I have great germination with wintersowing poppies. The past 2 years, I wintersow them in nursery pots. I tend to plant too many seeds (so tiny!) in pots, so I take a shovel and "scoop out" 1/3 of the plants and repot (or you could plant in the garden)...I keep mine in pots and place them in the garden where I need pops of color. I didnt have any problem with transplanting some of the pot into another....poppies have long tap roots, but if you do it early, you should be fine.
Direct sowing, I have read alot of people do it, but between winds and heavy rains, among other things, the seeds would get washed away or displaced. I like the pots because I can control/see germination.
If you're not familiar with wintersowing, see Wintersown.org or
http://www.agardenforthehouse....
The latter was a favorite site of my my first year....pictorial 'how to'
