Here is the instruction on my seed packet for true comfrey:

"sow in cool soils of early spring with germ in 30 days as soil warms. Or, give 30 days refridgeration in moist soil in a sealed plastic bag or glass jar and then sow in the garden or in pots"

This seemed to call for winter sowing! Which I have never done and haven't quite understood....

I have a gallon plastic bottle. It is whitish - not clear is that ok? I cut the top off - forming a bottom for the soil and a top for the "cold frame" part, add soil, moisten, and put in the seeds. pop the top on, place outside.

Now my questions: keep the round bottle top on? Seal the top to the bottom with tape? At what outdoor temps do I remove the bottletop?

Any other points to make this a success? 10 seeds were $4, so I need to get it right pretty quickly!

I was going to put 2 seeds into the bottle for winter sowing, try 2 in the fridge per directions, and 2 out of doors in march. that leaves me 4 seeds for next year if I completely fail....

Thanks so much for any advice!!

Do you think that an opaque whitish bottle is ok? If you hold it up to a lamp, you can see the light even through 2 layers, so I'm thinking only 1 layer against the sun is fine...

Any thoughts?

Thanks~

Welcome to our community and we stand by ready to help and applaud when you get great germination on those seeds.

Nancy

My comfrey is out in it's little container....I will see what comes of it!

I may well do more now I've got the hang of it....I've loads of seeds....lettuces, spinach, brassicas, that likely would do well. This may well be a better venue for the parsley than trying to sprout it indoors in the usual way....

With parsley and basil I get a nice bushy little clumps that we call "hunk-o-seedlings" (HOS) which can be divided and planted. They grow into large plants by mid-summer. Several of these herbs are host plants for the Black Swallowtail butterfly which I have raised for the past 2 years.

I added a jug with the parsley, and then 1 each of chives and garlic chives - wow it sure felt good to actually feel started out of doors (have some containers inside too...), and while I found preparing the cantainers to be fairly labor inensive, that they are practically "set" until transplant seems phenomenal, as compared to the indoor starts....

Will see how this turns out....I am very hopeful! I'll enter in my meager tally on the zone wars.....not sure if I want to do too many till I feel more secure in my technique - but likely will do about 5-6 more, as I have the containers.....just need to decide which crops to sow....

Welp - I was pretty worried with the crazy weather, and if I neglected them if they got too hot then too cold etc. etc.

But success!! lots of parsley and chive sprouts. 2 out of 3 comphreys came up (3 seeds into the jug). garlic chives, just 1 think the seeds were old as they should be similar to reg chives and everything was the same!

With the early spring, never got to do more, just these 4 jugs.

Will definitely do more next year!

Thanks for all your help and encouragement winter sowers! Sow on!