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Vera_eastern_wa

Vera_eastern_wa's Garden 2009 garden

Garden Type: Backyard | Sun: Full Sun | Soil: Combination I'm Organic!

Mostly all seedlings this year were started via the winter sow method. This year will make it my 6th season of using this method and it has been quite rewarding! As far as I am concerned this method of starting seeds is the best way to get a huge assortment of seedlings started every year in a very efficient manner!! I started back in the winter of 2003-2004 and did mostly perennial ornamental garden plants, herbs and annuals for most of the years since and didn’t start trying vegetables with this method until the 2006 season.
As far as vegetables are concerned, peppers (and now Okra) will always be ones I faithfully start indoors every year, but all other vegetables and greens are winter-sown and a few are direct sown (radish and sometimes peas). Cool season vegetables and greens get started as early as February and transplanted into the garden as soon as the soil can be worked properly; usually around mid to late March here in my zone 5b-6a garden.
I decided to start the following indoors this year as well:
Yvonne’s Salvia, South African Foxglove, Coleus, Dahlia ‘Early Bird’ and Dahlia ’Bishop’s Grandchildren’. To avoid confusion, ’Bishop’s Grandchildren’ were seed saved from ’Bishop’s Children’ and I received them in trade from the gardener who harvested those seed.

If you are hearing about this method for the first time you might want to see the Winter Sow Forum on Gardenweb.com for specific FAQ and join in to meet a great bunch of gardeners!!

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/wtrsow/

I also like to winter-over a few peppers (Capsicum sp.). They are perennial shrubs and most winter well indoors. So far I have (2) three year old ‘Golden Habanero’ and (1) two year old ‘Bolivian Rainbow’. I will only winter-over the unique and certain species like Habanero that are slow growers in the beginning and do not produce good the first year in our short northern seasons. Stuff like Jalapeno, Anaheim and Thai Hot are very easy to start and produce well; Thai Hot is a very ornamental dwarf plant that will produce 2 if not 3 rounds of 100 or so 1/2" to 1" peppers per harvest well into mid October! These are a few I don’t find necessary to bring in. This year I will probably be adding a few ‘Black Pearl’ to the collection of peppers to be wintered over.

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Rosalia, Wa

United States United States 6a

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