Your normal house temperatures of 72 degrees will be ok for most seeds, look around for a little warmer place for for your peppers, maybe on top of the frig. After germination you will need to increase the light. Be sure you do not start summer vegetables too early and not be able to put them out in the sun when they need it. Al

I have one, and wouldn't trust it with my best plants to give too much protection from frost, but it will certainly help for odd nights of frost- rather than a long period below zero. I had some baby aloes, and only one survived...(but this may also have been due to drought). But you can definitely use it for earlier seedlings and hardening off. In England you can now buy a zip fleece coat for them!

whiteapple - I think you're talking about what Trudi calls "Hot Caps." There is one page of info on that on the Wintersown.org site - it's in the FAQ, from the Tomatoes link there is a transplanting tomatoes link, I've posted the direct link with this message. I had posted a question about the same thing a week or so ago - but not many responses. My guess is that most people don't use the water bottle method here. I tried some searches of this forum, the growing from seed forum, and the vegetable forum, but found very few threads that mention it, and those that do have only brief mentions, in maybe one or two posts. I tried several variations of search terms, but maybe I didn't pick the right ones. I'm not sure if the bottles work as mini green houses or not. They are called hot caps, but the page only mentions protection from insects, bird attacks, and animals. It does specifically cite using water bottles (looks like the 12 oz ones to me), so I doubt the ridges are an issue, and gives very specific directions on how to do it. I was curious about whether or not the bottles also trap heat, and if so, how much. I have been saving Gatorade bottles, clear 2-liter bottles, and some of those very large pretzel containers (clear) from Costco to use. I'm guessing 1 liter bottles would also work fine, pretty much any clear bottle. I'm hoping to keep my peppers and tomatoes a little warmer in the early season to hopefully jumpstart the harvest. It's my first year trying that, so I don't know what to expect, and don't have any experience to share. For the peppers and tomatoes, I plan to use larger containers (liter/2 liter) in order to keep them in place until closer to when the plant matures. I may have to cut off tops to make a wider opening to not trap too much heat. I plan to use the small containers for my early lettuce, cucumber, broccoli, spinach, corn, melon plants to give them time to get established before the rabbits come nibble. I plan to use the really big pretzel containers over my soybean plants as permanent protection from the rabbits, and also to warm them up a little earlier right after planting. I think with the really wide tops, and large diameter, they should be OK heat-wise with no risk of touching. Again, that's just my plan and I'm hoping for success. I'm going to keep an eye on it, and at the first sign of temps to high within the container or the plant outgrowing it and in danger of touching the side, they'll be removed. Another option, which I may or may not try (weather depending) is covering an area of your bed with black plastic to pre-heat the soil. I found out about that when looking for any posts related to the water bottle hotcap greenhouses. I can't remember where, but at least a few people seem to do that. I'm considering doing that where I plan to plant the tomatoes, peppers, and possibly soybeans. I won't bother for the other fruits/veggies which were all fine last year direct sown into cold ground. It may speed up cucs and melons a little, but I don't think it will be necessary. Last year was an exceptionally cold, wet spring for me. Good luck. Whatever you decide, please share your plans and experience. I'm always on the lookout for better ideas. Sherri Here is a link that might be useful: Hot Caps (transplanting tomatoes) at Wintersown.org

I have been using my mini greenhouse for two seasons with mixed results. Last year my marigolds and zinnias were stunted and barely grew while in the greenhouse. At the end of May they were still puny and only starting to get a few true leaves. I think they didnÂt like the wide temperature fluctuations in the greenhouse between night and day or even between when it was sunny out and cloudy out (the mini greenhouse cools off pretty quick if it clouds up outside but maybe I was just using it too early in the season.) The other plants, begonias, geraniums, impatiens, wave petunias did pretty good. I even had a hibiscus that I was trying to acclimatize to outdoors for the summer. Depending on the weather forecast and the type of plants, I either bring the plants indoors for the night, leave them in the mini greenhouse, or leave them in the mini greenhouse and cover with a wool blanket to preserve heat. I think a lot of my plants were confused, however, as it was often warmer in the house at night then it was outdoors during the day. I have yet to set up my greenhouse this year. I only started putting plants outside for the day late last week and itÂs been so nice that most of them have stayed outdoors on the deck at night. Newly emerged seedlings, however, I do take inside as I am worried about them getting too cool and damping off. My greenhouse is a bit different, it's sort of cold frame shaped and the plastic doesn't go all the way to the bottom, which I assume is done purposely for ventilation. It could be 5C outdoors but in the sun the interior of the greenhouse is about 17C. It's in part sun so later in the day the plants are essentially in shade. That's only because that's the only spot I could think to put it. Glen