seedissue

Valentine's Day, Sugar Snow, Seed, and NARGS...

It's Valentine's Day. Hearts, chocolates, and lingerie aren't the only things that make the blood pump faster. It's seed sowing time.

My day dawned with a couple inches of "sugar snow" on the ground and a face-blistering storm of it swirling outside. Sugar snow is the term I coined for the fine, sugar-like form of ice crystal that sometimes falls instead of the flakes most people associate with snow. It's a completely different experience, but it's still snow so it was nice to be inside.

This time of year is always seed sowing time and the process just isn't complete unless the weather outside is miserable. We just about qualified today.

I spent the day sowing and now have over 250 separate accessions of seed in pots with more to be sown. It's an exercise that never gets old.

I'd tell you exactly how I do it, but The North American Rock Garden Society has a SPECIAL seed sowing issue coming out this summer (you've still got time to join--it's a great society for the serious gardener, and anyone who's becoming serious about plants). I've got a long(ish) article in it describing the process and lots of other people who know more than I do are writing as well.

Join NARGS and get the special issue for everything you ever wanted to know about sowing seed.

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