How lucky for you to be able to enjoy apartment living and still have a garden close by.

It looks like you got everything right with your containers, already have some interesting variety seedlings, and what a charming garden house and space. Do you have access to water there or will you depend on Spring rains for your garden seedlings....

Welcome to the world of growing from seed, and be sure to update us with photos as more germinate and you begin planting out.

Welcome! And congratulattions on your winter sown sprouts. Don't forget to do the happy sprout dance and post pictures for all of us to admire (and for those of us in the frozen north, to envy). An arctic wind is howling outside and rattling the windows where I am so sprouts are a great way to take my mind off the noise of winter shrieking above my head and beyond the door.

O yes, I did my happy sprout dance. Secretely. My garden-neighbours don't like the look of the plastic bottles next to their neat tulip-and narcissus-gardens so I didn't want to disturb them any further. Will post some pictures of the seedlings to help zone 6 people through the winter!
@ Morz8: The're no waterworks in my garden but I have 3 waterbutts-system (they serve the toilet as well!) and also ditches nearby (only for the plants).
But in Holland mainly your concern is not the lack of water, but more the opposite. It's very wet and clayground and I already know my Delphiniums sprouts won't really make it here.

Welkom! What a pretty garden & it is fascinating to see your jugs in Holland. You are a fellow zone 8'er for zone wars. It has previously been discussed that it does not matter where your zone 8 is, your total can count. If you feel like it, please post your current total, either 50 or the exact 50+, in the zone wars thread & it will get added in. Dank u wel! Google-Dutch, hope it is right :-)

Welcome, nice to meet you.

Congratulations on your new babies.

Karen

Hah! Nog en Nederlander! Welkom! ;o)

Ok, my Dutch is pretty bad, actually, haven't used it in 10 years. But welcome you are!

Now, I have to admit, I'm unable to see your sprouts. :o( The pictures are not showing on Picasa. But even so, enjoy the growing.

And I can't remember spring coming that early to the Netherlands. Maybe it is my brain trying to protect me from the cold, cold Illinois winters... *lol*

Hello,
Greetings.
Congratulations on your newbies! Post some pictures.

I can grow delphinium well here - my soil is also clay based and average rainfall per year approximately 90". Very little of that falls late July through early October so I do have to water during those months - Fall and Winter can be extremely wet.

If you have the opportunity before planting your seedlings (any of them), try to incorporate compost/organic plant remains like aged leaf mold into the clayish soil - it will help improve drainage while providing nutrition for your plants.

congratulations on your sprouts! i cannot get your link to work but will check back for new pics later.

i have heavy clay soil too and planted some delphinium last year-- we will see how it turns out. have you thought about monkshood? that does really well for me. do you have access to compost or room to make a compost pile? i've found it really does help to add compost to the soil.

from what i can remember of dutch grocery packaging compared to ours, it must have been quite a challenge to find containers! would clear plastic storage bins be cheaper in the long run? i also had good luck getting large containers at auto repair shops and auto supply stores-- windshield wiper fluid containers are great-- maybe try that if you need more containers this year or next? i don't know if t would be similarly packaged there. i also have managed to convince a few of my friends who work at restaurants to save containers for me when they have them.

i would love to be in holland in the spring. i have a friend who lives in utrecht and we visit him every other year or so, usually over fall break, when it is cold and rainy. even then there are bulbs all over the place, which is always lovely to look at, and a welcome change from the greyness and gloom here. i imagine spring must be amazing there!

Hi Holland_gardener - greetings from the UK. I am intrigued by the term 'winter sowing' but have never quite understood what is special about it and how it is different from the normal autumn or early spring sowing I would do here. For example, I always sow some vegetables outdoors in November - is that 'winter sowing'? When I have grown trees and shrubs from seed I've done that in the autumn too. And I always sow the sweet peas in January. Sowing hardy perennials and annuals in the autumn is just standard practice to me. Can you tell me when you sowed your seeds?

The link has an interesting take on winter sowing in the US as a rediscovery of what used to be common usage there and still is in Europe. What do you think?

Here is a link that might be useful: What is winter sowing?

flora_uk - the winter sowing method discussed on this forum is a bit different than the winter sowing method in the article you linked to. Here is the USDA definition of the winter sowing method:

A propagation method used throughout the winter where temperate climate seeds are sown into protective vented containers and placed outdoors to foster a naturally timed, high percentage germination of climate tolerant seedlings.

