Thanks Mvespa for the suggestion. No I hadn't given it any liquid fertilizer yet as I thought I should wait until there was more growth. But I will give it a try. In Mass, we've had cold, rainy weather and we've had to run the heat until recently. May be if I give it a little fertilizer and we have warmer temperatures it will grow. I guess I was discouraged that one of them rotted. I have always been fascinated with these plants and when I saw the bulbs I thought I'd give them a try without a big investment if they proved difficult to grow.

Jo, I don't winter sow tomatoes, so someone else will have to suggest how you deal with them now that they've sprouted. No, your tomatoes are not confused---they are performing exactly as they are biologically designed to peform. Tomato seeds don't "know" when to sprout intellectually, but rather they simply sprout when the soil temperatures reach the right range, assuming they have enough moisture to induce germination along with the soil temp. Since it has warmed up early this year, the right temps for seed germination are a bit earlier than usual. To the tomatoes, it doesn't really matter if the calendar says December or Febuary or April....they will germinate when the soil is warm enough, provided it is moist. (In very, very dry soil they either won't germinate or they'll germinate and die soon thereafter.) If they were mine and I had them in vented containers, I'd leave the containers closed if the venting was cooling them off well enough. If I thought it was too hot and sunny, I'd open then up during the heat of the day and close them up a couple of hours before sunset so enough heat would build up inside to keep them warm all night long in case the temps border on being too cold. Remember that your containers are like little mini-greenhouses protecting the young seedlings. If I had wintersown tomatoes that had sprouted this early, I wouldn't move them inside but I'd throw a heavy blanket over the containers on nights the temperatures are going to get down near freezing. Moving them inside would sort of negate one of the benefits of wintersown seeds---that the plants are well-adapted to outdoor temperatures and light levels. Once you start moving them inside, you lose that advantage. I hope someone who actually does wintersows tomatoes can answer you questions about what to do with them because it is easy to say what I'd do with them, but since I don't wintersow them, it is a hypothetical answer to your question. I only wintersow a few flowers and herbs, generally only those that need cold stratification and, since they need cold stratification they don't germinate too early anyway or, if they do, they are pretty cold-hardy types by nature. You might check the wintersown website to see what they suggest. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Wintersown.org

At earthbox dot com you can buy just the container set (without the wheels and trellis system) for about $30 each plus shipping. There are discounts for quantity orders. I rig my own supports with $5 towers from Lowes and they work fine. The larger tan ones are great. They are called EarthTainers and you make these yourself. Find instructions at Raybo's site www dot earthtainer dot org. The advantage to Raybo's design, IMO, is the 10 gallon water tank. The Earthboxes have a 3 gallon water supply, which is fine if you monitor it every day or run a drip hose into the water tube. My plants in the smaller Earthboxes are just as big and healthy as the ones in the larger Earthtainer. Truthfully, I think the EarthTainer costs more like $55 to build, especially if you get the heavy duty cages, which aren't cheap. The two Rubbermaid tubs you use to put it together cost $13-$15 a piece. Anyway, I'm sold on 'em both.

Thank you all so much for your responses! Just to follow up: I called the sales person at Macy's who originally sold these to us. She was very understanding and said "yuck" when I explained it to her--she knew what I was talking about but said they have never heard of a problem with their furniture. She is getting her manager and her rep involved with this. I feel like if they are willing to help at all, she will be the one to make it happen. Also, something I was INCORRECT about with my previous post. I said that you can access the feathers--you cannot. The zipper only removes the cover from the foam cushion. The cover is like a duvet except the back of it is more like interfacing than fabric--thus, letting many feathers escape. So because of this, I won't be able to restuff with something else. My only hope, I'm thinking, would be to take this off and wrap the foam cushion in batting or something. Not sure how that would work as the covers are very tight and very very hard to get back on--I think batting would get all bunched up. I must have "dreamt" I could accesss this or just wishful thinking on my part-ha!:) Anyway, I have read all of your resposnes and very much appreciate them. Annz, I looked at that link and all I can say is "yuck" to what I have! I don't have "down", I have "feathers" and they are bigger than what this site shows. Obviously very poor quality. Thank you for the link. Thanks again everyone!