Cheapest Way To Start Seeds | Winter Sowing Supplies Needed || Budget Gardening

This video explains all the things that you should gather before you can learn how to winter sow. Wintersowing is a way to plants seeds and grow plants easily, cheaply, and without any grow lights! I will show you in future videos how I winter sow my seeds for lots of annual, perennial and vegetable plants!

Here are some of my other videos related to the winter sowing process:

Winter Sow Lupine: https://youtu.be/Oc_BFrZJQqo
Winter Sow Bee Balm: https://youtu.be/8jUUdNXtOvs
Winter Sow Columbine: https://youtu.be/5swDb_zNqZU
Winter Sow Lupine: https://youtu.be/Oc_BFrZJQqo
Winter Sow Foxglove: https://youtu.be/m_uKpmQ3aqs
Winter Sow Poppies: https://youtu.be/x7uE1Y3yKnA

How to winter sow plants: https://youtu.be/rpbyATjeXmI
Winter sowing reveal (April 2023): https://youtu.be/fIQ8x_OrRZk
Winter sowing reveal (May 2023): https://youtu.be/GT-pLo9wcYI
How To Transplant Winter sown Seedlings: https://youtu.be/camhjdmnvcg
Winter sowing reveal (July 2023): https://youtu.be/D9ZhG3YF_Mk

Let’s chat! Leave a comment if you have a gardening-related question that I can answer or an idea for future videos!

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#wintersowing #gardening #plants #sowingseeds #garden #flowerseeds #flower #wintergarden

