DIY Cloche Ideas For Frost Protection In The Garden

If you live in an area that experiences cool weather in the spring and fall and predisposes your plants to frost injury, take heart. You can enjoy cool-weather vegetables earlier in the spring and extend your fall harvest well into winter. How? A DIY cloche (pronounced klōsh) for plants will warm the air around the plants at night and protect them from frost.

Cloches were developed first by the French in 1623. They designed a bell-shaped glass jar that covered plants like a mini greenhouse to protect them from cold injury. Today the word includes all sorts of materials used for starting plants earlier in the spring and extending the fall season.

Easy DIY Cloche Ideas

A DIY garden cloche can be as simple as a cardboard box set over young plants at night or as permanent as a greenhouse. In between are plastic milk jugs, Wall O’ Water, hot caps, row covers, low tunnels, high covers, cold frames, and hot beds. All can help you extend your harvest by keeping plants warm at night.

Here are a variety of cloches for plants:

• Plastic milk jugs work like a mini greenhouse. Use the plastic milk or water jugs and cut out the bottom. Set the containers over your plants at night to protect them from the cold. Remove the cap in the morning to ventilate the mini greenhouse.
• Wall O’ Water is a plastic cloche consisting of rows of cylinders that you fill with water and place around each plant forming a teepee-like wall. The sun heats up the water during the day and releases the warmth during the night.
• Hot caps are wax paper domes used to cover and protect plants at night.
• Row covers are permeable fabrics that can be used alone or stretched over frames or hoops (low tunnels) to insulate plants.

• High tunnels are solar tunnels like low tunnels, but they are constructed tall enough that you can walk through them. Ventilate by rolling up the sides in the morning and lowering them at night.
• Cold frames are slanted wood or cinder-block frames with a clear, hinged top and no bottom. The top can be elevated to allow air flow. Insulation may be needed such as a blanket thrown over the top at night.
• Hot beds are frames that use warmth from the sun plus heating cables or a layer of manure buried beneath the root zone for additional warmth.
• Greenhouses are designed in a variety of ways and expense from simple, plastic-covered PVC frames and mini greenhouses to elaborate glass greenhouses warmed with heaters.

If you want to get a jump on your vegetable gardening in early spring, by as much as two weeks to a month, try using cloches for your plants.

More Early Spring Inspiration

• Ready to get started on your dream garden this year? Learn when to start planting seeds for a head start and use your new DIY cloche to protect them outside.
• Find your growing zone to help you choose plants that will be successful in your yard with the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
• Interested in a quick, easy, and reusable system to start your seeds this spring? This 60 cell Bio Dome seed starting kit comes with everything you need to make seed starting simple and can be found in the Gardening Know How Shop!
• Want more DIY ideas and garden inspiration delivered directly to your inbox? Sign up for the free Gardening Know How Newsletter.

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