Seed Starting January Garden Day – Zone6 Northeast Ohio

Spend a casual day in the greenhouse with me starting onions seeds and winter sowing a variety of herbs and flowers in milk jugs that will be kept outside up until spring time when they sprout. We are growing in Northeast Ohio near the Lake Erie coast, with the growing zone bordering on zone 6a, zone 6b, & zone 7a near the shoreline.

Learn more about seed starting:

Seed Starting Made Simple: Cups & Jugs DIY!

How to do WINTER SOWING | Garden in Winter! | Beginner Garden Series

DIY SEED STARTING for HOME GARDENERS!

Cold hardy plants to start in February #ohiogardening

Seed Starting Station | How to Grow Seedlings Indoors

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Hey Garden friends welcome back to bloom and wil Gardens if you’re new here my name is Alexa or Lex and today I’m doing some sea starting finally it is the end of January and it is 40° outside Fahrenheit in Northeast Ohio Zone 6B where I am located um I was Zone

6A forever up until a few months ago the agricultural zoning thing changed um but I’m Zone 6B now because I live right near Lake eie which acts kind of like a big insulator to the Lake Erie region um about like a 20 mile radius off the

Coast um if it doesn’t freeze over the lake then it kind of keeps the temperature warmer in this region so because of that um I am now in the zone 6B range so it is a warm actually 40° outside and it is about 60° in my Greenhouse here which it feels

Really good to be able to take off my coat and I can work in here and get um some seeds going I’m doing winter sewing method for a lot of herbs and flowers that I’m going to be growing this year and I’m doing some container starts as

Well for things like onions and celery and some other herbs that I’m going to be getting going in the house because they have a longer growing season and just need to get some things um moving along and I haven’t had a whole lot of motivation this month in January to

Start any seeds and years past I mean I am you know re rearing to go but this month I just haven’t really felt up to it I think a lot of it has to do um with just weather in general it’s been really cold and then it’s been snowing and I don’t know

This weekend it’s warmer so I feel like more um energized to get these seeds started and uh just going to kind of do casual Vlog today so I hope you follow along on our journey I started working on sewing onion seeds and I am going to be doing my

Onions um in my normal seed starting cups and Trays uh these are bootstrap farmer cups and Trays that I’m using um they are really strong and sturdy and if you’re looking to invest in any kind of long lasting seed starting supplies uh these bootstrap farmer ones I do

Recommend but onions they take a really long time to grow it’s about 110 days from the time you actually transplant them into the ground that it’s going to take for onions to grow for onions to grow to maturity so it’s really good idea if you’re a northern grower to start your

Onions in January to February and that that way you can get them transplanted into your Gardens like I usually transplant mine in mid to late April and that is because onions um Can tolerate some cooler weather so they’re fine to go Outdoors when there’s still some Frost happening um during that time

Frame so I’m doing these um long day onions and I just sprinkle like a pinch worth in every single one of these cups uh onions are okay if they have some close Neighbors in their seedling cups they don’t mind it too much and they’re really easy to pull apart when

You go to transplant them so I do kind of a heavier sewing with my onions uh just to make sure I get enough but these are good and that’s it onions are done doesn’t take too much effort for some of these things it can it can go pretty

Fast to start seeds I think when you’re doing seeds for like for the first time um it can be maybe a little overwhelming cuz there are different supplies and things that you need I mean I’ve started seeds with like Here oh my gosh everything’s falling over um I’ve started seeds for a few years just using these like plastic Solo cups punching some holes in the bottom and these work out just fine for seed starting but um I will say having like supplies that are like dedic like dedic uh actually made for

Like planting seeds purposefully um these are really nice especially like with these grooves it holds everything in place and I can move it around and it just makes the whole process a lot easier so over the years I would get um my supplies little by little because

Again they came get expensive if you buy a little bit at a time each year then it’s not so bad and actually I’m probably going to be getting another order of trays soon cuz I didn’t quite have enough last year um but yeah so we’ve got these little Groove trays at