hey budget gardeners VCA here join me today as I share with you what supplies you need in order to Winter sew so let’s [Music] go it is early December here in New Hampshire Zone 5B so I wanted to make this video to basically jump start and get you thinking about winter sewing I’ve made a few videos in the past talking about the winter sewing process how to Winter sew and even doing some winter sewing reveals showing you plants that I’ve grown using this method so what I’ll do is put some links to those videos down in the description area so be sure to check those out I’ve been winter sewing for a number of years I love it I’m hooked I admit it and my goal is to get introduce it to you and hopefully it’s something that you try this winter it’s a very simple process and what I like about it is you can grow plants without having grow lights you’re basically creating little mini green houses for your plants outdoors in nature and whatever seeds that you plant in your mini green houses will germinate when the right conditions occur I typically like to start the winter sewing process sometime after the winter solstice it actually is a great time because it’s the middle of winter and what else are we doing anyway so why not do this project so during the months of January and February I will be very busy winter sewing my containers and I’ll be sure to make a video showing you that process many seeds actually require a long moist period of time and winter sewing is perfect for those types of seeds and also winter sewing is cheap it’s easy and it’s actually a lot of fun okay so let’s talk about what you’ll need in order to Winter sew I want you to start thinking about this so you can start collecting your items as well the first thing you’ll need is some sort of a container that will act as a mini Greenhouse outdoors and my number one choice that I like to use are milk jugs we drink a lot of milk in our house I’ve been collecting my milk jugs for months and over here I have a large black trash bag full of milk jugs I have five of these trash bags out in my barn so I will be all set for the winter sewing process so start collecting your containers now you don’t have to use a milk jug the key is it needs to be some sort of a container that can let light through so it needs to either be clear or semi clear so you can see that this milk jug is not completely clear but it still will let light through you can also use something like a plastic tote or a container you can use a rotisserie chicken container some other options are juice jugs or even the little plastic containers that salad mix comes in so be creative with your container I like to use things that I have readily available that are easy to find the big thing is you want to make sure that your container can hold at least four inches of soil in it and also other than the four inches of soil that will be at the base of your container you also want to make sure you leave enough room so as the plants inside start growing they don’t just bump into the top of your container so it needs to be a little on the taller side also with whatever container you choose you want to make sure that you keep the cover so when it comes to milk jugs you can throw away the cover on this but the main top part of this milk jug will act as the big cover for this container and that big cover will will protect the plants that are inside and act again as a little Greenhouse but if you use something like a plastic tote you want to make sure you keep the cover and you’re going to be putting holes in that cover to let some water in there to keep watering the plants and in this case I’ll go into it in more detail in January when I start winter sewing but I will be making holes in the top of this cover as well so make sure that you keep your covers or your Lids of your containers that you choose the next thing that you’re going to need is some sort of a potting soil or potting medium you don’t want to use seed starting mix because it’s very light very fluffy and it dries out super easily so potting mix is a really good choice now you can either buy your potting mix or you can make your own potting mix I’ve done that before it’s a very cheap effective way to make your own potting mix and I have a video that I’ve made that I’ll share with you put the link below and it tells you how to make your own potting mix and right over here I have a big bucket actually of potting mix so this is perfect you want to make sure that you get that on hand as well a lot of times at Garden Centers especially if you live in a cold climate like mine potting mix might be frozen so make sure you get your potting mix now and put it in a place where it can Tha out if it is frozen I like to store mine in my garage but you can definitely bring it in your house if you want to and also you don’t want to use garden soil garden soil can have bugs in it plus it might be way too heavy potty mix is your best bet when it comes to Winter sewing the next thing that you’ll need is a marker I like to use a garden marker my experience has been that the garden marker does not wear off especially when it’s sunny out raining snowing so I like to use a garden marker but if you have another marker that’s worked for you like a Sharpie or something else you definitely want to get that marker ready and on hand and you want to make sure you have something that you can cut your containers with I like to use these Snips here they’re called metal tin snips I got these for free actually so they’ve been very handy for me although I think I’ve seen that you can buy them on Amazon and what I like about my tin snips is that not only can I cut my milk jug very very easily because I used to use regular scissors and it was a little harder it was doable but it was a little harder and I can do it a lot easier with these but what I also like about these is I can also very easily create the drainage holes on the bottom of my milk jug I can’t reach the center of the milk jug to make the drainage holes but the surface area is not very big on the bottom so it’s very easy for me to cut my drainage holes on all four edges of my the bottom of my milk jug you can also use many other things to create in the bottom of your container you can use screwdrivers just look around be creative and if I can think of anything else that you could use to create holes in the bottom of your containers I’ll pop that up on the screen the next thing that you’ll need is duct tape duct tape is very important because that’s what holds your container together and in this case with my milk jug because I will be cutting it in the center here I need to seal it and close it for the winter months so it doesn’t blow open so I’ll be using duct tape that but the duct tape is going to be optional depending on your container so if you’re using something like a tote then perhaps you don’t need duct tape because you have your tote and then you have your lid so just know that you only need the duct tape depending on what you’re going to be using for your container I also like to use a plant tag there are lots of different types of plant tags out there I ran out of them but at one point I had those horizontal Venetian blinds and those are perfect for cutting up in using as plant tags the whole reason that you want to use some sort of a plant tag is if for whatever reason your garden marker or your Sharpie wears off on the outside of your container you’re not going to remember or know what plant is in each of your containers therefore if you have a plant tag you can also label that put that inside each of your containers and that will ensure that you don’t lose the tag for each of your plants and you’ll know what’s in each of your containers watering the SE SE leans inside of your containers is very important and when I first create all my containers and put all the seeds in there the potting mix everything I also need to make sure I water it that first time and outside it’s freezing out I can’t just spray everything with the hose so I bought a very small water pump sprayer and this is perfect for a number of reasons I use this for the winter sewing method but I also use it when I’m watering my seedlings indoors under grow lights so it was a great investment for me a few years ago and also what I like about it is once these milk jugs are outside during the winter after the winter months even though I can use my garden hose I still like to use this water sprayer because it just gives just enough water a nice Mist for me to water my tender seedlings so you definitely need a way to water all your seedlings and you can be creative with that as well there are different ways you can do that you just want want to make sure you’re not pouring a ton of water on your plants just a small amount to give them water when they need it and then the final thing the most important thing other than your container that you need is you need seeds and you can just do one packet of seeds if you want because I’ve been doing this for a number of years I typically have somewhere in the ballpark of maybe 40 50 milk jugs that I get going outside and this year I may end up having more so I usually start with my perennial seeds and I start with perennials that are Hardy in my zone because I know that they will survive they will be fine outside when you think about it a lot of times with perennial plants that are Hardy in your Zone they drop their seeds and when they drop their seeds whenever the conditions are right those seeds germinate and you end up with prenal plants at the base of wherever the seeds dropped that is basically we’re mimicking that same process but we’re doing it with the winter sewing process we are taking our penal seeds we’re putting them in here and whenever the elements are right the temperature is right the seeds will germinate and they will all germinate at a different time depending on whenever they’re ready to germinate and I like this because sometimes I don’t want my perennial seeds just in one area I want to control it and I want to have it in a milk jug and then I can pop them up into bigger pots grow them on and whenever I’m ready I can then put them out of in my landscape all around the yard so you definitely have a lot more control with where you’re going to put all your plants that you’re growing so back to the seeds I will start the winter sewing process with my perennial seeds and I will do a whole bunch of those I collected a lot of perennial seeds during this past summer so I have seeds that I’ve bought and a lot of seeds that I’ve collected and in case you’re wondering about this container here this is a DIY organization method that I created for organizing all of my seeds after I do all the perennial seeds then I can move on to the annuals and even the vegetables but with those you definitely want to wait until it’s a little bit warmer here in my area it’s probably going to be closer to like the March April time frame and a lot of great plants that would be great for winter sewing when it comes to like annuals or vegetables could be things like any plant that’s an annual that can tolerate some cold would be a perfect candidate and then also for vegetables things like lettuce broccoli cauliflower those are great candidates there are plenty out there and also you can do some herbs in your winter sewing jugs and then you can even do plants that like it warm like marigolds or Cosmos it’s just a matter of with those types of plants starting them at the right time you would not want to do a plant like a mar gold for the winter sewing process during the cold winter months because it’s just too early you want to wait until it’s warm enough outside because once any plant germinates inside of a milk jug if it cannot tolerate the freezing cold weather it will die so you want to make sure you’re starting your seeds with the winter sewing process at the right time and I’ll be sure to bring you along for that process so that maybe we can do these together and if you haven’t already please subscribe to my Channel all you have to do is hit the Subscribe button below and it’s free to you but also if you hit the notification Bell you’ll be notified every time I create a video and I will be creating a ton of videos on not only the winter sewing process but also on all the seeds that I’m going to be starting indoors and I will be sure to make reveal videos when I open up all these milk jugs and also videos on potting them up so you want to make sure that you’re following that whole process along I hope this video was helpful to you and I would love to know from you have you ever winter sewed and if you have what have you winter sewed please share that with us I’d love to hear about it so please drop a comment down below and until the next video make it a great day with gardening