Today we're looking at a method of sowing seeds common during the colder months in parts of the USA, Canada but less common in Europe. It's called the winter sowing method and it's very simple. All you need is some thoroughly cleaned out and dry mild jugs, or large lemonade / pop or water bottles, a bit of duct tape, some seeds and compost and you are good to go. This low maintenance germination method is useful for getting relatively cold hardy annual, perennial and biennial seeds started and hardened off ready to plant out in spring as the bottles act as a mini greenhouse through winter.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00So in today's video we're actually going to try the Winter Sewing Method.
00:17This is very popular in America, not so popular here but I'm going to give it a shot and what
00:22it is is you're basically using old milk jugs or lemonade bottles to sew seeds over winter and just
00:35this acts like a mini greenhouse and you just put some compost in here, put the seeds in,
00:42close it up, tape it all up and just leave it outside to the elements like so.
00:47Should trap in the heat, let some rain in, you leave the top off
00:51and we're going to give it a go. So we'll start preparing the bottles now. These have all been
00:56washed and dried and left out for a while and you have to use food grade containers as well.
01:03These obviously had milk in them. I don't drink milk so I asked someone to keep these for me and
01:09this should work quite well. These are all two litre ones.
01:20If you can get three litre ones it's all the better but we'll just start preparing them now.
01:27So the things you're going to need for this are the milk jugs obviously or big water bottles
01:32or something like that or like cola or lemonade bottles would do fine. Just as long as the light
01:39can get through it, it's all good and as long as some rain can fall inside as well. Just leave the
01:47tops off. I'm going to sow some spring onions in there, see how they get on. Some oriental
01:54poppies collected from the garden, calendula, so many kinds of seeds and some Icelandic poppies
02:03which are pretty hardy as well. So it'll be interesting to see how they get on in here and
02:09if it's worth doing. Now the first thing I want to do is make holes in the bottles. I'm just going to try this.
02:25Might actually be better doing this with the lids on.
02:28This one's okay, it's already started. So I've got a good few holes in there as you can see and then I'm just going to make holes near the bottom as well on the side because
02:41if they're sitting out in the ground, you want some drainage from the side as well
02:45so you don't want them to become waterlogged.
02:48So that should be enough there. So that's that one basically done and I'll just do the rest the same now.
03:03I'm just going to check if it's easier with the lids on.
03:06Do that.
03:10Yep because there's still very good pouts.
03:25You can use a screwdriver or anything to do these.
03:29I'll just finish up the rest and then we'll come back.
03:31So that's the holes all punctured on them. Now the next thing you want to do is cut your bottle, not right round but
03:41so I'm just going to make an incision. So you want it about four inches from the top just so it has enough soil.
03:53So I'm just going to make a hole there
03:55and then what you want to do at one corner is you leave maybe a space of two inches or so
04:03just as a hinge so that it's still intact.
04:08So I'm just going to go right here and I'll just do the hinge at that end and just go
04:16around here and there and this is what you want. Basically you can lift them up like this
04:22and then close it and what we'll do once we have the soil and the seeds in
04:26we will just water and seal this up and put a little label on to tell us what it is. So
04:35that is that done and we'll just do the same with the rest and then we'll move outside and start
04:40I'll just do one more on camera here so again about four inches from the base so
04:49right there
04:53make a snip and then
05:00and we'll make this bit our corner
05:04so as you can see there the hinge is still there so just leaving about that much intact
05:12and what else you will need for this is
05:16a little bit of soil and a little bit of water and a little bit of a little bit of
05:22just a layer so just leaving about that much intact
05:30and what else you will need for this is some kind of waterproof tape duct tape of some sort
05:42so the one's really picking up here so I'm going to try and be as quick as possible with this
05:46milk jugs flew everywhere there a minute ago so I'm just opening up the milk jug
05:52getting some seed rich compost
05:57and then
06:01I'm going to fill that up
06:08you want a good few inches of compost in there
06:11um so the roots because they're going to the seeds are going to be in here for
06:17three until spring so you want them to have a bit of room but you also need to leave enough
06:23room at the top for them to grow up a bit so that's probably enough there so there's about
06:30three four inches there about three inches of compost there
06:34just flatten it down and I'll just do all four of them before we start adding the seeds
06:41so
06:48it's looking like it's going to rain today
06:53I could really do without that
07:02I'm actually off work for a fortnight after this week so I'm hoping to get two videos done today
07:11so
07:30this is the first time I've tried this so I don't know if it'll work or not but
07:35you may need bigger containers but
07:37these should hold at least a few seeds each
07:45and I've seen people on videos leaving these out in all weathers snow
07:52places in America and they get really bad snow in Eastern Europe as well
07:58and
08:01their seeds generated or germinated so
08:05a wee bit more in that one so that's the soil in there now and
08:12all four of them it was quite quick
08:16put a wee bit of soil in the pot here just to have on the side as well
08:21and I'm just going to give each of them a quick water now before I put the seeds in
08:29so that they're pre-moistened because some of these seeds are quite small poppy seeds
08:36I'll just be leaving them on top because they need light to germinate
08:51so
09:21so
09:44underwater encounter
09:51so
10:16just giving them a nice thorough soak inside here
10:21so
10:28oh
10:52and this compost is quite dumping away because it's been lying outside
10:56so do these last two now
11:21so
11:51so
12:05and
12:22so the first seed I'm going to sow here I think will be the calendula
12:29because they're quite easy to manage I'm not putting too many in here
12:35these are quite big seeds and now you would normally be doing this in the winter
12:43these are quite big seeds and now you would normally be doing this in the winter but I just
12:51wanted to do it a bit early but you could do it any time from really the end mid-November