The cup sit in and then I put it in one of these 1020 um deep trays so that way when I go to water I can fill this tray here with water and bottom water my plants that way and it makes makes this whole process much easier I can transport very

Nice and it’s all good my Greenhouse is a mess uh it’s like this every every winter and early spring CU at the end of the previous season I don’t really like putting stuff away but I do try to make a better practice of of picking up all my garden supply

Tools and pots and just get everything back in here um so that way I don’t ruin stuff that is meant to be kept indoors you know and uh yeah it is a little bit messy I don’t have the motivation today to really clean any of this um that’ll

Be a different time but I do have some more seeds in the house that I’m going to work on uh placing in the pots but I do need to fill up my pots first so I can carry that in and work on some other seeds I’m starting this

Evening um I think my celery seeds are in there and I do have some other varieties of onion seeds that I’m going to do and ashwagandha I bought this ashwagandha seedling last year from one of our local farms um Farm 153 in Jefferson Ohio they have really great

Stuff for nice people and they grow all kinds of really great unique herbs so I got this ashwaganda plant from them last year and I grew it all last season and I harvested the roots from it cuz that’s where all like the medicinal properties are in The Roots and it was like

Fantastic um when I make tea with it I do feel like a nice sense of like calming effect when I drink the tea and that’s what ashwag does it’s um an adaptogen and it helps you to feel calm and relaxed this has lots of anti-inflammatory properties so uh I

Save seeds from the plant that I grew and I’m going to attempt growing my own ashwaganda and hopefully I can get a lot of plants going so I can have a big space of ashwagandha and be able to harvest a big amount of the roots so um

I can continue making like teas and stuff but ashwagandha is a very Frost tender plant but it also takes a long time to grow and it’s going to take like I think I read 8 to 12 weeks you want to start those before you plan to put them

Outside and with it being late January now I feel like this is a good time to get those going so I’m going to do a good amount of [Applause] ashwaganda and like anytime you’re wanting to try out a new plant I know for me sometimes I’m like hesitant to buy seeds for

Something that I’ve never grown before cuz like I don’t know if I’ll like it I don’t know how the plant grows and it’s just you know a lot of the unknowns and what I find like I like to do is if there’s a new plant that I’ve never done

Before and a lot of this is like herbs and flowers I’ve done a lot of vegetables but um a lot of herbs and flowers I’m more so like getting into those um I like to buy them as seed Lans from farmers markets um or nurseries and

Just try and grow those plants that I buy that have already been started and that way I’m not like wasting money on seeds necessarily that I might have trouble like getting them to germinate I have just like a little bit more control over the situation and I don’t

Have like failure up front from not having these plants actually germinate and that way I can watch the plant grow get an idea of its growing habits um you know when Harvest time comes I can try it and see if it’s something that I even like and want to

Invest more time in you know trying to grow the next year and usually as well like I’m all about seed saving and when I do any type of new plant I like to try and save seeds from that as well that way I don’t have to actually buy any and

I don’t feel like the next year if I try to start those seeds and if they fail um I’m not really out any money cuz there are seeds that I had saved myself so really like when in doubt you can probably find most plants that you want

To grow at nurseries um or from farmers markets and I see more and more like places that you can get all kinds of started plants even like online through the mail I see a lot of people on Tik Tok that are like sending plants through the mail you order their started plan

And they send to you through the mail um I think Etsy a lot of people on Etsy do that too that’s nothing that I’ve ever tried to do is send a live plant through the mail I would I would need to really look into that to see if that was

Something I’d ever want to get into it sounds like a good idea but I just think of so much that can go wrong out of your control like when you send has send chicks through the mail baby chicks like there’s so much that can go wrong with

Those and that’s like an actual living breathing creature is not a plant just feel like that’s a tricky business to get into all right I really made a mess for myself with all these melt jugs on the floor you think I would be better prepared I’m glad I just got out here

Today cuz I’ve not been feeling really doing any of this but I think that happens in a lot of ways for a lot of things is like the that procrastination of just getting started cuz now that I’m out here I’m actually having fun being out here um

