Winter Sowing

I have a friend, Trish, who is a native Californian but lives in Colorado now.  She is an avid gardener but has had to re-think her methods with Colorado's very short growing season. We usually don't plant until mid-May and could possibly get another frost early to mid-September.
Last month, Trish had some of the ladies from church over and she taught us about something called Winter Sowing.  If you want to check it out, click on WinterSown.org
And be careful when you tell your kids 'today we are doing winter sowing' because they will most assuredly hear 'winter sewing' and head excitedly to the fabric bins.
Anyhow, the idea is that if you plant inside ahead of time, then you not only have pots all around your home, but the plants can get too spoiled being in a warm house.  Out here, we have a fairly harsh climate, so transplanting these can lead to failure.  What you want is a mini greenhouse, but outside, so the seeds and plants can get stronger while still being protected. So what Trish showed us was this:

 We filled each of about 24 styrofoam cups 2/3 full of soil, then lightly watered it.

Then we poked some seeds just a little into the soil.

We labeled each cup with the type of seeds and the owner's name(very important for later, because I'll have no idea what everyone planted three months from now)

Ellie just wanted carrots.  Lots and lots of carrots. Children with a one-track mind really make things so much easier.

Then all the cups went into one of these under-the-bed storage boxes.  We put the lid on, and then drilled some holes in the top.

The box will go outside in our backyard, and wait until May, when we will pop each cup of little plants out (hopefully!) and plant them into our garden space.  

We'll keep you posted!