My first spring in Colorado, a generous neighbor provided me with broccoli seedlings. She advised me to cover these with plastic 1-gallon milk jugs, bottoms cut off and cut edge stuck into the soil. On warm days and mild nights I was to take off the lid to create an air vent. During frigid weather I replaced the lid to make snug little greenhouses. (If wind is a problem, you can cut a couple of flaps in the bottom of the jug and pin them to the soil with large nails.)
The plastic milk jug is just a low-tech, recycled version of the classic cloche, a glass bell jar that gardeners employed before the days of plastic. You can still buy cloches; in fact, upper- end home-furnishing stores have recently started using them as decorative interior pieces to display pine cones, glass balls and all manner of ephemera.
I have one that works as an intensive care for neglected plants like the violas in a six- pack I forgot to water last week. They looked quite dead — but when soaked and set under the glass dome in a shady spot, all but two miraculously recovered in a day or two.
Cloches really aren’t practical in the garden, however, as they are quite pricey and generally keep plants too hot in Colorado’s sunny climate.
The milk jugs help prevent the soil from drying out, but check these cloche substitutes often. Their wards still need an occasional drink. Irrigate with soaker hoses or pour water through the hole with a watering can. Remove jugs on hot days and replace in the evening. When the plants bump up against the top, remove the jugs for good and save them for reuse. (I string mine on a bungee cord, nested together to save space.)
Really serious vegetable gardeners invest in walls-of-water, which allow them to plant tomatoes and peppers a month before last frost. I’ve never used them. Instead, I buy small tomato starts in the beginning of May and grow them inside on sunny windowsills. By June, my plants are as large and beefy as those started in walls-of-water.
For crops such as lettuce, carrots or radishes sown directly into the garden, the best protection is floating row covers, spun-fabric sheets available from any local garden center. I lay these directly over the bed and hold them in place with metal clothespins (I clamp the “jaw” end onto the fabric edge and run a landscape staple through the “pincher” side and into the soil.
Alternatively, you can place premade hoops covered with floating row covers along the length of each row. Attach the fabric to the hoops with clothespins. The fabric protects against a few degrees of frost, helps retain moisture and also keeps out many insect pests.
Whether you grow vegetables from seed or purchase plants, frost can polish off your crop before they know what hit them. In our climate, where frost often occurs well into May even at lower elevations, some kind of protection is essential for saving your transplants — and your sanity.
Marcia Tatroe’s most recent book is “Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West” ($29.95, Johnson Books). E-mail her at mtatroe@q.com.
