 Hi there and welcome to the channel. So today we're out in the garage getting some more winter sewing jugs ready to go outside into the snow. So today's winter sewing is going to be all about perennial flowers and specifically I'm going to be using some native wildflowers that I purchased locally here and these are all supposed to do very well in our climate. I'm in zone 3, Saskatchewan, Canada. And the company's name is Blazing Star Wildflower Seed Company. I just want to show you this cute little container that these seeds came in. And inside here are 10 seed varieties of native flowers that we're going to plant up today using the winter sewing method. So we're going to be trying two different ways of sewing these seeds. First of all, it's going to be using the traditional milk jug like you see most of the time. But I also am going to attempt to use some of my small little nursery pots here that I've filled up with dirt and we're going to set them up in a clear tub like this. Put them out in the snow the same as we do as the jugs and see how they do. So I've been running out of jugs. I'm down to I think I only have a few left. So I thought something like this if you can get some plants going in little containers like this. I have no end of these little pots. I got a few of these from the dollar store. They're very cheap. So we're going to test it out and hopefully it works. If you notice today, I've got this cute little apron on. My daughter gave this to me for my birthday, which I just had last week. This is a great little thing to throw on when you come out and start working in the dirt to kind of protect your clothes. It's got some little pockets here. So you'll probably see me wearing this in a bunch of my upcoming videos. So as far as what type of soil you should use in your winter sewing jugs, you can just use an organic, all-purpose, good quality potting soil that you purchase from the store. I've done that in the past where I buy a big giant bag of it and use it for all my winter sewing. It works good. One thing that I did find is that it does become quite compacted. You know those jugs sitting there outside the the dirt gets quite compacted by spring. So even if you are buying an all-purpose soil that's got everything in it, I would recommend adding maybe a little more perellite or vermiculite to it just to kind of keep it airy and light and just help those seeds with germination. So here this year I have been making my own potting soil for seed starting and for my winter sewing. So my recipe is pretty basic. I kind of just wing it by what I have in my stash here, but the main ingredient is peat moss and vermiculite or perellite. So as you can see here, I got a nice mixture here. I've been just kind of working through it with my fingers just to make sure all the lumps are out because sometimes those big bales of peat moss that you purchase are pretty compacted and you kind of have to work at it for a while. That's kind of nice and therapeutic. I don't mind just working with the dirt here a little bit. So I've also added in and this is just because you know, I'm always trying to repurpose and reuse as much as I can in my indoor growing. I had a lot of small little pots from different things I've been growing indoors, house plants, stuff like that that I also just dumped that dirt back into this container so I can kind of reuse it. So that's up to you, but I don't mind trying to reuse my potting soil as much as I can. It's always a great way to take it as far as you can. So I have three of my jugs started here and I'm first of all going to get them filled up with some of my potting soil. So because these seeds are going to be sitting in these containers until you know, they're ready to go on the ground. They're going to need, you know, a little extra nutrients that you wouldn't normally find in your seed starting mix. Like I said, I have used peat moss and para-light in here. I've also added a couple scoops of mushroom compost that I purchased and I'm just going to give a very very light sprinkling of this organic fertilizer. Again, this is optional. This is just me making up recipes as I go. This is a all-purpose 444 and this is also some worm casting that I just recently harvested from my worm bin. So I'm just going to give a little sprinkle in here as well. Top these up a little bit more and you always want to make sure that your soil that you're planting into is well moistened. So it's got a really good start in the spring when it thaws. I always like to do the bottom watering first if you have time. So how I do that is I just put it in a container that'll hold water, put in a couple inches, just let it sit for an hour or so and wake up from the bottom and we will also be moistening it here from the top. That way you're sure that it's going to be moistened all the way to the bottom. So I'm setting up these pots the same way where I'm going to fill them up about halfway with my homemade potting mix here and then I'm just going to give a little pinch of the organic fertilizer. A little sprinkle of the worm castings. I think when you make your own potting mix it's kind of like cooking. You know, you just kind of have your own little recipe. So the top layer of these containers will just have the potting mix without you know that extra fertilizers and worm castings is when they germinate they don't really need a whole lot of nutrients from the soil but once they start shooting down roots they will hit all these extra goodies that we put into the soil. Their roots will reach down there and tap into that fertilizer. So I'm hopeful that this method is going to work for these flowers. I'm pretty much tapped out of milk jugs. It seems to be you know a little bit of a faster setup where you can get more things started in a smaller space. So I will definitely try to do a follow-up video in the spring here to show you how these are all doing. So I'll give these a good watering from the bottom and the top. Let them sit in a couple inches of water here. Let's soak it up and then we will be ready to plant our seeds. So these have been sitting in water now for a couple hours. I've left them out here and they've pretty much soaked up all that water from the bottom and the tops are feeling nice and moist as well so I think these are ready to get planted up. Something that I've never tried growing before and you don't see very often is the crocus. It is a natural wildflower that grows in Saskatchewan. They pop up very very early in the spring. They're hard to find. They're very rare in my opinion and they're always very special when you can find them. So I'm going to try growing them. It says that they need two years before they bloom. So it's going to be kind of a tough one but the instructions tell you to make sure that you plant them with this little seed head pointing down into the soil. So a little bit tricky but we're going to start with the crocus. So as you can see the crocus has a tiny little seed here at the end with a tail. So it's telling you to just poke it into the dirt with the tail up and I probably have way more than I need so I'm not going to plant them all in the winter sowing jugs here. I might, if I have some space, I might attempt to grow each of these also indoors under the grow lights. I'm starting to plan all my stuff that I want to start indoors and have to make sure that I don't run out of space. So I have to be pretty selective on what I have going under my grow lights. I think these all will start right away here and once they get past that two leaf stage and get a little more established, I can just move them out here to my garage. I got two sunny windows out of my garage so a lot of my flowers are probably going to end up out here in the garage once they get going and make room for all the tomatoes and peppers and other vegetables that I want to get going from my garden. So I'm going to give them a you know inch or so of potting soil on top, help kind of keep them warm until spring. Once we're done planting all these up I will be giving them another spritz with some water. So I'm going to be marking these inside as well as outside. So in case you don't know what a prairie crocus looks like, there's a pitcher. These seeds all came with a nice little book that shows you the pitchers of everything that you're planting and along with instructions. So this is the Gay Largia seeds. