Winter Seed Sowing - The Finalists

I've been immersing myself in YouTube videos and Reddit threads about winter sowing, and I think I've made my mind up which seeds I'll try for the first year.  

I have leftover Whorled Milkweed, which didn't fare so well last year when started in the house. I'd really like to get this established in the meadow area.

Teasel, which I discovered can be invasive so I didn't even crack that seed envelope.  If I only sow a few, grow them in pots, and cut back the seed heads before they naturally distribute, I may be safe.  They are a nice structural plant.   

Annual asters (Sea Star mix) are apparently good candidates for winter sowing, and I have about half of a package left from last year.  

I have a package and a half of Rococo blend pansies and I'm trying to decide if I want to winter sow them in containers or sprinkle them around the cottage gardens and between beds in the hillside garden.  These are seeds I purchased in 2023 and started indoors, then transplanted out in containers.  They were spectacular, and when autumn rolled around I'd neglected to empty a small pot of them.  To my utter shock, they came back the next year in that pot and thrived. They reappeared last year, as well.  We'll see if the seeds are still viable.

I'm going to try winter sowing some cool weather greens, too.  I have cabbage, kale, and spinach that I'll attempt to coax to life.  I sowed cabbage seeds last year directly in one of the shadier raised beds and they were not much more than an inch tall by the end of the season.  I sowed spinach directly in a bed twice and both times it failed to even germinate. I think our springs are getting too warm too quickly, and it's affecting these crops.  Hopefully this will give them an edge and get them started in optimal conditions.

All of these seed packets were purchased for previous years, so I'm not 100% confident they'll even germinate, but you never know.  I grew Roma tomatoes from the same seed packet for four years previously, so it's worth a try.  Next step: deciding on the actual containers.  

Addendum - after I hit publish I realized I have other seed packets already in the fridge to keep them cool!  Great Burnet, Verbena bonariensis, Valerian, and side oats; the latter two I also sowed directly in the meadow back in late November.  I have a number of seeds I collected from the gardens, too.  Clematis, Vervain, Ragged Robin, Poppy, Mallow, and Penstemon.  Looks like I'm going to need more containers than I had bargained for!

The more things change

 Talk about what's old being new again...I was going through some of my winter posts from years gone by, and noted how similar the December 2022 post regarding a rain storm was to a storm we just experienced this week.  Thankfully the 2025 warm up with rain and wind wasn't as destructive, but it sure did eat up all of our Christmas snow.  The fog created by the warm air made for some moody photos, too.

 I love how the pre vs post sunrise light changes in photos; the blue tinted snaps were taken about an hour before the more sepia hued ones. 

In the end, the warm air and heavy rain melted most of the snow and temperatures then dove into the lower 20sF, so everything froze solid.  The winter that we experienced Winter Storm Elliot ended up being extremely snowy after that storm, so maybe we'll return to a winter wonderland before it's over with.  I mean, it's only the first day of winter, so who knows what's in store? 

garden ruminations and the fix

 

As I sit here on a snowy December day, my thoughts turn to vegetable growing.  I fully admit that I start with a bang during spring months that are so filled with promise.  Like an echo, that initial push of excitement fades into the distance as the reality of growing conditions, my own mistakes, and unpreventable climate or weather related mishaps begin rearing their ugly heads.  The hot summer months are when I begin to look around and adopt a defeatist attitude about my gardens.  This isn't a healthy pattern, so I need to fix it.

I've been looking at my simple garden layout and thinking about what has worked well in which beds, what has failed miserably, and figuring out the why of it all.  

 I developed this layout initially to keep track of my perennial stock; to determine which plants I had in which beds.  As I moved the perennials out, I thought this chart would help me determine simple crop rotation for vegetables.  That didn't work because I tend to use any open spot as a perennial holding area for new plants, plants I've started from seed, or plants that need a specific growing condition that I haven't prepared yet, thus throwing my rotation plans into chaos. So what other uses might this chart have?  How about light, and where to better plant specific vegetables according to their need for sun or shade?

