Blake,

Sounds like everything is going fine with your wintersown "babies".

It does work every time. the seeds will germinate when the conditions are right for them to do so.

You might want to cover those babies overnight with these cold temps, You can use a blanket, a tarp a sheet to cover them. Just be sure to get the cover off before it warms up to much in the morning.

I can't speak for transplanting the calendulas. I've never grown them before. The only transplanting of seedlings I do are to pot them up for my annual swap and a couple of perennials that will not plant until the fall and want them to have plenty of room to grow.

You might want to repost you thread over on the wintersowing forum. You will find many responses there to your questions and any others that you have about your seedlings and taking care of those wintersown seedlings.

The rest of your containers will germinate in time. It's still very early for them to be germinating yet.

I have no sprouts yet, on the other hand, before the last rain storm and flooding last week, my containers where still sitting on top of snow and surrounded by snow as well.
then they where dowsed in more than 8 inches of rain, dried out some, got more rain on them and now well below freezing temps tonight with another 1-3 inches of rain coming on Monday and Tuesday next week.

the earliest I have had any germination in 6 years, this is year 7, was the end of the first week in April.

Besides, I still have at least 300 more containers to get out before the end of April.

Have no fear, you "no shows" in those containers will germinate over the next 6-8 weeks.

Fran