13:01through to January February time so which one am I going to put this one in this one here I think
13:10so all I'm doing is when I bring it up closely to show you is
13:22just sprinkling you can see the calendula seeds here I'm just going to sprinkle a couple
13:30over there you can see them in there these are great seeds for sowing because you can see where
13:37you're putting them unlike say the poppy seeds so you can see them in there so I have about
13:44five or six in there I'm just going to press them down
13:48and like that
13:52space them out a bit and calendula seeds you can cover and
13:58a few more here just with a little bit of soil and that is basically that
14:12so as you can see they have a good enough depth there to set a root and then you just
14:19close them over cell tip them up but before I do that I just want to do one more thing
14:25and that is putting the right label for them now I will be able to recognize these so you can also
14:34write on here with marker on the inside or outside with permanent marker and just hope it doesn't
14:41fade so I've got in there now calendula a wee marker just inside that may come off but I'll
14:49know by the the lead shape or the shape of the leaves and then lastly I just want to take that
14:54off and you can recycle that just so now we'll go back and cell tip this one up
15:06these in my pocket
15:19so what I want to do is just make sure I've got enough tape to go right around it
15:34you're left-handed you always look more awkward doing things you always
15:37do things in a more awkward way so you just want to line up the bottle
15:49and seal it all the way around so just like so
16:00now you want to make sure that that seal is airtight just go right around the bottle
16:11try and get rid of any air pockets and just make sure that the seal
16:15is tight there but you don't want this water getting in and maybe loosening it
16:23so
16:26and that's basically your money greenhouse done so that is that for winter
16:35no can't bite that tip
16:39I know there's one little loose patch here somewhere I lose it there
16:43so I'm just going to go over that again
16:48and you could make a little label or something like that if you were
16:52doing a lot of these and you weren't too sure about what the seed seedlings will look like
17:04that's basically it
17:06you can use ordinary cell tape for this as well although it
17:15it is a bit more likely to come off but if you seal it really well
17:20you could always just replace it in a few months or weeks time
17:28but then so come the spring you just cut that open
17:32cut off the tape even and see how they got on
17:37so that is that so that's our Kill and Joy done and next we'll do the spring onions
17:46and these are a long white Ishikura supposed to sow them in March to April or July so
17:53we'll see how they get on when you harvest them from May
17:57but
18:02so
18:07I'm only doing a couple of these because I do want to plant some of these
18:12in the garden as well keep some of them for the springtime and these are newer ones I tried
18:20some very old ones it's actually the same make as well but they did not seed so I'll just sprinkle
18:28these on
18:41and I'm going to pat some soil over the top of them
18:48so this soil is not as damp so I'm going to give them a spray of water as well
19:10and now I would advise doing these one at a time just so you know
19:14rather than sowing all the seeds at the same time because
19:17then you might get confused of what you put where that's the Icelandic poppy one
19:26that's the spring onions so just a little label inside
19:31and I just want to clean off anything here
19:37I should have tried harder to keep these dry
19:49right here I put them in a damp bucket
19:53so some of the soil is stuck in them I just want to get that off and now I'm just going to go around
19:59and this one
20:07so
20:26and making sure it's sealed properly and
20:33I'm gonna go around that twice just
20:37so
20:46my taping skills are not what they should be
20:54and you can of course do this indoors as well it might be a lot easier actually to do it indoors
21:00um because you're in a more drier environment than there
21:14just making sure that that's stuck
21:21all the way around
21:30so
21:40so that's two down two to go I'll just do one of the poppies here on camera
21:44and then so we'll do the Icelandic poppies next there now these ones are not going to cover
21:52with anything I'm just giving them a good soak on top again
22:03and I'll show you this one up close so these are our tiniest wee seeds so
22:12these were just collected from my garden in early summer when they stopped flowering and
22:18and started producing seed heads so again I'm not doing them all just scattering them over
22:35and even that is probably too many but
22:41they're in there now I'm just going to flatten that with my hand
22:45for the poppies and then just leave them
22:54and again the same process but I might try it with the lid on this time to see
22:58if that is any better or any easier to fill
23:04to sell to Brown
23:05oh better collect them
23:18everything is flying today because of the wind
23:25I think we might just get it done before the rains before the heavens open here
23:31we're gonna try this
23:36what do I do with the lid there it is
23:56ah one thing we didn't do
24:00Icelandic poppies the little stick in there
24:02so these are quite distinctive uh leaves as well so if they do come up
24:10I'll be able to tell them even if the sign rubs off
24:19this plastic is actually a bit flimsy for this I think
24:23so if you can get stronger bottles all the better and the big five liter water bottles
24:32might be good for this or just a stronger milk jug basically but obviously the bigger the
24:40the vessel you have the more seeds you can put in there
24:43that one worked better than the rest tonight so we'll maybe do the same for this one with
24:48the lid on so maybe keep the lids handy for sealing them
24:54my part this is all trial and error because I've never attempted anything like this before
25:04but quite interesting to see how they turn out
25:06I should have cut that first
25:14you can imagine how bad I am at wrapping presents here
25:21right yeah that's absolutely terrible wrapping
25:25but it does the trick it's not pretty but it does the trick
25:31I've actually ended up covering a few of the holes but there's still plenty there
25:37I just want to make the top sure the top bottom and all right around the sealed
25:43yep that looks grand
25:45and here they are now just all tucked away and they will just be left there
25:51I will just check them every now and again for water content
25:56and I'll see you in a bit
25:58I'll come back at the end and here they are now just all tucked away and they will just
26:11be left there in the water I will just check them every now and again for water content
26:15They are a bit dry, I'll add some water