This chart is situated as though I'm standing at the bottom of the hill, in the entrance.  The top is fairly west, the left is fairly south, the bottom fairly east, and the right fairly north.  It's not exact, but it's also not evenly split.  The left side of the garden is shaded by the large trees of the forest garden from around noontime to three or four o'clock, then it's hit with full sun for a few hours until sundown.  The right side of the garden gets pretty much full sun all day.  Using this information, I can determine which vegetables will do better in which beds.  Well, you would think, anyway.  Last year I tried growing lettuce in the old tub at the very bottom left, and it was a massive failure.  Likewise, radish and cabbage in the far upper left did almost nothing.  I'm not sure if it was light conditions or if the soil was missing something, but I may revamp those beds altogether and try again.  

Since adding the hay ring in the center, I've been frustrated by the way one side of whatever I've planted at the base of the ring - peas, cucumbers, or pumpkins - grows better than the other.  I've been thinking of adding more trellises in the hillside garden for vining vegetables, and thought...gee, do the trellises need to be a certain position for optimal output?  Well, duh, young Skywalker, they sure do.  The hay ring is positioned east to west; that is, walking through the open center you are moving east to west, with plants on the north and south sides. In this situation, one side gets more sun and grows faster and better than the other.  Trellises should be positioned north to south, so they get the full benefit of light on both sides as the sun traverses the sky.  I'd like to add vertical trellises (and possibly arched) for cucumbers, peas, and possibly some smaller squash varieties.  My beds are all lined so that if I start in one row and bend a trellis up to the next row for arched, they should work great, with the open center running north to south and veg planted on the east and west sides.  If I go with just a vertical wall type trellis the length of the beds, I already know that works because I've done that in the past with a small piece of hog panel.  

My next thought is that if add trellises, I need to know which beds will best lend themselves to the potential shading of afternoon sun from the vining plants.  A quick check on "what vegetables benefit from afternoon shade" led me down a rabbit hole of confusing information.  The internet.  At once the most and least helpful informational tool.  So what do I know to be true?  I know cool season crops need sun but don't thrive in heat, and many can be coaxed through the summer by providing some cooling shade.   

Armed with this information, I'm now going back to my trusty seed box to take stock of what seeds I have on hand, which ones need to be scrapped due to age, which can be started inside, which can be direct sown, and what plants I'm better off letting the garden center start for me.

 Who says gardening in northern climes stops when the beds are buried under snow?

 

Good gravy, it's winter!

 And just like that, everything was covered in snow.

 

It's funny that most people I talk to are astounded by how "soon" winter arrived.  It's December in New England - we're lucky we didn't have a white Thanksgiving!  

So my to-do list isn't quite ta-done.  I didn't get any more fence posts in, I didn't get any fencing up, I didn't get more brush cut in the forest garden area, or cut the sumac whips behind the bitch barn (my alternative to a she shed).  I guess all of these shift over to the spring to-do list, once the snow is gone.  So much to get done next year, what with the alpine garden, maintenance in the hillside garden, and the continuing formation of the forest garden.  I really need to set my expectations to a level more acceptable to a mature woman's abilities.  That's a nice way of saying I'm old and broken, and can't bull like I used to.

In the house I've started some more lettuce, another tomato, and another pepper.  Hopefully the aphid invasion was stemmed in time.  I ended up tossing some old friends on the compost heap, figuring they may have been the culprits that brought aphids in the house.  Goodbye to my four year old celery plant, my five year old parsley, and a few annual flowers I've overwintered.  I always feel like I'm abandoning a pet when I purposely cull plants.  The guilt can be overwhelming, which is half the reason I overwinter things I shouldn't.  

This winter, I'm going to try winter sowing in plastic jugs, and I'm excited to see how it pans out.  Last winter, I stratified seeds in the fridge and then grew them under the grow lights.  I really didn't have the best success; the fame flowers died before I could get them planted out, the five poppy mallows that survived are planted in a holding bed and I'm not sure they'll make it, the whorled milkweed that germinated died soon after planting out, and the gaura never did much.  The coneflowers did really well, but the ones I planted out into the meadow area struggled, and I'm not even sure if they made it.  The leftovers that I planted into the cement bed in the hillside garden thrived despite the lack of water, so hopefully I'll be able to transplant those out next summer.  

