 Welcome to getting clean on the prairies. It is the end of February. It is about minus 10 degrees Celsius outside. It's a beautiful sunny day and we are getting close to spring. We're starting to get some warm days above freezing, but still have another six to eight weeks of overnight freezing for sure. So today I just did a whole bunch more winter sowing and and I've got my jugs out here and we have done a bunch of herbs. We've got some flowers going. I'm going to try some cauliflower. So I'm just going to take you into the garage and show you some more tips and tricks on with the winter sowing method so you can start growing some of your seeds outdoors. Right now get them ready for your garden this spring. I just want to make sure when you fill up your jugs that you have your soil is good moist, not dripping, but enough so that it's sticking together when you squeeze it. And a milk jug like this, the four liter size, about three four inches is how oh, how deep you want to go with your soil. Okay, so I have several jugs ready here for planting. I've got my dirt filled up into them and I just wanted to show you that that's your standard milk jug that most of the time you see being used for winter sowing. I'm also using the two liter size milk jugs that work good. I've also got a few filled up that are juice. I think these were cranberry juice. So these also make a great little greenhouse as well because they're all clear and have the whole one to top. So any kind of container like this will work. I got the ice cream type containers. Another juice container. This is a climato juice. I've saved some of these peanut jars that I think you can use as long as you put some holes in the bottom, some holes in the top. Also some vinniter jugs will work too. So I have lots of varieties here of containers that you can use. As long as like you say you can create some kind of hinge and create that greenhouse and any one of these will work. So let's get started on putting some seeds into our jug. So the majority of seeds I'm going to be planting today are going to be herbs. I've started out with five or six different kinds and I keep finding more that I want to try. So I have a boat. I think eight eight or ten different herbs I'm going to try growing. But I also wanted to show you some special seeds that I'm going to try. And these were seeds that I received as part of the Canadian Seed Exchange Challenge. And I just want to say a shout out to Oksana Struck. I'm sorry. I hope I said your name correctly. She is a gardener that took part in this seed exchange from Toronto. Toronto, Ontario, zone 5B. And she sent me some seeds that I'm going to try using the winter sowing method. And these are seeds that she saved herself from her plant. So that makes them extra special and I'm really excited to try some dill because believe it or not, I have never grown dill. And so I'm going to try these dill seeds in the winter sowing jugs. She sent me some zinia mix flowers and some dork orange marigolds. So it's always best to winter sow plants that are native to your zone or to do well in your zone. And all of these are ones that grow really well here on the prairies in Saskatchewan. So I'm hoping that they will work out. So I'm going to plant some of these up right now. I'm just going to open up the dorks here and show you what the seeds look like. If you've never seen marigold seeds, they kind of remind me of porcupine quills. They remind me of. I'm going to spread out some. I'm going to try and save half of them and do some direct sowing into containers as well. So you've seen in some of my other videos, I like to use plastic knives, plastic spoons to mark inside my milk jugs. If you're like me, you buy those variety packs of your forks, knives and spoons and end up with no forks and a whole bunch of spoons and knives. So this is a good way to try to get some use out of them. And next time, just buy forks. I always like to try to grow two different herb gardens outside. One is just a small one that I'll keep on my back deck off the kitchen so that I can always go and clip fresh herbs for when I'm cooking. And then also in my lasagna bed garden, I will have a bunch of herbs going as well that I can grow and harvest to make into dried spices to keep over the winter. So hoping that will turn out this year. So to cover the seeds here today, I'm going to try something a little different. I've just seen this on some other gardening channel YouTube videos that I'm going to use vermiculite to put the seeds on this batch of winter sowing. The reason is you still need to protect the seeds with a little coat of something and this will work the same as lightly or potting soil, but also it helps retain moisture in the soil, which would be a good thing to have in the spring when these start warming up and drying out. They will also protect the seeds until they're ready to germinate. So for sealing up your jobs, I always use duct tape. I wouldn't recommend using clear packing tape or masking tape. When we start at the back where the hinge is, just hold the lid in place, doesn't have to be perfect. Rock it around and seal up where the cuts were made in the container. We've got everything taped shut here and I just need to mark on the outside also what is in each container. And what I like to do at the end is give it another really good drink of water here. So I have them sitting in these big turkey aluminum foil containers and I pour in quite a bit of water a couple inches. Then I just let the jug sit for an hour or so so that they can really wake up this water as much as they need and get this soil well saturated. It's very important that when these seeds are warming up in the spring and germinated, it's very important that they have a good moist soil base. So that's just a little extra thing to make sure that there is as much water in these containers as possible. So you want to create the ideal germination situation for these seeds just like mother nature. You want to always hope to have a nice warm wet spring so that everything that's growing out there has the best chance of survival. So while these are just soaking up all this water, I'm going to mark on the outside. With the date so that we can make sure we know what's in each one. It's always nice to be able to walk up to your garden in the spring and check out what's growing there. And when you planted it, I also recommend that you keep a log of what you planted. I did this last year, you know, the date that it went out in the ground and when it sprouted in the spring and whether it survived in and was successful. So like I said, the best thing, you know, the best thing for success is to use plant things that are native to your zone that are going to survive in your zone. Normally use, try to grow things that are cold hardy perennials, herbs and vegetables. And so once these start sprouting in the spring, you have to keep an eye on them to make sure that they don't dry out. Of course, the benefit of this method is that these plants are going to be hardening off a lot easier than the tender plants that you bring from outside. They're going to be a little tougher and it's easy to harden them off. Just when it gets hotter and warmer in the spring, you can just open and take the tape off and open up these jugs and let them get a little more air. As far as the best time to do your winter sowing, there really is no hard and fast rule other than, you know, it doesn't matter if it's super cold outside. It's actually the best when it is cold. You want your seeds to be frozen in for at least, you know, four to six weeks or at least go through a freezing and thawing period of a good four weeks. So here where I am, we still have another couple months of freezing temperatures at night. So everything is going to go through that freezing thawing stage for a while. If you want to attempt to try some more of the tender type plants such as the tomatoes or the peppers, I'm going to be doing a test on that. I did actually grow successfully a tomato in a milk jug. I started them in April. So it's kind of getting towards the later in the spring when there is a lot warmer temperatures at night, less freezing. And I did successfully start a Roma tomato within a milk jug and planted it into a container and it did just as well as the ones I grew inside. So it can be done here in these cold climates. So I'll be testing out a few more varieties this spring. So stay tuned for that video. I'll probably be trying tomatoes and peppers. So out here in my garden is where I store my winter sowing jugs until the spring. There's a lot of snow out here. It's out of the wind and it's a good spot to stick the jugs for now. So in about a month or so when the weather starts to warm up and we have some warm days, we will start checking these jugs out to see if anything is sprouting. So stay tuned for that video coming up. So please like and subscribe and leave a comment below and thank you for joining me here today in my garden.