A Guide to Winter Seed Sowing for Gardeners
If you have spent any time as a gardener, you know that the winter months can seem quite long without being able to get your hands in the dirt to plant something. If you live in the North especially, January through March or April can seem particularly long and cold without the garden. That’s where winter seed sowing comes in. It gives you something to do in the dreary winter months with your seeds and some soil.
Why wait until spring when you can start your gardening season now?
Winter seed sowing is a fun and easy way to start seeds outside in the winter. I think it is a brilliant way for us gardeners in most any climate to get a jump start to our gardening season. We can get our hands in the dirt earlier than regular seed sowing that we do indoors. I also think that it actually is much easier in many ways.
Most winter seed sowing needs to take place in January through March. Usually that is a time when most gardeners can only spend time indoors dreaming of getting out their seeds. February is the coldest month in many places and that is when it is best to start.
Two years ago I dove into winter seed sowing and learned a lot. I will share what I found to be the best supplies. And of course give you the information needed to make it your most successful seed starting yet. This is my third year winter seed sowing and I don’t see myself not starting seeds like this any time soon.
What is Winter Seed Sowing?
Winter seed sowing is when you sow seeds outside in a container, such as a plastic milk jug. The seeds will stay outside in the mini greenhouse of a milk jug and start sprouting when the weather is at just the right temperature for each type of seed. The milk jug protects the seeds and seedlings from harsh weather incase it snows or becomes cold again after they have sprouted.
Unlike traditional seed starting, you do not need to have seed trays, lights, grow mats, or a place to keep your seeds indoors. And the best part is you don’t have to harden off your seedlings like you would if you had started them indoors. Can I get an amen?
I still start a lot of seeds indoors, but winter seed sowing helps me start even more plants. I enjoy starting my own seeds for many reasons, but saving money and being able to have a bigger variety of plants than if I purchased at my local nursery. Jump over here for more information about starting seeds indoors and outside.
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Benefits of Winter Seed Sowing
1. Gives You More Space: Most of us don’t have as much indoor space for starting seeds as we do outside. Winter seed sowing allows you to use your outdoor space for starting more seeds.
2. Frugal Way to Start Seeds: Winter seed sowing is much more cost effective than having to buy grow lights, mats, shelving, and all the trays needed to start seeds indoors.
3. Natural Cold Treatment: In order to germinate or flower successfully, many seeds need cold stratification. It is a period of time where they need to be kept refrigerated or frozen when starting seeds indoors. With winter seed sowing, that is taken care of by leaving your seeds out in the winter in the milk jugs.
4. Great Way to Recycle: I also love that I get to use up so many of the plastic containers that come into our house. We buy our milk in plastic jugs for the most part and a lot of other produce can also come in plastic. While I do not like this fact, I do like that I can use these containers for winter seed sowing and not waste them completely.
5. Stronger Plants: A lot of times my winter seed sown plants are stronger. None of them become leggy or covered in mold or gnats like can sometimes happen if grown inside. They also don’t tend to go through the transplant shock either.
6. No Hardening Off: I love that it is so hands off once you get your seeds into the milk jugs. With my indoor seedlings there is a lot of work after planting the seeds. The hardening off of the young plants when starting seeds indoors is a part you will not miss with winter seed sowing.
What Do You Need to Get Started?
It really is a simple list of items needed to get started. One great part is that it uses up items headed for the recycle bin at home. I tried every type of container we had around the first year. I now know which ones work best and why some of them didn’t work as well.
- Plastic containers to hold the soil
- Soil – seed starting mix is best
- Seeds
- Scissors or utility knife and maybe a drill
- Duct tape
- Sharpie
Step By Step Instructions
Prepare the Milk Jugs
First get your plastic milk jugs rinsed out. You will not need to keep that caps.
Next, use the drill or utility knife to cut holes in the bottom of the jug. I usually make 5-6 holes in the bottom.
Then you will use the utility knife or scissors to cut the top almost all the way off. You don’t want to cut the whole top off. Leave a hinge by the handle. You will want the cut to be a little over half way up from the bottom so you will have enough room to put in the soil.
Once the bottom holes and the main horizontal cut is made on the jug, you are ready to continue. I usually do this step for however many jugs I have and then move on.
Fill the Jugs
The next step is to get your seed starting soil into the jug. I like to moisten the soil before it goes into the jug. So I remove a bunch of the soil from the bag into a container to mix with water. It should be just moist and not dripping wet.
I have used many types of soil to start my winter seed sowing jugs and I used to think that it didn’t matter what type of soil was used. But after having quite varied success with nothing different than the soil, I changed my mind.
I found that the best soil seed starter to use is the same as I would use in my indoor seed sowing. It is not potting soil but a seed starter mix. It is much more fine than potting mix and allows the seeds to come up without interference. Last year I had a few bags of potting soil leftover from the previous year. I used those as I didn’t need them anywhere in the garden. It was a mistake as I had a much harder time getting my seeds to germinate.
This year I am going to mostly use an organic seed starter mix, but also experiment with two other ways. I was at the local nursery and bought a container of coconut coir blocks. I have not used them before, but was intrigued with how they were so compact and would expand with water added. So I will be using that in some of my indoor and winter seed sowing to see how it compares.
The other experiment I am doing is that I am going to use regular seed starting mix but before it put it in the milk jug, I plan to put a layer of rabbit poo pellets on the bottom. You can read more about how great rabbit poo is for gardening here. I have used it in my garden for the last three years, but have not used it in my seed starting jugs. I learned from another rabbit owner how she uses the pellets when potting up her plant starts when starting indoors and the major growth difference she sees. So I thought it would be worth it to see if there is a benefit in the winter seed sowing jugs too. I bet there will be.
