Give them light. Withhold water for up to 10 weeks. I wouldn't wait for a sign they're going to bloom. I have about three dozen, and they are several different kinds. Some bloom reliably in February and March. Many don't bloom until I put them outside. Since I don't really have a cold place, most of mine actually bloom in June after about two months living outdoors. I think the cold nights they get at that time help. Once they are about five years old, almost all of them have bloomed every year regardless of how I care for them in winter. One thing I think does help is to feed them regularly in spring and summer. I use a 3-1-2 NPK formula with all minors.

Time is your friend if you have the luxury of waiting until fall to plant (and often you can get things on sale at much nicer prices then.) I typically make a lasagna bed with well-composed manure spread out on the surface several inches deep, covered with newspapers or cardboard to prevent seed germination and wood shavings as mulch, and then let it sit for at least a month or two, and up to a year before planting much other than large items like shrubs. This means that all the grass is dead and I don't have to worry about it coming up around my plants. I wouldn't remove the grass unless you don't have enough organic matter and newspaper to make your lasagna layers thick enough to really smother the grass since the dead grass will add organic matter. Since you want to add other plants at some point, I would amend the whole thing now, not piecemeal as you plant since it's better for the plants not to have to transition from amended holes to unamended soil as roots grow sideways. I used to dig in the manure, but I've found that the plants do just as well with it added on top. It gets mixed in some as I plant, but I think the various soil-dwelling critters do most of the work.

Scott, Although the cooler temps in the sunroom might slow down the sprouting of the slow seeds, they'll still sprout. You'll get the quickest germination of tomato seeds at 75-95 degrees but they'll sprout at substantially cooler temps. I know from experience that volunteers sprout in my garden or around the edges of my compost piles in late March through late April when the soil is still pretty cool and the nighttime temps are downright cold. Bottom heat speeds up germination but it certainly isn't necessary. I grew seedlings for probably 20 years or so before I bought a germination mat. I really only bought the mat could speed up germination and maintain a strict schedule of starting new seed flats every couple of days. After I seed a flat, it gets just a couple of days on the mat, and the seeds often are germinating well by the second day. Once the seeds are popping up, that flat comes off the mat and another one goes on it, and then I repeat that over and over and over again until all my seeds are up. Before I had a germination mat, I used to place the freshly-planted flats on top of the refrigerator. On a pretty warm day, I'll carry a freshly-planted flat outside and set it on the concrete patio in full sun so it can soak up heat from the sunlight and the patio beneath it. Once they're up, I keep all the seedlings except for the true heat lovers like peppers, at cool temps in the 50-70 degree range, usually on our screened-in back porch. Sometimes I'll let the seedlings stay outside all night once the nights are staying above 45 degrees. I carry a lot of flats in/out in late winter/early spring so the seedlings are growing at lower temps during the day, but still not exposed to below-freezing temps at night. Seedlings grown in cooler conditions stay stockier and are easier to harden off than seedlings grown on at indoor temperatures for weeks and weeks. Of course, pepper plants are always the exception because they get cranky when they are cold. Dawn

It's amazing that bathroom facilites aren't always provided. We designated a bathroom for workers - have to admit it wasn't always exactly spic-and-span, with the litterbox temporarily in there and with a drain problem with the sink for a while, but it was there. We wanted to provide drinks and lunch occasionally but never knew when workers would be here, so that idea failed pretty quickly. If someone's working late and we're getting take-out, we always offer to pick something up for them. The irony is, with a kitchen I'd cook for these guys all the time. Without a kitchen, I just occasionally leave a box of cookies out. At Christmas, I left a holiday chocolate assortment for the GC to find, after we went out of town. Maybe I'll invite him and his girls to dinner after it's all done... There was a thread last year about throwing a party after all the work is said and done, to which you invite workers, neighbors, and friends. I like that idea but am feeling so gun-shy about spending now. I also worry the neighbors would feel it's a sales pitch. (One of our issues was a poorly built roof, looks like many of the houses on our street have the same issue, and I know our GC would love to fix them all. Would be a good idea, actually, as the city inspector commented we'd caught the problem just in time.)