January 2013 The gardening year has already begun

I started seeds yesterday.  These containers had dead basil plants in them.  I just pulled out the plants and root hairs and planted in them without adding fresh soil.
The back one that shows a lot of white is the lettuce seeds I saved from last year.  There are a lot of leaf and flower pieces in the seeds.  The right 1/3 is spinach.
The front container is all basil.
I spread the seeds on top of the soil in both pots and patted them into the soil. Sprinkled them with water, trying not to let the water move the seeds.

Here are some pictures of my garden today.

Spinach still trying to grow in the cold.  A little lettuce not looking too bad.  Planted this several months ago.  Have had one small salad from it.

This lettuce looks frozen.

Added some snow around the edges.  Looking pretty dry.  Hopefully the snow will melt and water the spinach and lettuce.

I took me two days to get the snow and ice scraped off of the glass.  Yesterday was the thick layer of snow and today was the ice.  I was worried that lettuce and spinach would die, because of a week or more with no sunlight.  All of the herbs are dead except the rosemary.  With not getting above freezing for a week I am surprised to see it still alive.

Lots of snow and dead things everywhere.  The bed with the red frame is the garlic.  Covered with screens and mini pallets to keep away whatever was eating the tops.  Scraped some of the snow off it.  Hope the ice will melt and water the garlic and then get some light too.

Gourds drying on the vine.  Will be ready to pick when it is time to plant again.  Do your gourds rot over the winter in the garage, house, or wherever you put them?  Now you see how to stop that from happening.  Another one of those things that require being done different in Nevada.

Some of my water storage containers.  They were mostly filled from the big rainstorm about a month ago.

The horse trough was my best yard sale find in 2012.  $15.  It filled half full from that same rainstorm.  I wish I could find more big containers like that and for as cheap.