How Many Seeds In Each Jug
I tend to break the rules here, if there are any. The first year I took seeds and sprinkled liberally. Especially with the small lettuce seeds. I had SO MUCH lettuce coming up in each container that I had to transplant it sooner than I wanted.
With the small seeds, I still plant too many because I do take a bunch in my hand and scatter them around the top.
I am a little better with the bigger seeds and stick to the rules a bit more, which helps with the outcome. See below for quick guide.
Small Seeds – 12-16 should be more than enough or you can scatter across the top like me
Larger Seeds – I usually plant 4-6 seeds, five uses the middle of the jug space well
Now Seal Up the Jug and Label
After the seeds are tucked into the soil, you might need to mist the soil a bit if you didn’t dampen in enough before planting. Otherwise you are good to seal up the jug with some duct tape.
If you have it, use the stronger, thicker duct tape.
Make sure you get a permanent, waterproof pen to mark the milk jugs for type of plant. Sometimes the marker stays perfect for me and a few times I have had it come off. I have a few tips to help with that.
I will use a plant marker and write the seed name and then stick it inside the milk jug in the dirt. If the outside name runs off, at least I will know what the plant is when I open up the jug.
You can try writing on the duct tape. Sometimes it stays better.
Or another great idea I have seen is not labeling, but numbering the jugs and putting them outside in order. Then using a paper list of what each numbered jug has planted in it. Your paper list stays nice and dry inside and hopefully your jugs stay lined up outside.
Now to Place the Jugs
When winter seed sowing, you want your jugs to get exposed to the elements of snow and rain. Therefore, you do not want to put the jugs under a cover.
I like to check on them often so I keep them close to the house. We have a deck that gets good sun and is open to the weather so I keep the jugs there.
Caring for The Winter Seed Sowing Jugs
If you put your jugs outside in January or February (most likely your coldest months), your winter seed sowing jugs should see some nice freezing weather and hopefully some snow.
The nice part about this type of seed starting is that you don’t have to do too much to care for them. But there are a few times to watch out and pay attention.
Once your seeds have germinated and you see green, you will want to make sure you pay attention to extreme temperatures either hot or cold.
If the weather has been warming up and you have small seedlings, but you are now expecting a real cold snap, you can cover up the jugs for a bit of extra protection. I’ve used burlap bags, tarps, and old blankets. You do not want to move the jugs indoors.
On the opposite end, if your weather is warming up nicely and the sun is shining, your plant starts can get pretty warm in their little green houses. In this case, you will want to remove the duct tape and open up the tops. I usually do this in the day and close again in the evenings. Just keep an eye on it. It will really depend on how much sun they are getting.
After you open up the tops of your jugs, you will need to be more careful to monitor if they are getting dried out or have enough moisture inside the jugs. Sometimes you will need to water them. Usually they get enough moisture from the hole on top.
Are there any Cons to Winter Seed Sowing?
I would not say that I have come across any cons with winter seed sowing when comparing it to starting seeds indoors.
As you can see in my pictures I had to fill the jugs inside and it was a bit messy. I have been able to fill jugs outside on my deck before, but it can be a pretty chilly job. Having a greenhouse would be amazing, but it isn’t something that needs to hold you back. Cleaning up a little mess is nothing compared to the time this method saves you.
Some people might say a con is that there are some types of plants are not fit to winter seed sowing due to time. I cannot start certain herbs, tomatoes, or peppers due to my growing season length. Depending on your growing area and days in your growing season, you might be able too. This is a fairly cheap and easy method to be able to experiment.
Containers that Did Not Work as Well
The first year that I tried winter seed sowing, I was a part of three or four seed swaps. I had so many seeds that year that I wanted to try. So I used over a hundred containers for winter seed sowing. I got to know what worked and what didn’t work so well.
In the picture below you will see many different types of plastic containers I used that were not milk jugs. We had a lot of take-out containers that year thanks to all local restaurants being only open for take-out. I also tried all types of plastic containers that fruits and vegetables come in.
What I found is that the milk jugs are the best.
Then any type of other container that is as tall as a milk jug such as juice or clear soda containers.
The next best type of containers were the solid containers without holes in the sides or bottoms. Initially I thought the holes would be a good thing. Since you are supposed to put holes in the bottoms of the milk jugs and take off the cap for the hole on top to be open.
But what I found is those grape and orange containers had too many holes. The dirt dried out way too quick on those. In contrast, the take-out containers or the clear cookie/bakery containers worked really well once I poked holes in the bottom and also a few on top. They held in the moisture well. They weren’t as tall as needed, but they did work ok.
You can even see in the picture below that the containers that have the moisture inside the lids are the ones that worked well overall and the ones that looked more dried up, well, were too dry for the most part. Even when I added a lot of waterings, they were not the best and I avoid them now.
Keep Trying and Experimenting
Some say that winter seed sowing started as just a way to start hardy perennials. Someone along the way had to decide to try other types of seeds. And they found that they work.
Many have said that peppers and tomatoes cannot be done in winter seed sowing jugs. I cannot winter seed sow those in my area. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen in warmer growing climates, as others have found.
I first read that I shouldn’t try cucumbers, zucchini, or summer squash. But I have had wonderful success with these. They have been a better predictor of when it is time to germinate, grow, and planted outdoors than the regular last frost date in my area the last few years.
I hope you try winter seed sowing in milk jugs this year and love this seed starting method as much as I do. Comment below if you already do.
Other Gardening Posts to Read
How to Plan for An Homestead Orchard
How to Save Seeds from Your Garden
Saving Annual Flower Seeds – Which Types are Best
Seed Starting Guide for Beginners
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Love the jug idea!
Thanks! It’s easy!