I’ve been bitten by the bug.

The winter sowing bug. In my backyard are nearly a dozen milk or water jugs, cut open, holes drilled in them, then duct taped back together.

Inside, a few inches of dirt house an array of flower seeds.

Yarrow. Sweet alyssum. Purple coneflower. Blackeyed Susans. Lance-leaf coreopsis. Chamomile. Swamp milkweed. Verbena. Snapdragons. Angelonia.

In truth, I had to check my orders to confirm the spelling of almost every flower listed above.

I will also have to crosscheck the expected height of each flower before I attempt to give it a forever home in our back garden.

When it comes to flowers, I am definitely a novice.

We’ve lived in our current house almost eight years and have only made feeble attempts at the back flower beds. I removed the rubberized mulch. I added a plant here, a flower there. Nothing particularly organized.

But let’s be real: I have no actual plan for the flower seeds I’ve started once they sprout. That’s another decision for another day.

A few years ago, I began with some perennial plants and they have survived. With this success, I base my current and future flower purchases around the color palate of these hardy survivors. There are absolutely some bald spots that need to be filled in, which has resulted in my obsessive and probably over enthusiastic flower seed purchases.

Once I realized the perennials survived more than one year, I decided to get more serious about garden improvements.

I started to ask friends for recommendations. A few kind friends gave me some of the excess from their flower beds to help expand my own.

I drug home several bags of compost and dispersed it on top of the flower bed. After a particularly rainy spell, I took a morning and churned the compost into the soil, hoping to improve the sandy, clay-like soil.

Which brings us to this winter.

I would like to think my seed purchasing didn’t begin in earnest until I learned about winter sowing this year. I was fascinated to think I could take a milk jug and start seeds during the snowy months.

While I missed the first big snow, I began to collect milk jugs, figure out how to cut them open and gather my supplies.

I started with less than 10 containers, and am thrilled to report after about a month, I see some of the seeds I’ve sown have begun to grow.

Will they survive additional snow? I have no idea, but the yarrow in my garden is starting to sprout, and there are tiny yarrow sprouts in one of my containers, so I am optimistic!

I’m enjoying the thrill of attempting a new gardening method, with the hope that this year I am able to further establish a low-ish maintenance perennial garden.

Now, that’s not to say I haven’t fallen for a few annual flowers.

I confess that I am obsessed with ranunculus. If I’m being honest, though, I’m equal parts obsessed and annoyed. I cannot get enough of the delicate flowers. They’re so pretty! But I want them to be easy, breezy perennials. Everyone keeps telling me I will have to dig up the bulbs in the fall and begin the process all over again. Sigh.

But the current status of my ranunculus is in the infatuation stage. I cannot get enough of these cute little guys!

I planted them in a shallow dish, put them in a cold, dark place and keep the soil moist.

My delight couldn’t be contained when my first corm sprouted.

The gardener I follow suggested waiting until they all sprouted to transplant, but once it began to wilt, I threw caution to the wind, popped it into a small flower pot and placed it next to my succulent plants near a grow light. I’m delighted to report the corm yields more than one sprout, thanks to its claw-like shape.

I truly have no idea how this is going to turn out, but I’m along for the journey!

As I’m obsessing over flowers, my teen son is enthralled with the idea of crops. His summer gardening goals include sunflowers, corn and pumpkins.

I don’t exactly have a firm plan for his goals, but they are slowly taking shape.

In my mind, I have a corner of the back garden where the sunflowers can live. I can plant corn next to sunflowers, right? They’re both tall and some critter will probably eat them ... so it’s a logical assignment, yes?

It’s the pumpkin that is more problematic for me.

I don’t want to have the plants vining through my flower beds. At least not in the backyard. The one spot I think they could go would need more work than I’m willing to give right now. So the tentative plan is to let them take over the rock beds in the front of the house.

Last year I “planted” a vintage bicycle in the front flower bed and loaded it up with cascading annual flowers. I’m willing to see if we can get the pumpkin vines to make a home round the base of the bike.

What about you? Do you have some winter gardening rituals? Are you growing anything interesting?

Bonar is the editor/publisher of the Tribune and can be reached at kbonar@indyrepnews. com.