Are you thinking about spring too? I love gardening, but since I live in Michigan, spring planting is still a long time off. I've tried growing seedlings inside the house but they've always ended up so spindly that they never really made it to the garden.

I came upon this idea while surfing the internet one night and have wanted to try it out. Winter Sown is the website devoted to this way of starting seeds. There's a ton of information there - more than I'll cover in this outline - so if you find yourself wondering if your blue pimpernel or butterfly flower would be good candidates to winter sow, check their website.

The idea is to plant seeds in miniature greenhouses made of old containers such as deli trays and Costco-sized pretzel jars and then set them outside for the rest of the winter. When the time is right - and the seeds will know when - they will sprout, protected from birds, from washout by torrential downpours, and from drying out in the wind. You'll get a very early start on your garden or flower beds with very little investment.

1. Begin this project by collecting containers - big plastic jars, bakery cake pans with snap-on lids, that kind of thing. The bigger the container, the more seeds you can plant and the less likely it will be to blow away. I chose the pretzel jars, since they seemed likeliest to withstand a few inches of heavy snow on top.
2. You'll need a plastic container, some potting soil, seeds, a utility knife and flame to heat it, a drill with a 1/8" bit, some duct tape, a permanent marker, and some clear packaging tape. A pair of scissors and a ruler might also be helpful.
3. Drill about five holes in the bottom of the jar and also in the lid.
4. Heat a utility knife in a flame and cut around the jar 4 inches up from the bottom. Leave the final 2 inches uncut to form a sort of hinge.
5. Write the seed type with a permanent marker on duct tape and apply this label below the cut line.
6. Fold the top of the jar back and fill with 3 inches of potting soil.
7. Plant seeds to their specified planting depth in the soil. My son Luke and I looked through our seed stash and he chose the decorative gourds for our first jar. The Winter Sown website has a seed list page that shows what seeds work best for winter sowing in different regions.
8. Water gently but thoroughly.
9. Fold the top of the jar back up and tape the cut closed with clear packaging tape.
10. Place outside in full sun and wait for the sprouts to appear.
11. When the sprouts appear, check them on a day when it's above freezing to see if they could use a drink. Give them one if they do and replace the top.
12. Begin to widen the top holes weekly as the weather warms and your seedlings grow. Before long, you'll have so many holes that there's not much top left. At this point your seedlings should be completely hardened off and are ready for transplanting to the garden.

Our completed jar is now sitting outside in the sunny 3° F weather and we'll see what happens to it in the next month or two. I think we should plant some cold-weather seeds as well - maybe pansies - to have a better chance of early success. It would be so nice to have a bunch of seedlings ready to go this spring without having to grow them in the house and then harden them off (or compost them since they died!).