It’s warm in my Greenhouse it’s down to 57° now so not as warm as it was but you know it’s still feels good in here this bag of um potting mix smells like so fresh and natural and like you know just it smells like plants it’s really nice for

Row here with the blue cups are yellow onions and I like to do a different color for each row cuz then that kind of helps me differentiate what I’m growing um so I’ll probably do another row of onions down the pink the celery and the ashwaganda and fill this tray out like that

Saved all of the milk jugs I used last year from Winter sewing and they’re still fine I mean they don’t look super pretty but they’re good uh and I have a couple new ones so I’m going to cut these open and prepare these milk jugs um we don’t drink a ton

Of milk in our house mostly like almond milk and coconut milk so um we only had a couple but I did save the ones and I’ve done um two different videos now talking about winter sewing that I’ll link below that are you know more in depth and I mean you can

Use milk jugs but I’ve also used plastic containers like this um actually these worked better than the milk jugs for the plants that I grew in these last year where’s the lids and they had little Lids that go with them these are Boba containers that I got from my coffee shop down the

Street um that they didn’t that they were just going to throw out so um any type of container that’s plastic that you can have covered in some way and make like a little mini Greenhouse um you can do this winter sewing and I have in my bag here like

All kinds of herbs and flowers that I’m going to be doing because I don’t necessarily want to start all of those in my house I don’t have room to start all of those in my house and a lot of them need cold stratification to even germinate which is

When the seeds have to be in like a freezing temperature for a period of time um and I know if I put any seed packages in my refrigerator I’m going to forget it there so this works um pretty well and I definitely recommend this kind of seed starting method for anyone

Who doesn’t really have space indoors to dedicate towards growing plants um cuz you can leave these outside they’re not going to germinate while it’s still cold but the plants will um germinate like at their natural time so like a spinach seed for example will germinate probably in like mid to

Late March um whereas if you do like tomato seeds this method they’re not going to sprout until probably May um but either way like it’s good the plants actually are more hearty when they are grown and started outside directly cuz they’re already getting used to like that you know cold temperatures

Overnight to the high temperatures during the day and then like the little greenhouse effect that’s going on um you know makes it nice and hot and humid inside which helps speed up the germination process um so those plants are just like you know naturally getting acclimated to the

Conditions and once they germinate um at that point you can transplant them they don’t have to be hardened off which is also a nice thing any seeds that you start in your house you know those are in a very controlled environment those seeds are um those little seedlings have been

Baby and spoiled by your warm your warm house and the consistent light that it’s getting um um you know from any type of grow lights or something like that you’re using so any plants you start indoors you have to harden them off acclimate them witer sewn seeds like this they are

Already acclimated so that’s a really nice [Applause] perk [Applause] all right I have all of my jugs and containers filled with soil I got a pretty good collection of containers here that’s another thing like just got to add little by little little by little every season and

It’s not so terrible to kind of keep up with all of this so I got to count and see how many containers I actually have three four 18 all right so I can do 18 different types of seeds I don’t want to mix more than one type of seed per container cuz that

Will get uh confusing oh I broke my nail that’s why I don’t get nails done because I garden and may you guys seen those like videos going around like we’re gardeners we do this we’re gardeners we do that um we’re gardeners we don’t get our nails done because we’re gardeners and our

Hands are always in soil so why bother getting their nails done when they’re just going to break and get dirty anyways um all right so I’m going to look at my seeds that I brought out here and figure out for sure which ones we’re going to do so I got this slow bolt

Cilantro um this I hope will work more through like the cold more through the summer months it says that it’s Resistant um it takes time to bolt compared to the other so I definitely want to get this one in the ground um milkweed I actually did the milkweed already so that one’s done I have this Great Lakes crisp head lettuce I actually did this a direct so

In the garden so back in November I direct sewed a lot of seeds in my garden beds um I’ll link the video to that below because I was doing this experiment to see will the seeds I sew in November um germinate and sprout in the

Next spring um to see if I can like get an even more head start on planting my garden and essentially it’s just winter sewing so as long as the seeds that I planted in November don’t get eaten by any thing I think they’ll come up and I

