty fast.

In fact, I'm finding myself doing more of my planting - particularly of perennials - in September and October, along with my bare root pants/ trees, rather than in spring, when I mostly plant my annuals, like tomatoes. But... I've even been thinking about those. Last year, I had volunteer spaghetti squash, and this year, volunteer grape tomatoes. Both in places I've never intentionally planted anything, so it's got me wondering...

If I toss the seeds in a favorable area, in Autumn, the seeds will pick their own perfect time to germinate, then I don't have to fuss with them, in the spring, doting on them and pampering them, worrying if they're getting too leggy, or if I missed my planting widow, altogether, or if I'll end up killing them as I move them in and out of the house, to harden them off. And then, there's all the springtime work it could save me, during a time when my goats are kidding, and my chicken & duck hens are brooding... and I'm dealing with goats having Spring fever, wanting anything that is on the other side of their paddock fences...

Does anyone else do this, or have you thought about it? If you do it, how well does it serve you? Is there any reason (other than critters possibly running off with the seeds) why this is not a good idea?

I think you will lose a lot more if you're leaving it up to nature. But it's also a selection process to get back to varieties of plants/trees that can handle that sort of ancient treatment. I  do similar if i have enough seeds but if it's something special somebody gave me a tiny bit of i do moddycoddle it.
It never happened to me tomatos just sprouted except in the compost bin. But now i've got a tiny yellow variety that is said to do just that, a socalled rewildable. Hopefully during my lifetime i'll manage to find a few of those that find their niche, like a shadier place or with a bit more nitrogen in the soil. Maybe i could go out and cross them.
It's the same for my parsnips, i seeded deliberately those of a grex (multi variety population) that went out of their way and sprouted in a grass patch and flourished without much help. Rains are coming finally, so i spread them out on a plot that i'd like to grow a bunch of covercrops on.
With peach trees i had a place in the shadow of oak trees where i seeded them in winter and they grew without watering before transplanting them next autumn, but the rats discovered it and ate most of them. So when i had a bumpercrop of peaches i just tossed them around all over the place, but none popped so far, but sometimes that takes years and maybe they 'knew' it was going to be a very hot and dry year.
Ideally i'd end up with a lazy garden i could share seeds with others so they can grow some of their own food in a similar fashion instead of buying everything.

Autumn planting is so much more sensible for the awkward ones. I keep meaning to do the fridge thing properly and it never happens, seeds just sit there until I forget about them. At least buried outside they get on with it.

Sowing in autumn is generally the way that nature does it. I must admit I'm hesitant to do it just because I think I would lose too many seeds, but as Hugo points out that is the way to get plants that are better at doing this. Maybe something to experiment with....

If I have a lot of seeds, that's what I do. But if I bought one packet of Lithuanian Seaberry or five seeds from that really good apple, I'll stratify in the fridge. We have two fridges around the kitchen, so I just claimed one of the crisper drawers for that purpose where we also keep yeast and various microbial cultures. I don't really baby the plants after stratifying. Once they're sprouting, I'll move them to a nursery bed with light soil, see what wants to come up over the summer and then in the fall (if all goes well) move that to a permanent location for it to really put down roots.

Before we moved to town I saved up a lot of seeds ..persimmon, muscadine, passion flower and a lot of miscelanious wildflowers.
In october I sowed about half of them at our old 5 acres in and around the terraces and sowed the rest here along the edge of the woods.
As far as I can see nothing survived (it's been ten years).
It could be the seeds were disbusrsed by critters and are happily growing in the neighborhood but not here on this acre.

I didn't make seedballs...most were still a little pulpy...the persimmons from those we had eaten and the seedy pulp from making muscadine juice.. nothing had been heated...whole squished p.flower fruits.

Since then I've had excellent luck stratifying persimmon seeds in pots outdoors over the winter and then planting out....same with passion flower,

I love the idea and agree that it depends on how much seed you have to test....mine was probably a gallon here and a gallon in the old garden.

Maybe we can go to our old place over the winter and see what has survived there since we have not been there in 10 years.

edit to add....I have done stratification in the refrigerator door....pretty easy and it does work except I tend to let the sprouts get too big and then they are difficult to pot up or plant in the ground.   Seems like they sprout way too early whereas the ones outside in pots show up right on time in the spring .

One method we have used in the past is to put the seeds in a jar with sandpaper and the shake the jar.  This seemed to work well for the seeds.

I think winter sowing is mostly the same as this.
Winter sowing uses translucent containers, but I believe the real benefit to that isn't tempature control, it's critter protection.

The Edible Acres nursery mostly stratify their seeds out doors in plastic containers filled with compost or sawdust.
There is some tempature buffering but not actual control
The sprouted seeds are raised in mesh bottomed air pruning beds.
The beds are covered with a hardware cloth enclosure.
These measures reduce or eliminate predation.

This fall I want to emulate Sean(of Edible Acres), but of course I am trying to skip a step, and stratify directly in a air pruning containers.
I will probably have more mortality, but every step I eliminate helps my wandering focus get things done.
I plan on adding winter sown annuals to the containers, nothing fancy, just handfuls of beans or squeezing rotting tomatoes out over the soil.
Any annuals that come up  will remind me to water the containers even if the tree seeds haven't emerged yet.

Wow! Thank you all for sharing your thoughts & experiences! One of the things I'm looking at, is I also have a lot of seeds that are several years old - because I keep missing the planting window! So, another choice I'm left with is, let them lose all viability, or get them out there, while the combination of my current thought flow, my physical ability & the weather is conducive to getting it done, and risk losing them to critters. Spring is more difficult, because our spring rains are long, intense, and cause me so much pain, I just don't have the spoons to get the planting done. Our Autumn is more reliable temperatures, with enough rain to keep things from dying out, but not so heavy & violent as in spring, so I'm more able to get out there.  And at least if I get them out there, they stand a chance. Last year, I went for a short walk in the Autumn, and just wandered around, tossing mixed wildflower seeds, randomly. This spring and summer, I had loads of flowers I hadn't seen on our land before. I harvested some of those I recognized, for herbal preparations, and the goats thoroughly enjoyed munching on many of them - I just hope there are some seeds left from them to recreate themselves, next year.

Y'all have helped me decide - there are some seeds I'll go ahead and scatter randomly, again, and others I'll make an effort to protect - like the St John's wort, and those black peach seeds (I received them from May, and I think she said they originated from you, Judith!) that are sprouting in my fridge. I think it's time to go through my seed, and see which ones are simply down to - now or never, and start with those. Thank you!!

Oh! And, I'm pretty sure I know how the tomatoes found their way to where they grew, this year - um. I feed my omnivore dogs raw food - and share my garden harvests with them, so... they may have ehhh "planted" them, lol. Because of where they were (in the area where the little dogs go potty), we didn't eat those, but I did give them to the pups. The squash... I had a squash that had gotten lost in the kitchen and by the time it was discovered, it was beyond being fit for human consumption, and I threw it off the deck, as far away as I could, figuring the wildlife would still be able to enjoy it.