I'm thinking this year I can concentrate on annual flower and vegetable seed starting in the house.  I need to curb my enthusiasm so I don't overplant and wind up with no room to spread out under the lights once I begin to pot on when the seedlings get too big for their containers.

Looking ahead to my outdoor gardening new year, I hope to get the back yard finally fenced in.  Once that's complete, I can start laying out the garden beds and pathways.  I've been researching paths, because I don't want to make the same mistake I did with the gravel paths that were eaten by grass within one season.  My biggest mistake may have been the landscape fabric barrier, believe it or not.   I think I'll start with mown grass paths, and go from there.  Of course, there are the prerequisite chores that need to be done first, so that I can do the fun stuff...get the alpine bed situated, because once fenced I won't be able to get the tractor in there.  Get more mulch on the bank, because once fenced, I won't be able to back my truck up to unload.  Ugh.  Who knew a simple garden would be so much work?  I did, because I never make these things simple!  But I honestly believe I thrive on this stuff.

 

 

the clock is ticking

Hurry, hurry, rush, rush.  I managed to get the meadow area finish mowed, and finally moved that pile of soil that was under the big blue tarp.  Unfortunately, my wicked awesome tractoring skillz being nonexistent at best, I shredded the tarp and only moved most of the soil.  I ended up dumping buckets full on the cottage gardens and spreading it by hand.  It should act like a mulch over winter and add some material to the bony soil that's there now.  Should.  I hope.  The rest I used to practice spreading and leveling with the bucket.  I think I did ok.

 

 

 

After much contemplation, I decided to replace the fence between Mother's yard and mine.  There was a bit of a kerfluffle earlier this year when I discovered that her cat had been using my leek planter as a toilet, and her dog would sail over the short decorative fence into my yard.  I wanted to finish the dead hedge, but I have big ideas and little ambition, so I went with a 4' snow fence.  

I may replace the gate next year with something more aesthetically pleasing, but for now it does the job.  I purchased a second roll that should extend from the back of the honeysuckle bushes all the way to my hillside garden fence.  This was so easy to install and I like it so much, I may just revamp my pallet fence idea for the hillside garden and use this stuff.  The grade stakes I used for the pallets have rotted and snapped, so the fence that stood so proud earlier this year is in total disarray.  

 

Another chore ticked off the list was cutting the brush along the paddock fence where I had pulled all the bittersweet.  

 I'm now torn between piling the manure here or hauling it to the woodland garden area.  Thankfully, the mules give me a plentiful amount, so I should be able to do both.  I'm thinking next year, this should be my squash garden area.  

Circling back to the hydroponic system I've been playing with...I've had great results.  This was the second round of mesclun mix:

Turns out it was mostly mustard greens, but still, I ate it!  I finally realized why you were supposed to pull the weaker seedling, as this was so packed, not everything was actually thriving.  I pulled a bunch of the mustard greens, planning to cut the greens and toss the plug, when I also remembered that you're supposed to trim the roots every few weeks, or you end up with this crap:

 

I eventually ended up pulling all the plugs and starting fresh with a head lettuce, a leaf lettuce, one tomato plant, and one pepper plant.

The lettuce did amazing and everything was thriving, then I noticed what looked like tiny shavings around the base of the lettuce.  Once again, I've been plagued with aphids!  I pulled everything and tossed it, then cleaned the machine, refilled it with distilled water, and will try again.  I'm really impressed with how well things grow in this system, but once they're full sized the limits of the water reservoir are definitely tested, as well as the space above.  It's also very much a learning curve compared to dirt gardening, but I'm glad I bought this, and I'm having fun despite the few issues I've encountered.  It's all about the fun, right?

Suddenly...

 Well now, that escalated quickly.

I feel like we only had a few weeks between too hot to function and why is it so cold?  One of the best things has been more consistent rainfall, though.  We haven't quite put a dent in the drought, but it's getting there.  Now the concern is the ground freezing before it can absorb this beneficial water.