Did a lot of different kinds of lettuce but um I going to just do a backup plan in case that doesn’t work out so I’m going to do this Great Lakes crisp head lettuce so that’s two I have this cellway golden chamomile I grew this last year this was really

Nice and lovely I think the plants that I grew will come back um it is a perennial in zones 3 through 7 so I I think that the ones I have will come back but I’m just going to do more cuz I really like chamomile for Te and same with this

Fennel does this one say the fennel doesn’t say if this is an annual or not or which zones it’s in but this fennel is also very nice so that’s four um I’m going to do parsley now parsley would probably do better if I direct sewed it in the garden bed and

Left it um but I don’t have any place prepared right now to sew parsly seeds so I’m just going to do the winter sewing and if they germinate I will attempt to transplant those and hope that they grow um this seed pack is from 2019 so I’ll probably just do the whole

Pack but these ones do say that um they do have to be cold stratifi they have to be in the refrigerator for for several weeks to germinate and so the uh Earth will be our refrigerator this time two three four five okay so that’s five um I

Have this Vera lavender I’m going to hold on that to make sure I have room same with some other ones here this blackeyed susen Vine This I couldn’t get to grow last year so I’m going to try again on that one is this empty this is baby’s breath which is

Very lovely to add into containers and it grew super easy through the winter sewing last year um apparently I had an empty seed packet so I’ll have to get that luckily that is able it’s called um saila is like it’s plant name it’s also known as

Baby’s breath but um this is uh I got this this packet from Dollar General so this is one that you can find it’s really really beautiful little dainty flowers um I’m do Cosmos I have seeds for this Cuban Pea Vine that were gifted to me I’m not sure

What that looks like but I think it’ll be nice uh soan soan it is like a Native American perennial it’s a green headed cone flower um I got this from Gallow at Harbor Gardens in the Shula Harbor um and I tried growing them last year and I

Didn’t have success so but I didn’t winter sew them I just kind of scattered them in the garden so I’m going to be more intentional this time one two three four comfrey I do have a comfrey plant but I wanted to do more comfrey that’s

10 uh okay so this I have it called poofy fluff top grass ornamental and there is this ornamental grass that grows along the pond where I work and I thought it was so pretty and I would love to have this big ornamental grass with these big poofy plumes and I don’t

Know the variety of it or anything but when they all went to seed in the fall I um collected several of the seeds and made myself a little envelope and took it home with me um does anyone else uh steal plant seeds from public places or private

Places you know what I’m glad I took the seeds when I did because literally I don’t know within the next couple days after that um the grounds Keepers cut all of those plants down to the the roots to the soil um cuz they were just doing like their fall maintenance and

You know that’s just what they do um they just cut everything back for the year and it will regrow but I’m like oh I’m so glad that I saved these cuz they were doing their fall cleanup work um I have uh poppies so my friend uh David

Gave me some poppy seeds so we’re going to try those and those do need cold stratification um I also have more milkweed that I saved from the grounds at work they have really lovely fields of wild flowers um so I’m going to just do some of these ones as well okay so that’s

15 what else is in my bag oh I’ve got merry Golds I just wrote on here they’re called Big Blue merry Golds I don’t know uh I bought some merry gold seed Lanes last year and I don’t know what variety they were but they were amazing I wrote on here um

It’s a short shorter variety but very pretty and smells Divine so I definitely want to do a good amount of Merry gold seeds uh oh yeah I have spinach seeds so that’s always is a good one and then what else do I have amaran and zenas neither of these I really have

To do today those amaranth and Zenia if I direct sew those in may they will still Thrive and grow very fast so I don’t really feel um like I need to do that oh feny Greek I do want to do more feny Greek I tried this last year and it did grow um

But it wasn’t as like Lush and robust as I want so I wanted to try that more again I’ve got this hsip and toothache plant okay if you haven’t ever grown this toothache plant let me tell you it’s a it’s a very interesting feeling so these little yellow flowers

You would um pop those off the plant and if you had a toothache or like your mouth hurt you would like suck on it and so I was curious and I tried one and it was the most odd feeling it made my mouth kind of go numb and then the saliva I

