Mini greenhouses and temporary cold frame experiment

I had a lot of gallon milk jugs to recycle and decided to try an idea I saw somewhere on the internet (forgot to record where). I cut the milk jugs almost all the way through at the level of the base of the handles so that each one was hinged and could be opened up. I added drain holes near the bottom, and then filled each one with a moistened homemade potting soil mix and planted my seeds. I flipped the tops back over so they almost looked like whole jugs again.

The person who posted the idea for these mini greenhouses said you could just duct tape the parts back together, leaving the tops uncapped, and put the jugs outside during all kinds of weather.  I decided to leave them indoors instead since the seeds I planted were supposed to take a long time to germinate and the weather was pretty cold. However, after less than a week, it looked like many were popping up!

With no grow light big enough for the dozen milk jugs and my regular cold frame buried in two feet of snow, I decided to set up a temporary cold frame with some old windows against the south side of the house. I took the jugs and taped them together (masking tape worked better than the duct tape we had on hand), then placed them up against the wall after clearing out the snow. After the windows were angled over them, I stuffed any cracks with plastic bags.

Since it is supposed to snow at least another foot or two this week and get down around 28 degrees at night, I am going to let the snow insulate things for a few days. It should be easy to shed the snow by standing the panes upright when things clear up. Having the jugs will protect the plants from accidental injury, I hope.

Nice, quick fix! In my ecosystem, I'd be a little worried a wind gust might break the windows. I'd be looking for a way to put a rope across the front from one side to the other maybe 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up.

It looks like there's concrete on the lower wall which will hopefully absorb any extra daytime sunshine and help keep the babies warm enough at night! Please keep us posted with how they come along!

So far so good. Have been clearing snow off the upper parts every morning, leaving some at the base to
help with stability. The weather is going to be warmer starting tomorrow so we are in for some rounds of rain as well as gusty winds. Jay, appreciate the heads up about the potential for the panes to take flight- not sure a rope would do it but have plenty of additional snow I could pack around the ends and base - will be monitoring closely.

Even though all the snow melted away, strong gusts of wind and heavy rain didn't phase the panels at all. I snugged them up tight against each other and stuff plastic bags in any cracks and blocked off the ends, so those things likely helped.

We have had a few warm, dry days in between the showers, so I opened up the ends. Our cat figured out it was THE place to be!