Mini-Cloche -
A cloche is basically a mini-greenhouse that rests directly on the dirt and so allows for some air and moisture exchange. Very useful for keeping the soil/seeds/plant warm and keeping pests off. I just put some bigger ones on my parsley (pics 1+2) using used 2qt apple juice bottles. I upgraded from the 1qt gatorade bottles (pic 4) that allowed me to grow my parsley from seed to give it more room to grow. Worked like a charm despite the cold and wet that has been going on around here. I also have some on my lemon balm seeds (pic 3) and hope it works as well for those, and I have plenty of bottles saved in the garage if i need to switch to larger ones there too.
Very simple. I just cut the bottoms of the bottles off right at the rounded edge between the bottom and sides to maintain rigidity (if you use soda bottles you can melt the edge a little to get it a little more stiff) and punched holes with an awl to slide some bamboo skewers through. The skewers keep the cloche in place no matter what the wind is like, and thankfully so since it was some wind that beat up my bell pepper plants and killed those off. Being able to remove the caps still allows me to adjust for the warmer days without baking the plants and seedlings since the temp diffrence can be quite large between inside and outside these things, and the local temps vary from 30’s and cloudy to all day sun and 60’s-70.