Was just like salivating uncontrollably um and I just kind of like keep spinning it out it was very interesting um but I saved a bunch of the the the flower pods um you know to keep in like my herb cabinet and the bag that I had them in apparently there was moisture

And they all got moldy so I need to do more of these what’s my seed situation in here not a ton of seeds so I’ll probably do a small container of those and then this hiip is uh it’s an herb it says attracting all pollinators with a scent that is a

Combination of licorice basil and lemon you know I’ve actually recently seen um a verse in the Bible I think it’s in Psalms I just read it the other day but it said something about being cleansed with hup and I was like oh that’s interesting I actually know what that is

Is um so I do have some of this in my herb garden now but I would like to get some more going I do have some seeds there I also have this St John’s wart I like have like four tining seeds in here I don’t know what I’m going to

Do with this yet um but this is supposed to be used to help treat um symptoms of insomnia depression and anxiety um all of those things I I do have quite often um so you know it’s good to try different medicinal herbs just to see how they work with some symptoms you

Have and I’m trying to learn more about this um so all right so those are all the ones that we’re going to be adding to these jugs here and each one uh will get a tag because I will not know what any of these are once they’re planted I have no idea

And I won’t know until like may all right so we’ll just write on this and we’ll do the first one lettuce great legs I’m just going to do the whole packet it’s like half a pack I’ve tried to grow this all right and that’s it Lettuce is

One that I don’t I don’t plant lettuce very deep I don’t I will tap it in a little bit but I’m not going to cover lettuce it usually does better when it can have some exposure to sunlight containers I have a nice little lip I can put on top

Too cilantro is a rock star um I don’t know at least in my garden it it without fail comes up back every year um and it Reeds All Over the Garden every year um I actually had a bunch of cilantro plants that I um cut branches for and I had them hanging in

This greenhouse um like this and I just took a bunch of them before I came in here today cuz they were like in my way and I just started scattering them all on the side of my greenhouse and I was just like well we’ll just have cilantro everywhere um so

Cilantro I don’t know it it likes to come back and that it comes up very early like I want to say early March um it’s one of the first things that come up out of the ground um so I’m just going to write on the side as well uh Salon

Tro so I just have to hope that um no Little Critters come in and eat any of this that’s the benefit of having a little lid on top but I don’t have a lid and I don’t have extra plastic so we’ll see how that does I’m going to

Work on all of this for a while and I’ll see you at the end of all this so I have all of my pots done labeled and they’re going to go outside now for so when you put your jugs outside you want them exposed to the elements you

Don’t want them like under a roof or anything so these will get snowed on rained on freeze off frea but the plants hopefully will still germinate I had good success last year when I did this oh I’m so cold all right I’m inside now now and my

Hands are filthy and I am cold it ended up getting down to 39° outside and my Greenhouse got down to 50 and I was getting very cold but I got all of the uh winter sewing done I had got my onion seeds started um so I just put my

Tray on my grow station and tonight I’m going to finish the rest of my onion seeds and celery and ashwaganda and then I keep the lights off until those start to germinate then I’ll turn the lights on and uh then it’s grow time and that shelf will end up getting completely

Filled with plants I’ve got lots of like kitchen stuff on it right now so this time of year is when I have to try and figure out where am I’m I going to put on my kitchen stuff so I can get my uh plant area going but we’ll start with

One tray and I will work my way up from there thanks for hanging out with me today in my green house it was actually nice to get out there and get my hands in the soil again and do some gardening um so it’s kind of actually help me get

More into the gardening Spirit um so I’m excited to continue to be starting se’s and if you want to hang out with me on the next seed starting day make sure to subscribe and follow along let me know what plans you are starting soon if you’ve never grown anything by seed

Before and you have questions leave a comment below letting me know what your questions are and I will be making a video all about um seed starting and the questions that you all have and I’ll be answering those for you so make sure to leave a comment

Let me know what you are growing from seed this season or what your seed starting questions are I hope you all have a great day do something you love and we’ll see you next time bye