So many gardeners start seeds indoors over the winter—from vegetables and flowering annuals for the coming season to perennials that will fill their gardens for seasons to come. From elaborate greenhouse setups to jerry-rigged shelves with lights in a basement and sunny windowsills, these gardeners use cel-paks and milk cartons to start growing their favorite plants to add into the garden as the weather warms. I love this tradition and often take part in it, but I have a different favorite form of seed starting. I do it at the same time of year but, to my mind, it is more fun—the direct sowing of seeds that require or benefit from exposure to cold temperatures to break dormancy and germinate.
My favorites are a variety of forms of annual poppies, perennial columbines, and nigella species, such as love-in-a-mist. These seeds all benefit from exposure to the cold, which helps the embryonic plants break dormancy and push through their seed coats. Small-seeded species such as poppies and nigella do best at or near the surface of the soil, where light will also help them to germinate. Unlike the elaborate setups—the aforementioned basement or windowsill installation plus, ideally, a little bottom heat from a warming mat for tomatoes and peppers—my method involves simply sprinkling seeds on the ground where they will grow and eventually flower.
I often save the seeds of poppies and columbines in the fall and then, as the winter comes to its end, I sprinkle the seeds around the garden. Some gardeners spread the seeds while there is still snow on the ground, as the combination of water and cold helps the seeds to imbibe water and expand and burst through their seed coats as the weather warms. From there, the seedlings take in the heat of the sun, using their young leaves to photosynthesize and put on new growth. I usually try to do this as early as possible, but this year I did not manage to get out there before the snow melted, so now I am hurriedly spreading them about with the hope that there is enough cold weather (and moisture) to give them the boost they need to get growing. If you are truly concerned about the seeds getting the cold they need, you can place them in damp paper towels in a Ziploc in the refrigerator for a few weeks, though it is harder to sow the wet seeds. (Many gardeners often mix the seed with sand to help distribute the seeds more evenly on the soil, as the small seeds can be difficult to sow evenly.)
I know many gardeners beat themselves up when they miss the window to start tomato and pepper seeds indoors, and I am unabashedly embarrassed that I could barely make the deadline for direct sowing this year. I will blame it on the news cycle and cross my fingers as I wait to see the tiny silver leaves of opium or breadseed poppies break through the soil in the weeks ahead.
This year, I am also sowing a lot of seed of Nigella sativa—the culinary relative of love-in-a-mist—that I was able to purchase in bulk last summer in the spice market in Istanbul. I hope to have it fill in the spaces between perennials in the border and remind me of my time on the Turkish Straits. Like the breadseed poppies from the same region of the world, the seeds of nigella will be good both for baking and for sowing into the garden again next year, provided they have time to produce their seedheads by season’s end. And, hopefully, next year I will be less distracted by the news, will get them into the ground a little bit earlier, and will feel a little more on schedule at the start of the season.
And just when I thought I might be sowing too late, snow falls this evening, giving my seeds just what they need. Maybe I should be watching the weather as well as the news.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
