Welcome Cricket! Newbies are always welcome to join in the fun and adventure of winter sowing. Just to whet your appetite, check out these pictures of my breezeway:

February
{{gwi:359899}}

My WS jugs are under that snow.

June
{{gwi:199182}}

{{gwi:199179}}

{{gwi:199181}}

The only things NOT winter sown are the Stachys 'Helen von Stein' in photo #1 and the variegated iris in photo #3. My daughter WS the strawberry plant in photo #3.

Welcome, Cricket! Winter IS fun around here! Of course, you could summer sow a container to give yourself a little practice ...

gardenweed - you had great germination! What's that peeking out of the container under the board in the last pic?

PV

Welcome, winter sowing is a great way to keep gardening in the winter and helps make winter seem to pass quicker.

Using the same basic techniques one can also spring, summer, and fall sow.

One warning, start planning and making beds for all the plants you will have next spring. Many of us run out of room in our beds and have to quickly make new ones or find homes for all those seedlings which we can't bear to compost.

Welcome to the WS forum, Cricket. Get ready.
You'll have a lot of fun this winter and next year, you'll have so many new plants in your garden you won't know what to do.

Start collecting milk jugs or whatnots. Buy several bags of good potting mix right now or before the summer is over.

My favorite containers are actually cake containers (I upend the tops and use them for sowing seeds. I use the cake base as lid), large vegetable containers from grocery stores, and 2 liter pop bottles.

PV - that's some very enthusiastic agastache in that container. A plant must have self-sowed--generously--last fall because when I placed those timbers across the containers to use them as a shelf, there was nothing growing in either of them.

A word of advice for Cricket to add to mnwsgal's--buy your potting mix/growers mix for winter sowing between now and October while it's still readily available at garden centers and big box stores. Once November gets here, anything they have in stock will be frozen until April 2012. I buy my Fafard growers mix in compressed bales that I set inside my garage late summer so they're ready to use when the winter solstice rolls around.

Hi cricket, welcome to the forum, I see you all the time over on the hosta side,nice to see you here, you will love this group, all great and very friendly.I WSed a lot over the winter as well, The last few days, I got almost,Almost,every thing planted, now we are in a heat wave,gurrrrrrrrrrr.
Any way, just wanted to say Welcome,and enjoy your new friends.
cAROL

pitimpinai & I both nailed one of the key important steps in prepping for winter sowing--buy your growing medium before winter! Bless him, the poor guy at the garden center hefted an ice-covered, frozen bale of growers mix into my car when I discovered WS...in November! I gradually thawed it with a blow dryer but it's MUCH simpler just to have what you need ahead of time so it's ready when WS time rolls around.

I'm lucky there's a nursery supply about 7 miles east of where I live--I just drive up there in late summer & have them load up the bales of growers mix. I stack them inside my garage so they're dry and ready to use when I need them.

Just 157 days to go until WS 2011 begins!!! (I threw that in for Cricket... & cAROL)

LALALALALALA, I'm not listening~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My eyes are bleeding now, thank you Eileen,from reading such C-O-L-D news.I much prefer the count down to spring, can you give us that one again,teehee
cAROL

There will be plenty of seed offerings starting in late fall. I am planning to again host the Newbie Seed Project. There will be more seeds than you know what to do with. Also others in the forum will have seed offerings, so don't be shy.

Hi everyone!

Thanks for all the advice! I will have to make a trip now to get some starter mix! Milk jugs are plenty around here with 4 kids! So, I will start collecting them now! I can't wait for seed trading. Just set up my first seed trade today! So exciting!!!!! I've already spotted some beauties here that I may politely ask for a trade for :)
OK, off to look at more pics!

cAROL - February 2012 has 29 days so from now there are only 237 days to go until the first day of Spring...

Well, you asked for it!!! (;-p)

237 DAYS? Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,,thank God it is summer now,Thanks Eileen, you are my hero! :0)
cAROL

Welcome Cricket. It is thrilling and Fun!