You'll be able to tell. Since they are in what you can consider a mini greenhouse in which the vent is on the top, you can check in each day to monitor the progress. The more consistently warmer it gets, the more you would need to enlarge the opening on the top. In addition, the more you need to make sure the soil is moist and not dried out. But this is a VERY important point. Do not put the containers in full sun as it does get warmer. You will bake your sprouts! Dappled shade works best. But it all really depends on the plant you have in the container. There are people who winter sow and do not plant out their plants until the following year since they have so many plants sprouting from this method. The sooner you plant them out, the better. I planted out my perennials from their containers into a holding bed. Within a month, the sprouts grew more rapidly than I expected. For example, I grew butterfly bush from seed using this method. Two containers, spread seed throughout on top of three inches of soil. Put more soil, about a 1/4" to 1/2" on top of the seeds. Placed outside in February. By April I had sprouts. Put them in the ground in June, on a cool shady day. By September I had 15 six foot tall butterfly bushes. Basically, winter sowing toughens up the seedlings and promotes a vigorous and deep root system. Check out the winter sowing forums here and ask questions. The people are friendly and will give you the advice you will need. Plus, it is addicting. I'll stop ranting now. I hope this helps!

Are you using regular florescent tubes, or the grow-light tubes? There is a difference, and for seedlings, you need the grow-light ones. Sorry but no. This claim has come up here before and the "you need" part of it simply isn't correct. Thousands of growers, professionals included, use nothing but regular, plain, inexpensive 4' fluorescent tubes to grow seedlings quite successfully. There is no need to spend the extra $$$ on special grow bulbs. The goal is green growth only, not the blooming and fruiting that require the grow bulb spectrum. Now of course you can invest in them if you wish. They certainly aren't going to hurt anything. But there is no NEED to use them. Dave

Ashley: Carrots are notoriously slow to germinate. I plant them in my garden each year. It can take up to 15 days before they are up and visible. Be patient when growing carrots. I also find they are real slow growing for me once they do germinate for the first 1/2 of the season. I often wonder if they are going to amount to anything, then they always surprise me with how much root and shoot growth I get in August/September when they start sizing up nicely. Everything I planted in my garden in late may is growing well, big and looking good except my carrots. They just sit there for weeks on end and now are just starting to get some height. I know by Late September they will be good for harvest. I think eating carrots fresh picked are truly amazing in flavor. While they do store well for me in the refrigerator, nothing beats eating them very shortly after picking. Such a nice intense carrot flavor.

Tomatoes are resilient. Unless you're rough and breaking roots, when exactly you pot up isn't going to make or break your season. As for potting medium, etc. it doesn't make a huge difference. I've used seed starter, I've used Miracle Gro given to me by a relative who had no use for a big bag of it, etc. As long as it's not soil but a mix for indoor/container plants, it should work. The big issue with non-seed-starter mixes is that they might have fungus gnats in them, which can wreak havoc on your seedlings by eating their roots and carrying pathogens that cause damping off and become a real annoyance in the home. I always have water with mosquito bits or mosquito dunks soaking in them to use to water all my indoor plants, and I have no fungus gnat problems and haven't had anything at all damp off since. Not even notorious seedlings like basil. Re: fertilizer--if they look like they need it, I fertilize. If not, I don't. I find that I don't really need to if I use something like Miracle Gro. If I use sterile seed starter, I usually end up fertilizing lightly when I pot up with a dilute water soluble fert. I start off my seeds in 1.5" x 1.5 "x 2" cells, then when they're about at the point where the second set of true leaves is starting to come in, I pot them up into SOLO cups and, weather permitting, start to harden them off. They grow really quickly during the hardening off process so that they're a totally decent size when I finally plant them out. Sometimes, if things in the garden aren't on schedule, they live outdoors in the SOLO cups for a little longer. But that's when things are going according to plan. When they're not, I've planted out 2" plants with one true leaf and I've planted out plants pushing a foot and a half, and they've all done fine. Tomatoes may be prima donnas when it comes to disease, but they're tough little plants otherwise and fairly forgiving.