Hi Matt, and welcome to the WS forum.

Depending on mother nature and the crazy winter weather and snow she has tossed at us this year, it's a tough call to say when you will see your first sprouts.

I'm in zone 5, New England, Massachusetts to be exact and in over 30 years of living in my home, I've never seen a winter like this or the amount of snow that has fallen in about 6 weeks time.

That being said, based on 7 full years of WS and the quirks of mother nature over those 7 years, I would guess that the earliest you would see sprouts would be around April 1st. give or take a week.

Of course if we actually got a real early spring and incredible warm temps and all the snow was gone, anything is possible.

I have never seen sprouts before April 1st.

Have fun WS the rest of the winter into the spring. you'll never start seeds any other way after this year.

Fran

Yep, depends on what the goofy weather does, and maybe how much sun they're getting, too. Much of the country is seeing a major warm-up, and if that continues sprouts might not be that far off.

I'm in zone 6. Here's a pic of poppy sprouts 3-3-06
{{gwi:260470}}

Karen

I noticed that most everything likes to start going when night time temps start reaching the 40's. Poppies being an exception. : )

Hi Matt - I WSed from mid-Jan to Mid-Feb, last year. Saw sprouts from the middle of March on. I WSed poppies, let them get about 2-3 inches high before planting them out. They didn't do well at all (there's a really good thread about transplanting poppies somewhere on this forum), so this year I'm going to direct sow them as soon as the snow melts, with 1/2 gal. milk jug cloches around them. When your poppies sprout, the advice on this forum seems to be to get them out as small as possible, weather permitting, of course; that advice seems good to me, after last year's experience!

Hi Matthew-

Glad to see you made it over to the winter sowing forum!

My experience is similar to floodthelast's... When night temps are consistently around 40F, my sprouts start coming up. For me, that means most things don't really sprout until the end of April - beginning of May.

If you plant your poppies out Hunk Of Seedlings style, you should be okay.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the info. I can't wait to see them all sprouting! It got in the 60's today! Wow! I got a sunburn while pruning apple trees at Apple Works Orchard.

Matthew
Indiana.Matt