I had picked all the squash and brought them inside after the second hard frost, which finally killed the actual plants.  Those were pulled up and hauled off to the compost heap.  I was shocked at how many acorn squash were still on the vine.  The other day I finally quartered and roasted one of the blue hubbard squash - the top one in this photo.  I gave the other one away because who needs that much squash, right?  

It's amazing that a squash that size, probably 15 lbs, cooks down to this:

I've given most of the acorn squash away, too.  Let's face it - the less I have to pretend to enjoy food prep and cooking, the better.  Since these did so well, I'm feeling like that's the path forward for next year; purchase small plants and be done with it.  The plants I buy tend to do better than what few I manage to start from seed.

On the chore front, I've been waylaid by weather and shortchanged daylight by the turning back of the clocks, but I have managed to get some fence posts pounded, the pasture mowed, and the wildflower meadow mostly knocked down.  Garlic is planted, so that's scratched off the list, and despite my best efforts to get everything in pots planted, I've had to bury a handful of perennials in the hillside garden beds to overwinter.

I decided to take down the section of track fence I had put up two years ago, which sounds like utter madness, but let me explain.  That section was put up with six foot posts, which are actually about five feet tall once they're pounded into the ground.  My fence is taller than the posts, so it just looked awful.  You can see in this photo how the top six inches of the fence isn't secured to anything.
 

My plan is to leave the fence posts in place and get a roll of fence that suits the height better - 48" should do the trick.  Hopefully the deer won't breach the shorter fence, as it's close to the house, but I've been finding deer poo not ten feet from my back door lately.  Clearly proximity to the house is not deterring them! Meanwhile, I've purchased 7' t-posts that should accommodate the taller fence nicely.  They were a bit harder to set, because I had to stand on the tailgate of the truck in order to effectively use the pounder.  

freshly mowed pasture

 

new section of mule track with 7' t-posts

old fence removed

  As I was working on the fencing chores, this happened.  Never a dull moment.

 

I also decided to take down the rope and post fence in the meadow area. I'm not sure if I'll put it back up next year - even though I liked it, I finally decided it didn't quite mesh with the overall feel of the area.  

I've been slowly emptying plant pots and spreading the soil in the meadow area to build it up a little, and to act like a mulch by adding a little protection over winter.  I still have some finish mowing to do, and some seed to spread.  I've bought a grass called side oats that grows in clumps, with long stems that hold oat-like seeds hanging down one side of the stem.  It's a prairie native, so I'm hoping it will fill in some of the bare spots.  I also have Valerian seed that I'll spread now, along with some of the wildflowers that I gathered seed from earlier this year.  

The polytunnel cover has been removed and put away for the winter, and the last of the tomato and pepper plants hauled off to the compost heap.   It looks so bare out there now.

The last big pre-snow chores on the list are to tackle the bittersweet and briars that have grown up outside of the mule paddock, and around the pine stumps in the pasture.

I spent nearly a day cutting and pulling bittersweet along the new fence area, and made a pretty good dent in it.  Two truckloads to the dump, and all I need to do now is get in there with the wheeled weed trimmer and knock down those briar bushes and weeds.  I'll open it up so I have another place to haul manure for the winter, and hopefully make the pasture look a little more tidy.  It's almost time to put the tractors, mowers, and trimmers away for the season, and it's been spitting snow for days now.  Time is a-wastin'!

 

The Return of the Friday Chore Day

I'm not complaining about hot, humid weather now, am I?  Glorious crisp, cool autumn weather is upon us, and I'm trying to knock out as many chores as I can before snow flies.  Thank goodness for my every other Friday off!

I haven't worked on the alpine garden because I really wanted to get the manure pile moved before winter.  You can see how much the pile had grown over the last year - in the background to the right of the barn.  That's just a fraction of it.

I picked away at the pile a few weeks ago and moved it over to where the forest garden will be.  Today I snipped some wayward saplings and then spent two and a half hours bucketing manure across the yard.  That old tractor of mine sure does a number on a body!  I feel like I've been beaten half to death, but the pile is moved.  What little I couldn't manage to scrape up I hand raked and spread it around.  It will compost nicely over the winter and add to the soil back there.  

