Jaggudada, gotta put my 2c worth in. I always get a jump start planting warm season plants in the containers indoors. You can easily gain a couple weeks or more head start that way. When they are up, I take the lids off and put them in a protected spot with morning & late afternoon sun on the end of my back porch. The plastic jugs serve as mini-greenhouses in cool temps. I keep an eye on the forecast & bring them indoors whenever the temp is expected to drop below 32 at night. Our days now are 50's and 70's. So far I have only had to bring them in twice and take them out the next morning. I've got some decent sized plants coming along. I never follow hard fast rules when it comes to sowing, WS or indoors. I use the information on this forum that is applicable for my specific purpose & ignore the rest. For instance, I've read a lot about putting pots out because snow is expected or waiting to sow during the solstice & other general practices on this forum. Not saying its a bad thing but, we don't get much snow as a rule, so there you go. I have always "winter sowed" my shrub & perennial seeds that need a period of cold in early fall. Since we have mostly sunny days in winter, I grow other perennials on a big table by a large sunny window from seeds sown in fall. I am able do that successfully here, so I do. If I'd winter sowed them, they wouldn't even be up yet. I have 4" pots of agastache, Gregg salvia, Texas lantana, Salvia regla, Rosemary, Turk's cap and a few other hardy perennials with good root systems ready to plant. Basically, I treat different seeds different ways for reasons. I don't treat warm season seeds in the same way as those needing cold stratification. Spring sowing is not winter sowing by my definition. We get can hot and dry here as early as late spring so a head start is always a good idea. You really cannot set down rules that apply to all people in all places, so if you need an early start, go ahead & sow them inside in a warm spot & take them out when they germinate if you think your weather will work with you. Mid 30's haven't hurt me a bit here & I'm way ahead of the game.

Lol, OK, I hope so too! I think I must have gotten the pipe cleaner closure idea from you in some other post? Pretty soon I'm going to move all my jugs to a patio table which has a top made of this lattice/mesh-type of metal. Hopefully that will help keep slugs from creeping in the milk jugs...especially the ones that aren't sealed with duct tape. Slugs seem to love our yard...

I leave the tops on until they sprout, bec. leaving them covered and warm, they should sprout sooner. Once you have sprouts - it depends on what you have - for example zinnia is tender, frost will kill it. So I open them during the day when the temps rise, and cover them at nite or when the temp dips toward or below the frost line. you could alternatively increase the number of vents. More sprouts die from being cooked than being frozen. I don't know what temps are in yr zone now, but temps inside the little 'greenhouse' can be 20 degrees higher than outside.

Micki, a problem with a large 'container' like you describe is you will have different type plants germinating at different times, the requirements/hardiness won't be uniform and cover on/cover off could be a problem ... Moving the seedlings becomes more of an act of transplanting too than with breaking off a 3-4" deep chunk of soil with roots that you've removed from a milk jug or other type pot. I've sown a few things that require a warm moist period before a prolonged chill in order to germinate - other than that, nothing. I don't know where you are, but it's not that cold here yet. Things could germinate to be lost to a winter storm later. Winter sowing traditionally begins on the solstice, Dec 21, although many of us can be busy that week and while we may do a token container, the bulk of winter sowing could be after Christmas and holidays. By good soil ready to go, do you mean a soilless mix formulated for use in containers? That seems to work best.