Tom, (I reread your post and had missed that you said in milkjugs. Doofy mis-read on my part.)

I may put some of my wintersown containers under a hoop, just to see & to have the hoop already set up ready to go when the container plants are big enough to transplant. I figure it cannot hurt, though I may need to water/soak those more than the others.

Let's compare notes.
-Tina

This post was edited by kilngod on Mon, Mar 3, 14 at 19:25

Set your hoops and plastic up a couple of weeks ahead of planting to warm the ground. I've planted this way but I always warmed the ground first so the seed gets off to a good start. If the soil is not warm the seed will just sit there until it's warm enough to sprout

Tom, I've never tried it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work - it would be kind of like starting them in a greenhouse, I suppose, and give extra heat for a head start. I think the one thing you'd need to attend to is water - being under the cover the containers would not get as much water as they would uncovered, and being warmer, would dry out sooner on top of that.

Good luck!
Dee

I'm really looking forward to trying this. It may double our advantage.

Thank for the input.

I will be putting up an agribon-19 or plastic hoop cover over the milk jugs this weekend. I will leave 1 jug outside the hoop as a comparison and will report how it goes.