Winter Sowing

Long Islander Trudi Davidoff, like many of us on the Island, had a small house but wanted to start a lot of seeds. She came up with the idea of using recycled milk jugs and other plastic containers to make free, easy mini-greenhouses to start seeds outside.

Over time, she found that even seeds that traditionally were treated with tender loving care indoors, with heat and lights, would sprout happily in unheated containers outside, in winter. All sorts of annuals, perennial, and vegetables can be easily winter sown. One advantage of winter sowing is that the plants get full sunlight, even better than indoor grow lights.

You can start tomatoes this way. I've done this for the past three years, and the tomato plants that I started outside have been bigger, stronger, and more hardy than the indoor ones. They sprout later than the indoor ones, but they  have strong root systems and once the weather warms up and they're transplanted to the garden, they quickly catch up and surpass the indoor ones. All of my outdoor-started tomatoes have been bigger and more productive than the coddled indoor-started ones.

On the Island, which is Zone 7, most people winter sow their tomatoes outside in plastic containers at the end of February or the beginning of March. They usually sprout in late March or early April, and take off from there.

Some people cut the milk jug in half, put the soil and seeds in, and then tape the two halves back together. Poke some holes in the bottom of the jug and leave the top off for ventilation. I make a cut shaped like an upside-down U on one side of the milk jug, load the soil and seeds through it, then tape the flap closed. Label them on the side of the jug, and also on the bottom--labels on the side often fade in the sun, but labels on the bottom don't.

Put the jugs outside in a sunny place. Even if it's snowy or icy outside, they will do just fine.

You can learn more about Winter Sowing at her site: http://www.wintersown.org/