I'm one who found the trench edge too much maintenance. To keep it looking nice and crisp, it needed work three times each season or soil washing down from the beds started to fill the trench and blur the edges. My case is a bit unusual since I'm disabled and use a walker for mobility. The trench was also becoming a hazard - if I walked too close to the edge and any of the the walker wheels dropped into the trench, I was apt to fall. The brick edging was a great relief for both maintenace and safety. We waited until we thought the beds were likely to stay pretty much stable in size and shape before we did the brick edge. We changed one the next year, which was a bit of a pain. The other thing I do - mainly in the backyard - is put a mulch path between the bed and the lawn so the grass is nowhere near the bed. The grass seems less inclined to invade the path and easier to remove - or mulch over - if it does.

Tanyuu, you could certainly do what you propose experimentally, and see how it worked for you, but it wouldn't be winter sowing as 'defined' by the methods typically used on this forum. How chilly does your greenhouse get - to work for the moist chill needed by many perennials, trees, shrubs to break seed dormancy it should be 40F or cooler. Sowing exposed to the elements eliminates the need to tend or water seedlings over winter. Once moistened and water breaches the seed coat, a seed will die if allowed to dry out again. We sow in regular mature-plant container mix/potting soil, not even seed starting soil for most of us. Did you plan to pot up into potting soil after germination if your ground is frozen and you can't plant? Simply put, we are mimicking mother nature - but using potting soil for best drainage and aeration, fluctuating temps (which can be beneficial to kick-starting germination), natural light, water/snow melt provided for us. The season begins on the solstice. I do have a few things I'll sow in late summer and Fall, those things that have seeds that are only briefly viable or will develop a deep dormancy that can take many months to germinate if seeds are allowed to dry will be sown as soon as ripe. Another group are the seeds that need a warm moist period before a chill before they will germinate - those I will Fall sow. However, the bulk of seeds are sown first day of winter (and that can translate to as soon after the holiday season as we have time for :)) Here is a link that might be useful: FAQs

One of my concerns about putting a vapor barrier down on the dirt floors in my old house's cellar has to do with the risk of creating a super-saturated zone right at the foot of my dry-laid walls (some rubble, some much more carefully selected and laid, but all w/o more than chinking mortar.) The vapor barrier, in my view, is there to stop the inexorable rising of water vapor from the soil. (It rises due to constantly changing atmospheric pressures that no one can do anything about.) Blocking it at the cellar-floor surface level won't stop it rising, but it could channel it all outward to the edges of the barrier. If the barrier is tightly sealed to walls (as it ought to be) then where does all that accumulated water vapor go? It seems to me it will create a lot of sogginess in the soil at a very bad place: where the foundation of my house rests on what I assume was undisturbed soil at the time of construction c 1845-ish. I think it's important to differentiate between free water that comes in during periods of high soil water or the result of poor local drainage from roofs, flooding, etc, and moisture that comes from rising soil moisture vapor. The free water part may be containable, managable, or mitigated, but soil moisture vapor is probably not something you can stop. Moisture arising from the soil in very old houses may be a natural phenomenon that we have lately defined as a problem, or that has become problematic because of material changes we have made to our buildings by installing central heat, insulation, double-glazing and even running water. It may also be that our expectations have changed to cause something previously deemed "normal" to be seen as a problem in need of action to eliminate. Before there was electricity and air-conditioning technology I doubt that people were much pre-occupied with removal of air-borne humidity by dehumidification. But the fact that we can do it, may now make us feel that we have to do it. I also disagree with the notion that keeping cellar rooms closed up during the warm months is the best course of action. I do see the logic that keeping warm, summer, moisture-laden air away from the soil-cool stones of a foundation avoids condensation on the walls. But I am less concerned with condensation coming from warm-air atmospheric moisture, than with venting soil moisture vapor to the outside of my building envelope. Old people around here who lived in old houses like mine have told me of the careful attention they paid to opening up the cellar and airing it out after the winter. Since most of them lived and worked on the farms they were at home to attend to this and paid close attention to the direction of the wind so to maximise the flow-through pathways by opening different windows, doors, etc. I practise this as much as possible and it results in a dryer cellar, even though I still get some condensation on the walls, especially in the early Spring. In the years when I can pay the most attention to active cellar ventilation, my cellar - and consequently the rest of my first floor - stay the driest. But it often takes multiple changes during the course of a day, and I have to have my whole outdoor cellar stairway open all the time (during the day, it's generally closed at night to avoid dew-laden night air), which many people couldn't or wouldn't do out of fear of intruders. My cellar walls show evidence of multiple layers of white-wash (quick-lime and water). This is an effective preventive, curative and aesthetic disguise for dampish stones. It does nothing to reduce humidity in the air (adds to it for a few days as it dries off), but it makes the cellar seem less grungy. I struggle with this issue, a good deal, because I think a lot of the best-advice from old house "experts" may not be the best for the building's long-term survivabality. Info dump: My house is located in northern, NY. Foundation as described above, otherwise timberframed, two-story, wooden structure with its original plaster walls intact. Wall cavities are mostly filled with two separate layers of backplastering on wooden lath. Two layers of 5/4" X 10" T&G sheathing with clapboards nailed on top. Slate roof. Still no central heat, though now only two modern, more-effective stoves rather the original 4-6. Electrified (but not in every room) just before WW II; minimal indoor plumbing installed in 1960. In short, a oddly long-term survival of 19th technology, which I am slow to alter. If you're going to put vapor barrier down, and going to the trouble of sealing it properly, you should use material specifically intended for the purpose, not construction poly. I haven't solved this problem to my satisfaction, yet. Lately, I have been thinking that I should undertake a more active course of observation (recording indoor and outdoor temps, humidity and wind direction and speed) along with a program of trial openings and closing to gather better information to form a more thought-out moisture vapor reduction program. (I expect this was all empirically known a hundred years ago, but even old timers now have forgotten the details, alas.) This summer has been dryer than normal so perhaps this would be a propitious time to start. There is a guy, an engineer, (located in eastern MA, I think) who owns an old house and he has basically sealed up his entire cellar walls and floors from within. I'm drawing a blank on his name, but a frequent poster, Worthy, often posts links to his work so if you search for Worthy's posts on this forum you should turn up the link. I have read this guy's writing on his website, but remain unconvinced that it's what I should do with my old building. I don't think he's a crank, or anything - and he may be right - but what he does is essentially non-reversible. That irreversability is what's stopping me. L.

Turtle, You can wash the soil out of your jar. It will be a very messy thing to do though. Your best bet for doing this would be to do it outside with a garden hose if that option is available to you. Otherwise set it in a large tub and fill it with water up to just above the jar and swish it around until enough soil comes out and the root ball softens up enough to squeeze it out of the opening. That's probably not as difficult as it sounds. Do NOT, what ever you do, let any of that soil go down the drain or you will cause all kinds of trouble! Take your time to do it right. And don't rush things. Your plant isn't about to drop dead so make sure you have everything you need to transfer it into a new pot(s)