These are my protective vented containers placed outdoors:

These are my naturally timed, high percentage germination of climate tolerant seedlings:

Astilbe
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Buddleia
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Geum
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The containers protect the seeds from the natural predators and weather extremes that prevent or inhibit germination such as mice, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, wind, frost, alternating freeze and thaw cycles in our often-severe winters. Since the containers spend the winter months out in the cold, the seedlings emerge when the light, moisure and temperature trigger germination in their genetic code. They're "hardy" from day one and need no hardening off to adjust to changing day-nighttime temperatures.

I hope that clears things up a bit. I'm sure others will chime in with additional information.

My chiming won't be that helpful to many, it goes along with Flora's experience so I understand her perspective; I've been winter sowing those things that need the chill since long before having a computer. I've noticed the info on the Seed Site but my direction came from a similar gardening magazine article many years back. And only occasionally find reason now to have a pot or two of dirt in my refrigerator :)

I clearly remember my first sight of a photo of rained on Winter Sown plastic covered containers on a table on this forum when I first joined GW - my initial thought was it looked like a 4th of July potluck coastal Washington style.

I still tend to sow only those things that need the range of temperatures, admitting I don't have a lot of interest in annuals or room for vegetables - the few I grow I start indoors (my cool summer temps create need to get those type things started early coming into play here, I can use only so many green tomatoes:)). This isn't news, but my climate couldn't be more English if I were in England so I sow mostly 4x5" square open pots topped with grit, and sow depending on that seeds requirements from July through April - some seeds (like trillium, cyclamen) I don't let dry at all once harvested and sow same day.

The English method as described in the link works for me, but my coastal cool summer Z8 is unique enough to this country that I don't try to recommend exactly the same technique to anyone outside the PNW. I'm not going to have several inches of snow, varmints with voracious appetites with my infrequent brief snow cover, or dry vicious winds below freezing several days at a time.

The European difference may be cultural, may be climate - I'm not well traveled enough to say! What I do find here are many with the same gardening interest who delight in sowing and growing even though we don't all use precisely the same methods for all seeds. Whatever gets us from seed packet to plant or packet to flower and fruit is fair...

Thanks for all the replies!
Here's a link to my container pictures that hopefully will work. https://picasaweb.google.com/101438597859788134704/WintersowingHolland?authkey=Gv1sRgCJm67cK289viEw#
Any advice on how to place pictures in a message directly are welcome.
Seedling pictures are on their way, but not so impressive as gardenweeds' are. These pictures to me are gardening-porno ;-)
I know there's basically nothing new to wintersowing, especially in Europe. "Just put the seeds in the ground or pots in autumn and nature will take care". Yeah. Some people told me to do so and I've tried in October. And it could and should work in a moderate climate. But with all these lazy fat city-birds almost on my shoulder waiting for me to leave the garden and dig up whatever I put in the ground and messing up the place to find their food? No. Nothing left.
So the container-thing should work better for me.
I know I have to work other material through the clayground (sand, compost) to give my delphiniums a chance. I'll try!
Love monkshood as well or even better! Have 5 containers, but no sprouting so far. But, it's a rather cold spring here (even the famous bulbs are quite late), so I'm not despairing.
Also did some indoor sowing (Akebia, Vitex Agnus castus, Amorpha Fruticosa), seeds are sprouting like crazy, but getting so leggy...! Also did wintersow these, just for "test"-results. We'll see.

Holland-Gardener - first of all, Happy Birthday a day late!!!

If you'll email me via GardenWeb, I can share instructions for posting pictures on the forum. A very nice winter sower named Neil shared the instructions with me not so long ago and I'd be happy to pass them along.

Holland-gardener, the easiest way to get pictures to show up in your post is to upload them to a photo hosting site, e.g. photobucket, and then copy the html code which appears below the picture into your post. It will look like a lot of letters and numbers but when you preview the message the picture will be there. You have already put your pictures onto Picasa, so I imagine there will be a html code on there which you can use.

Yes from picasa the instructions are very easy. On the right hand of the picasa image screen, there is a line that says link to this photo. Click on that, and embed image pops up. Choose an image size, then copy the html code. Paste into the gardenweb message box. When you hit preview message, your picture should show up in the preview. Hope this helps!

Welcome to wintersowing Holland-Gardener! You have a wonderful piece of land to create a living work of art.