Please, do not mess with your databases til I tell ya it ok. I use them to double check and help if things don't look right in your bucket. So please don't mess with it. I'll holler when I all done with them.
Happy New Year! May everyone have a very successful seed sowing and growing year!
Tuink, take care and get well soon ~ stay positive ~ adding my prayers for a speedy recovery.
Star, I finally cleaned up all of my seed mess and realized that I didn't send you my wish list - sorry about that! I really was trying to be a good piggy! Hope I didn't make too much extra trouble for you.
Tuink, I was sure holding my breath while reading your post, praying wordlessly and then adding a big Thank You God when you said it wasn't cancer. As you said, it's still "something," but hopefully it can be fixed easily, so you can recover quickly and start planting all those seeds!
Star, OK, will send USPS. I'm sorry I forgot about how bad your UPS service can be!
Uh-oh... I just realized that I didn't send a wishlist either. Here I thought I was being a good piggy by getting my boxes mailed early.
Ella, if it's too much trouble to copy my whole list, feel free to whittle it down to #1: anything delicious. That should give you plenty to go on without a lot to write or print
I'm trying to remember, Jonna, about your vermiculite sowing process. Did you have suggestions for how early to sow different types of seeds? And, most importantly, were they placed outdoors as with the milk-jug wintersowing process? Or kept indoors under lights? Can you tell I'm getting anxious?!
Ann
This year I started winter sowing early December because I went to Spain for a month (I'm still in Spain) and I will winter sow the seeds of this piggy swap and other seeds that arrived after I left Belgium, late January. I place the containers outdoors in a weighted box and in my unheated greenhouse on the west side and my unheated greenhouse on the north side. I can easily start winter sowing early December because my zone 6 is cold enough to prevent cold germinating plants to germinate too early. In zone 7/8 you can start at the end of December. If seeds do not need a long (3 months) period, you can wintersow until February in your zone.
I also start seeds indoors. Mainly annuals that are not cold hardy. I never use grow lights. Slow growing ones I sow indoors early January (not possible for me this year), but usually I start sowing indoors in March or April.
Here is the article I wrote about sowing in vermiculite. http://seedsite.eu/zaaiinstructies.htm
If you have further questions, don't hestitate to ask me.
Chelle, tell me about your seed portfolio. I'm interested in a method to organize these seeds and their needs. What do you do? I'd love to hear from any of you on how to store, plan and streamline the process. I really REALLY need to organize my sprouting hobby!
While we're chatting about wintersowing... how much light is necessary? My back patio is on the north face, but the building projects out on both sides of it, so it gets little to no direct sunlight... Do you guys think I'd do OK to start wintersow containers there and then move them to a sunnier spot when they sprout?
Jill, I use a photo album as my seed book. The pockets are the right size for one store-bought seed pack or a couple of trade bags, and I alphabetize so that I don't have to go searching to find something. My biggest problem is bulky seeds - my corn, peas, beans, etc. are too big to fit nicely, so they still get thrown into a drawer (my previous organizational system ). It also seemed pretty efficient, because I keep getting photo albums as gifts but never print pictures to fill them.
A lot of my winter sowed containers are on the north side. It's even not necessary to move them to a sunnier place after sprouting, unless they really really need a lot of sun. You can leave them in the shade, until you transplant them. If seeds germinate in shade, it won't harm them to stay in shade for a few weeks.
Exciting stuff! Thank you for your helpful reply, Jonna. I'm starting to worry that we aren't going to have enough winter here for wintersowing to work this year! I think I will do partly milk and soda jugs with seed starting mix...and partly vermiculite in closed containers by your method. Now if I can just improve my organization and record keeping...
I don't know how many of you have a Michael's (craft/art supply store) near you. I was at mine today to replenish my supply of little 2"x3.75" ziplocs. They are on sale through Saturday...50% off all jewelry supplies, which is where they are located. I paid $1.74+tax per box of 175 bags. I got the only 2 boxes they had left. They have a 40% off coupon online every week, which is what I'm used to paying...$3.49 less 40%=$2.09 for 175 bags. I haven't paid attention to the conversations about the price at Walmart and other places...so not sure how this compares.
These little bags at Michael's come in a little dispenser like sandwich bags come in. Don't know if that's a plus to you, but I love not having little bags slipping and sliding all over my work surface. They pop out one at a time. Enough plugging Michael's products!
Ella's Garden isn't just about gardening. We're a diverse community of individuals, coming together to enrich the personal, business, hobbies, lifestyles, and horizons of all community members. You'll find forums for shopping & selling too!
Hope I didn't make too much extra trouble for you. 
