It's my first year WSing but I can say definitively that IT WORKS!! I have multiple containers with little green and not so little green sprouts with more on the way. What's the worst thing that happens if you don't get sprouts? You try again next winter!

What to do while you wait?

Glance at all the housework you've been neglecting, then head for the bathtub and while nurturing yourself in that warm soothing pleasant smelling water, contemplate your next plan of attack re:winter sowing. For me it would be...

... when to get more soil since I'm running out. Man, that bale of Promix didn't last long this year!
... when to head to a local nursery which features Renee's seeds. Must remember to get the VISA out of the freezer for that trip, eh?!
... when to start taking another patch of lawn out. The snow is nearly gone so it's time to start laying down cardboard and used coffee grounds and seaweed and shredded leaves.
... find a bit more time to keep training DH to do this housework stuff. Concentrate on the folding of laundry this week.

I think you all get where this is going, and it surely isn't in the housework department - at least for me!!

Get more containers ready and sow more seeds. : )

Linda, I was just looking over my packets of lettuce seeds today. ; )

Pat

Heads up newbies, I WS lettuce seeds on Feb.10, they are up already and just looking so cute, :)
Alberta

Lettuce lettuce lettuce...and spinach too...those greens were my first sign that I wasn't crazy. And I was harvesting green as early as late April...way ahead of anyone else I knew. And I live in snow country, with a last frost date late May, I consider that an achievement!
And I hear you about tending to what you neglected while WSing...I need to get there, at some point.

More advice...
1. plan what tropicals you'd like to Spring/Summer Sow (I usually SS them to stay outside in the summer, then bring inside in the winter...my Bay Laurel and Gardenia from SS two years ago are still alive.
2. Plan where the babies are going to go-- although no matter how much I plan, once the green-wave starts, it's mostly "plunk and run".
3. Do whatever you can think of indoors now...because once the wave starts, you'll have no time for anything but transplanting.
4. Make sure you have slug bait, and whatever other artillery you need to protect your babies from critters.
5. Plan your weeding strategy.

L

I'm trying to figure out where I'll put all the WS babies. I have a big new bed ready and a smaller one out back. I don't know why I can't make myself draw out a diagram of where things will go. It would help. And I'm thinking of enlarging another bed - not done yet but one of these days! And there is an old bed that is going to need some renovation. I need to move out a lot of old plants that are not producing so there will be some room. So I do a lot of "looking" - you know, when you stand there and stare at the flowerbeds...mental pictures flickering.

linda..I have NOTHING ready outside. No new beds...except a bulb bed I filled in the fall...but I may plunk a few flowers in it this Spring anyways....

I AM planning my sheetmulch materials list... 15..no 20....yards of organic compost to start.....

Sigh...

looked at weather for next 10-15 days....supposed to get into low teens tonight, THEN 10-15 days from now, down into low teens again, with 30's and 40's between times. I worry my seeds will start sprouting, only to be blasted end of March

I think the best thing to do while you wait is do those garden diagrams that lindakimy doesn't want to do, and start deciding where things will go! Then you won't have to do as much plunking.

zengeos, if you just make sure you have some plastic sheeting, a tarp, or old blankets/sheets, you can always play it safe and cover the seedlings for the night. I believe Trudi says the survivors in unprotected jugs are tougher and will do better in the garden, but a lot of us just can't stand to lose the babies.

Zengeos,
Solving the "I don't have beds prepared" problem.
Let me preface to say I've only been gardening since I started WSing 4 years ago. I'm no pro, no expert, no vet.
But this is what I did and it worked famously.
It's basically a lazy lasagna gardening:

1. Lay down cardboard ASAP. Let it take advantage of your late Winter snows, early Spring rains...then you don't have to wet it down yourself. It's amazing how quickly the worms start working once that darkness is there (and protecting the ground from the moisture evaporating).

2. When it's time plant, put down a layer of manure-kitchen scraps-whatever-you-got organic matter. Doesn't have to be too thick in this case (with lazy-lasagna). You can add to it through the season and in the fall in prep for next season.
3. Put down potting soil on top of the organic stuff. If you don't have a lot, just concentrate on the one little area you are going to plant in immediately. Make sure the depth is enough that the seedlings won't touch the manure if that's the organic matter you used.

4. Plant your seedlings. You can do it the same day...the same hour. I have. And I've had no problems.

When I have more time in the summer, I usually will amend the soil in that area some more, and apply the layers of medium more thoughtfully in the fall. But when I need a quick fix, this "lazy" method has worked great for me. I turned the area where an above-ground pool was into a garden this way, with very little work, and done within days of planting (and that was all sand underneath in that area!)

--Also, don't forget containers...big pots and window boxes. Sometimes, I have just put a bunch of overgrown seedlings into big pots on my porch as a "holding bed". Sometimes they looked so good in there when they started blooming, I kept them there for the whole season.

-- and on the sprouts...that's why I don't even look at the containers until I can walk the ground consistently without any snow and without a heavy coat on. I don't want to know what germinated early. There's always seeds in there that wait. They know when to sprout.

Linda

Plan? Diagrams? Nooo..... just plunk and run.

When the snow is gone and the yard not too muddy to walk, I'll start prepping beds- cutting back last years flowers, or pulling, and chopping much of it into smaller pieces and put on top as mulch to rot there with the current leaf mulch. The rest will go into my compost pile.

Fluff leaf mulch with a rake.

Re-trench and re-define edges of beds. Pull weeds.

Remove and transplant emerging perennials and volunteers.

Bait all beds with sluggo and set slug traps as soon as soil temp is holding at 40 degrees.

Flip current compost, spread if finished.

I'll also sow my tender stuff soon, within a few weeks.

By the time I get all this stuff accomplished, it will be time to plant out.

Karen

Linda, I plan to do sheet mulching...half way between your technique and full lasagna gardening.....lay down some newspaper...then manure and coffee grounds, then 3-4 inches of compost then newspaper for weed prevention, then straw to make it look better, and plant away.

I hope to get 12 beds made in this way...each bed appx 4 x 20-25