 

The stall mats are out because the rat plague has reached a zenith of infuriating activity.  From what I understand, they are awful everywhere this year.  I don't really feed grain to the mules, so I'm not sure what they're after, but they break through every barrier I put up.  I'll be working on a solution to that - they're too smart to get trapped, but I've found a second one dead in the water bucket.  A sinister plan is hatching!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the driveway...

 Manure has been dumped, then hand raked to get the worst of the lumps out.  The tractor can't get any further up the bank than what's there now, it's steeper than it looks.  Once we have snow I'll haul my daily manure up to the wall area via my manure sled and dump it.  I still have to cut some more saplings and brush toward the end of the driveway area, but that will open up easily accessible areas to dump the manure from now until snow flies.  I still have some 50/50 mix that I'll start spreading over the manure, and next year hopefully I can add either some more of that or topsoil.  I should be able to start planting in here next summer, so long as we get a good winter to rot that manure down.  I'm excited to create this garden, especially in among the mossy rocks and tree roots.  I love the ferns that are already there, and will be adding more.

Between this project and the backyard gardens, I have enough going on to keep me busy for the next few years.  Boy, those garden centers love to see me coming!

 

The Time In Which I Enter My Puttering Phase

It's hot again, but in the next few days temperatures will plummet and we're expecting our first frost.  I've now entered my Puttering Phase.  This is when it doesn't look like like much, but I'm getting a lot done.  

I've split and transplanted all of the tall asters, planting them throughout the meadow area to promote late season color next year.  In their place I've planted Russian sage along the patio's granite face, and perennial sweet pea vine at the base of each side of the arbor.

 

I've also finally planted the Savannah Sunset Ninebark bush I purchased back in the spring.  I feel like having it on the end of the patio opposite of the Yellow Twig Dogwood balances the area.

I planted the New York Ironweed and an Alma Potschke aster near the little water feature, and gave the curly willow a drastic pruning.

The last time I pruned her, I stuck the branches in the big planter out front and managed to get a few of them to root.  I have given away those offspring, and figured I'd try it again.  

I'm really starting to see the future of the backyard space, and can see the layout a little better.  It's beginning to transform into what's been in my head and look less like random areas.  The ultimate goal is to connect each space to make it a whole, continuous garden.

I planted a bunch of allium bulbs in the cottage gardens yesterday and watered them in this morning.  I was shocked to find the deer had gone through the cottage garden and jumped the fence, then laid waste to my green bean plants in the hillside garden! 

Those plants were covered with leaves and had at least enough beans for one last meal on them.  The beans weren't the only victims - they nibbled on my Pagoda Dogwood tree, ate all the little heads of broccoli, and even sampled some of the Pale Purple and Bush's Coneflowers that I had in the cement block bed.  They've never jumped the fence before, I can't believe it.

Speaking of the hillside garden, I've managed to empty two more beds of perennials.  I don't think I'll be doing much more transplanting after this week, but hopefully it will spur me on to empty the rest so that I have more room for vegetables next year.  I want to move the Montauk Daisy out and transplant her somewhere else - that takes up an entire bed itself!  I've never had real success with this plant.  It's a late season bloomer and can be beautiful, but it really has never been happy enough to bloom profusely.  It's a great space eating plant, though, so it may go somewhere where more interest is needed.  Because it's a fall bloomer, she won't be transplanted until spring.

 The other beds have mostly iris and one lavender plant, all of which I plan to move to the alpine garden in the spring.

And as much as I curse them, I have to admit the Jerusalem Artichoke has some spectacular flowers. 

I didn't plant any of those on purpose; they hitched a ride in the roots of my daylily plants when I moved, and I'm still trying to peel them out!  The ones in the hillside garden are the result of me tossing tubers out of the cement block bed when I dig them up.   

I still have plenty of puttering to do before snow flies and the ground freezes, but for now I'll enjoy the limited daylight and relative warmth while I can.

Some late season colors from around the gardens that I'm enjoying while puttering - the cosmos have really produced despite the lack of water:

And as I finish this post the next morning, these jerks have once again breached the hillside garden walls and laid waste to everything they hadn't touched the night before.  

 So much for my brussel sprouts.  I love the wildlife, I say through gritted teeth.