Well Lisa, you aren't getting much "jump on the season" at this point in zone 6, unless you get a late frost. Low 40's will not kill a tomato or pepper plant, but it will set them back. As a rule, peppers like hotter temps, up to the 90's. Tomatoes will tolerate mid 40's for a while, will grow very slowly in 50's will do well in the 60-80 range. Above 80 and they are going to start to suffer.

With that in mind, the pop bottle cloches do indeed work. The wall-of-water will work better, but they are quite expensive. The key is to keep the lid off during the day (unless daytime temps are in the 40's as well). The main drawback with the cloche is that a good sized plant will soon outgrow the pop bottle. When you have leaves pressed up against the sides, trapping the condensation on the leaves, you are asking for trouble. Hopefully, however, by that time you have temps high enough to take them off.

Whether it is worth it or not really depends on how large you garden is, and how badly you want an early harvest. Using extreme measures, like cloches, row cover, plastic, water jugs, etc., you could put your tomatoes out 4 or 5 weeks early. However, 4 or 5 weeks early does not necessarily translate into 4 or 5 weeks early on the harvest. Usually translates into 2 or 3 weeks early. For some tomato enthusiasts, and aggressive market growers, those 3 weeks are worth the extra effort.

For me, with 2500 square feet and two kids...not so much. :-)

That's what I was thinking - with the size of the plants, will the milk jugs even be big enough? And while getting tomatoes a few weeks earlier would be nice, I guess if I'm only getting 2 weeks' jump on harvesting, that's not a huge amount of time. I don't have that many plants so it wouldn't be a big job to do it.

Everything I have is doing nicely, but I'm always panicked when I grow from seed that I'll end up with leggy seedlings that take forever to come back and grow strong - if they ever do!! So I figured the sooner I could get them outside, the better. But you're right - at this point I guess a couple weeks sooner or later won't make much difference.

I think I'll concentrate on hardening them off over the next week and hopefully the week after that the temps will have warmed enough. They're saying next week will be cooler than normal here in Boston, however. The joys of spring in NE I guess!

Thanks for the input! It's great to hear the experiences of other gardeners.

Lisa

That's my experience also, it's not worth the trouble overall. When I put warm-weather stuff out early, it's because plants are outgrowing their containers and I'm running out of space rather than an attempt to get an early crop.

Regarding specifically protecting plants from frost or cold at night, you can use anything - cardboard boxes, sheets, etc, since they come off during the day.

As far as leggy seedlings go, plant them really, really deep. I do this with all my nightshades (toms, peppers, and ground cherries). The stem you plant will send out roots, and you will end up with monster plants.

I knew to plant tomatoes deep and they'd sprout roots from the buried stems, but I didn't know that about peppers! That's good to know! My tomatoes seem to be growing a couple inches per day as I keep having to raise my lights, but the peppers are still only about 3 inches tall so they're not leggy at all at this point. I already repotted everything once and I buried 2/3's of the tomato stems when I did those. Everything else I kept at the same level, however.

I'm actually relieved people are saying it doesn't make that much difference! I'd feel obligated to at least try it out if people raved about it and I really don't need any more work than I already have lol!!

I'm just frantic for it to warm up enough to get everything in the ground!! Having to cram most of my gardening in on the weekends makes me crazy! I have time for little jobs during the week after work, but not much. I'm already losing a day this weekend because of family obligations and I have so much to do still!! Getting everything in the ground will make my life much easier!

Lisa

My broccoli seedlings are quite leggy too - should I plant them deep? Will they take to that?

I've been using 2ltr soda bottles as cloches to protect the seedlings - so far so good except for those pesky flea beetles that come from nowhere.

How do you secure the plastic bottles (either 2 litre soda, or milk jugs) to the ground?

We are expected to drop into the high 30's in 2 days, and I want to throw some jugs around my plants (apparently i got a little over zealous with planting out early!).

But I'm worried about the wind taking the cloches off - any ideas?

I left my tomato seedlings out uncovered when temps fell into the upper 30s this week with no ill effects. Peppers and eggplants might be more cold-sensitive. Tiny seedlings are pretty close to the ground, and the days are warm now, so down where they are they're probably picking up heat radiated from the ground, especially if they're not in a low spot where cold air will settle. Last year, I had some volunteer squashes that germinated quite early, when the weather still sometimes got cold, and they took off like mad as it warmed up. Basil, on the other hand, is toast a few degrees above freezing.

Why not try a couple out in cloches, and keep the rest on your porch? Really, the porch sounds ideal. I'm keeping mine in a flower house, but put a couple out with plastic containers for cloches. The milk or pop bottles would work for peppers, but are too small for tom seedlings, IMO. Look around and you might be surprised at the things you can use as cloches. One of mine is a clear plastic storage container, and I'm using a clear plastic container that salad greens came in for my two cuke seedlings.

I grow a LOT of peppers, both hot and sweet, and general practice is to set them out when days are in 60's nights in 50's and 4-5 inches tall. Peppers are more sensitive to temps than tomatoes so you can even wait longer to put out the peppers. In zone 4 the middle of June is about normal. If you go too early they will die on you,they just do not like cold or wet feet.

For the occasional, unexpected cold night, you can throw a bedsheet over them. This will keep them a few degrees warmer and will keep off a light frost.

For cool-weather plants, you can get an extra early start by starting them indoors and planting them out in early spring under medium-heavy row covers. I did this with spinach, kale, and chard and got huge, vigorous plants.

Lisa, your plants will be much happier on your porch, even on cloudy days, than under artificial lighting. That is where I keep mine once the days start reaching the 60's. And I only bring them in if there is a good chance of frost. My porch is faces NW and is screened in - no hard windows. That is generally enough protection for light frosts, though I do bring my peppers inside until I can count on it staying in the mid to upper 50's.

I use wall-o-waters and love them. Yes, I only gain a few weeks in the spring...but it is not those early tomatoes that I am doing it for. It is those long season varieties that I hope to tease a few extra out of. Brandywines and Mr. Stripey!! Sooooo good! But where I live we would be lucky to get only a few before Fall frosts killed the plants if I did not get an early jump on them.