Girl cleans balcony; tulip bulbs lament

So I cleaned off my balcony today. It is incredibly sunny so took advantage of the beautiful weather. Now I won't say it's amazing, but at least I'm not ashamed of it. It's now possible to see my previous attempts at "gardening": the seedling from the Al Gore talk that I potted with plans for it to be my perennial Christmas tree; the jasmine plant I bought in bloom at Caper's last year around this time (seems to be alive, but no flowers at this time); the two onions (or are they garlic, or maybe one of each?) that are sprouting up - one in the same pot as the seedling, the other with the jasmine; and finally, I know I have planted random other garlic cloves that sprouted roots in my fridge and old school tulip (?) bulbs left over from Safeway purchases - I see one green sprout, but I'm not hopeful for much more.

And finally, I found some forgotten bulbs (tulips and something else - crocuses maybe?) that I bought in Salmon Arm during Thanksgiving with the intent to plant them last fall. I didn't. While at the gardening store yesterday, there were signs all over the place saying "Did you forget to plant your bulbs last fall?" with little pots of bulby-type flowers that they obviously did not forget to plant. Instead of buying up their successes, I googled "forgot to plant bulbs in fall force in spring". Based on my results, I may still not be totally at a loss. One site told of a story where a women did the same as me, but just soaked the bulbs overnight in water in the fridge and planted them the next day and still got successful blooms. I'm going to soak them overnight, then leave them a bit longer wrapped in moist towels in the fridge until some roots sprout (which I have no idea if they will actually do) and then plant. The tulip bulbs already have some greeny sprouty things coming out, so I have hope. Plus, I have lots of worm compost run off to feed them. Mmmmm....