Seeds to plant now

Poppy seeds ready to plant in November

You can provide cold stratification for seeds of annual flowers by putting them in the freezer or the refrigerator but I prefer to plant them Thanksgiving week so Mother Nature does the work for me.

This is the time to plant Poppy seeds, Larkspur, wildflowers, swamp milkweed and many others. They seem to thrive with cold, moist, freeze and thaw stratification.

The photo is our bag of the poppy seeds we collected and cleaned. This afternoon we are going to fill that gallon bag with soil-less potting soil that has been mixed with additional peat moss.

Then, we are going to disturb the ground in various places on our 2 acres, sprinkle the mix on the disturbed soil and pat it down to discourage birds and squirrels. The peat, perlite and pressing the seeds in seems to really help reduce the eating.

For more see http://www.hamiltonnativeoutpost.com/stratification.html

Many many perennial seeds need cold stratification to germinate their thick, hard seedcoat.
Check out this site for more tips - http://www.alchemy-works.com/fall_planting.html

For specific seeds, Tom Clothier has the best site I've ever found - click over to http://tomclothier.hort.net/page02.html

Here are a few links that discuss what to plant now.

http://www.thymewilltell.com/seed.html

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/txgard/msg040926197636.html

http://www.wildones.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/004cGerminationInstructionsFinalRevision.pdf

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/starting-wildflower-seeds

http://www.backyardgardener.com/tm.html

And, for all plants, methods, theories and support for winter sown seeds here is the Mother Load of information, community and encouragement http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/Seed_Lists.html

Let me know what you winter sow. I'll start my milk carton sowing after Thanksgiving.

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