Recommendation Covering Seedlings With Plastic Bottles

Cloches have been used for hundreds of years by gardeners and farmers in one form or another.

Covering seedlings with plastic bottles. Cut off the tops of 2 liter plastic soft drink bottles to use to protect seedlings and to discourage cutworms. You can make one for free with a plastic milk container. Fill the seed starting trays with moist seed-starting mix.

Using covers helps to maintain proper moisture without having to watermist before germinationemergence occurs. I moisten all my media fill trays seed and then cover my trays. Small bottles like individual portion water bottles are fine for small pots.

Any plastic bottle will do. Its a practice that dates back hundreds of years to the market gardens in France when farmers used to grow crops in cold temperatures protecting the crops with large bell-shaped glass jars. You can also fill plastic bottles with hot water on cold nights to protect vulnerable seedlings.

Cover your seedlings at night with a modified plastic milk jug or juice bottle known as a cloche. Now fill gallon-sized bottles with hot water and place these into the cold frame with your seedlings. Place the seed-starting tray on a seed heat mat or a flat pan like a cookie sheet.

Simply take the lid of the container and using a strong needle or a pinprick drill make a series of small holes in the plastic. And you can find even larger bottles if you look a bit. Small ones are good for individual plants that grow straight up and larger ones will cover multiple seedlings or ones that become bushy.

Leave enough space around the bottle for the heat to escape and to avoid overheating nearby seedlings. Note that these mini-greenhouses are only used for a short time just to get seeds and cuttings stared. An easy and inexpensive way to protect your wee plantlings is with a plastic pop-bottle cloche.