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly but they're kind of similar to the crocus where they have a bit of a tail on them. The instructions say to not cover them but to just kind of lightly press them into the soil surface. So I'm just going to sprinkle them around just like they would naturally spread if they were self seeding out in the garden. I think I will still give it a bit of a cover with a little bit of soil just to protect them a little bit. So the next one up is going to be the Smooth Aster which is a purple daisy with a yellow center. This is what the seeds look like. Again they're kind of wispy things with little tails. I'm going to sprinkle them on the top. Most of the instructions that came with these flowers tell you that you can direct sow in spring, early spring, as soon as the ground is slightly warmed. Wild blue flax is the next one we're going to plant. So if you use flax seed in your diet you can see that these seeds are quite similar to flax seed. And the last thing to go into the milk jugs is going to be the Giant Hossop and there are the seeds. So these are a violet colored spike type flower and they are says they smell a lot like a niece which is kind of that licorice smell so kind of interested to see how these turn out. Next up is the purple prairie clover. There's the seeds. These are a cone shaped flower, grows up to 40 centimeters tall, blooms from July to September and the roots of these help fix nitrogen. So they're also beneficial for you that way. So now we're going to be planting up into these pots. A little bit smaller surface area but I think still good opportunity for some plants to grow. So I'm going to give them a good generous amount of seeds. Prairie cone flower. So these are a nice bright yellow flower with petals around a brown column like center. There's your seeds. So these also bloom from July to September. It's always been kind of hard for me to keep perennials alive through the winter. We have very cold winters here of course in zone 3 so temperatures can drop down into the minus 30 degree Celsius quite often. In fact we have just been going through that here this past week. It seems that our yard also gets hit by frost a little faster than other areas. I guess we have kind of a low lying area so sometimes it's a challenge to keep perennials going year to year. So I'm hoping that this year I can get a good start in my flower bed and you know just come up with a good way to protect them with some straw or leaves over the winter and hopefully keep them going. So the black-eyed Susan is something that seems to do very well here on the prairies. You see them growing everywhere. They self seed very well and spread like crazy. So we'll see if we can get these going in my garden. Prairie cone flower. So this is a bright also a bright yellow flower surrounded by a brown column like center. Cone flowers do really well in our climate here as well. So the bergamot is the last one I'm going to plant up here and I'm really hopeful that this one turns out and I get lots of blooms. The petals on the bergamot are what are the main ingredient in Earl Grey tea because of that unique smell and flavor which I really love so I'm hoping I can get some growing. I can't actually get the lid off this right at the moment but this is what the seeds look like. So I should also mention that I have had these seeds sitting in the freezer for about a month since I received them. All these are perennials like I said so they need to go through that stratification process where they are frozen. So the winter sowing method simulates that really well. So because these seeds have to survive the winter in the frozen ground they have a very hard coating on them and the stratification process of thawing and freezing in the spring helps break down that outer shell on the seed so that they can germinate. And it looks like I have one extra container here so I got to go find something else to add to this. So I found some hollyhock seeds so I'm going to plant them up in this final container. These are technically a biannual meaning they only grow for two years but they self seed pretty easily so if you get a good plant going you can usually get them to self seed and keep going year after year. So I like to water them with something that doesn't spray too hard such as this little pump bottle that I have here looks really good. You don't want your seeds to kind of get washed around or pushed around so I'm just going to make sure everything's got a nice top layer of moisture before we head outside. I'm going to be setting these up using the lid as the base. I've got lots of holes in there so there's good drainage. I've also put lots of holes on the top part so we're just going to put it on here. It's going to snap into place so it shouldn't blow off. It might be a good idea once we get it out in the sunshine and in the space that may be susceptible to wind maybe put a brick or something on the top here just to keep it in place and the holes aren't super big. They're not like on the milk jug but there's the rain and water can get in easily so it might be something that we have to keep an eye on in the spring make sure they don't dry out. Here in zone three Saskatchewan we still have at least two full months of cold weather you know freezing temperatures at night going probably right into you know the end of April early May so doing flowers such as this you still have time as long as they get well frozen and you know sit there for at least a few weeks before the spring thaw starts. Another little trick here if your tape or maybe your jug is just kind of a little bit wonky and you can't get a good seal just take a spoon or a stick or something like that and then you can just kind of go along on the inside and press against and then it kind of helps you make sure that that tape is well sealed all the way around. I find some of my jugs come to me a kind of bead up and out of shape but this will work really well to to get a good seal on it because you don't want any of that cold air getting in. Okay so this is where I am keeping my winter sewing jugs right now I have them in a old wagon here that keeps them from blowing away and hopefully safe from the dog for now so if you haven't already done so please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on updates coming to the channel on my winter sewing as well as all of my other gardening adventures here on the Saskatchewan Prairies. Thank you for watching and happy gardening!