Last year the lettuce seed got washed out twice by heavy rains. I thought they germinated better indoors if they were covered? I put domes on the flats yesterday, the lettuce got some afternoon sun so a little condensation - think I'll need to take the dome off this afternoon? But the seed is planted so shallow, I don't want it to dry out. I do have a south-facing window by the basement door, I can move them down there if you think that's better but not in the next week - they might freeze. Or since my racks are still set up from trying to ripen tomatoes, I can set up grow lights on those (farther from door), but I don't know if lettuce needs *that* much light before it germinates. I really should have planted peppers yesterday - hard to believe our last frost is only a little over 2 months away (I hope). Winter weather advisory tonight - tomorrow's high will be 17, low 6 with wind chills below zero. Sat might be warm enough (though rainy) to melt more snow and seed more flats out in the garage - I'll do the peppers then. Maybe tatsoi too, depending on what the 10-day forecast says. Right now looks like snow early next week, waiting to see what the first day of spring will be like!

I'll be happy to make a trade with you. I have five items on your want list: Ugly Ripe, Red Calabash, Jelly Bean, Chives, and I can go with 10 Black Krim seeds too. I'm interested in: 1. Green zebra 2. Copia 3. Old Ivory Egg tomato 4. Amur Tiger tomato 7. Cantalope - Hale's Best 8. Arugula - Roquette 9. detroit red beets Check my list to see if there is anything else you'd like. Thanks!

Well, if I'm potting them up in 2-3 weeks, I'll have nothing but time then, started sweet peppers yesterday and got the cells filled for hots today (ran out of time to get seeds in before dinner - family was waiting for me). Next weekend of so it's broccoli and tomatoes. Then it's the long wait until spring when I can plants peas and potatoes. We did have a lot of snow melt yesterday, and it must have gotten warmer than the 43 I saw before I went out to the garage to plant, but high today is supposed to be 25 (it's 22 now), 30 tomorrow before warming up mid-week again. Hate these wild rollercoaster temps. Moved the trays of greens to the basement, lights on the lettuce and kale and only a little from shelf above on the spinach (only 3 germinated so far, maybe 67 was too warm for them). I'll pot them up when they get first true leaves. I tried Tom Thumb last year but all that came up after seeding twice was red salad bowl, and not that much of it. Anybody try covering the bed with thin burlap (enough light)? I did that with carrots until they germinated last year - at least they didn't get washed out. Though they seemed to mysteriously disappear after I took the burlap off - I really didn't have to thin - and they kept disappearing.

Annie, come on over to the Wintersowing forum, you'll find tons of tips from "all us oldies, that have been WS for years now. One of the key important things is to have good soil in those containers. Don't use cheap soil. things like hyponex, or top soil. You end up with some lovely "soil bricks" but no germination. Don't use seed starting mix or anything like garden soil from your own yard or miracle grow garden soil. Seeds won't germinate in them. Don't use any commercial potting mix that has the soil retention pellets in them either. It will soak up soil like a sponge and rot your seeds. I'm one that uses miracle grow potting mix for all my containers and can vouch for the bad soil as well. My first 50 containers, 7 years ago, turned to bricks and not a seed germinated. The remaining 900 containers where done with miracle grow potting mix and everyone germinated. Since then I have had near 100% see germination every year. The real problem is dealing with whatever mother nature wants to throw at us, and being New Englanders, we all know she will throw everything at us and there is no way around it. Since starting to WS 7 years ago, there is barely a plant I have purchased, as I really have no need for them. There is always way more seedlings to plant than I have room for and never fear that if I don't' like something, I will pull it out and give it away. There is always something else to plant in it's place. Marlene, you are going to freeze your gizzards off doing you WS outside in the cold. Terrene is correct too. You will have frozen soil, if it is left outside, and you have to have access to running water to get the soil wet before planting the seeds and putting them out. My kitchen is my WS room. My back door is right there, and as I get the containers done, out the back door they go, out to the backyard inside a chain link fenced area. All containers go directly on the ground and then "mother nature" does her thing, and believe me she has done some real surprises. Yet those WS seedlings are pretty, pretty hardy. I've had them survive floating in 12 inches of rain as the ducks swam beside and around them, attacks of various critters, and they just sprout new stems and branch out before I get a chance to prune any of them. Just as long as we don't get a repeat of last years summer, here are some pics of what you can get from WS. The pics are from 2008 garden beds Almost all annual bed. dianthus firewitch on either side of bird bath, candylily and a perennial lupin in the bed. Ends up looking like this from WS seedlings WS Lupin from 4 years ago foxglove seedlings, hardy ones Turned into this the next year Herb bed from seed, includes, oregano, sage, parsely, 4 types of basil, rosemary, tarragon, dill, chives, garlic chives, tomato seedlings all end up like this Fran