DIY: Garden Cloches Using Recycled Materials

I feel like this blog has turned into a whine fest about my mice woes.  To be fair, the mouse situation in my garden has been bumming me out.  I thought the presence of those furry little bastards would limit what I could do in garden: What about those tomatoes I wanted to grow?  Or the cucumbers?  Or the squash?  Or the beans?  I certainly didn't want my garden to turn into a free salad bar for mice at my expense.  

 So I put on my thinking cap, and garden cloches came to mind.  A garden cloche, traditionally made of glass, is used to protect plants from harsh weather conditions and to extend the growing season.  I've seen cloches on garden product websites, but did not think I had any use for them--that is, until mice threw a wrench in my grand gardening plans.  Also, I mentioned in a previous entry that I had to move most of my edibles up to my second floor balcony to escape the mice.  Garden cloches would also protect my plants from the acorn, wind and torrential rain problems I had been having on the balcony as well.

Problem was, garden cloches ain't cheap.  I decided to make my own out of plastic items in my recycling bin.  I used old water bottles and snack containers.  I simply lopped off the bottoms of the water bottles, and removed the caps to allow for air circulation inside the cloche.  As for the snack containers, I simply turned them upside down and covered my little plants.  I moved many of my edibles back down to the first floor around two weeks ago and topped them off with a cloche.  So far, so good.  Take that, mice (and acorns, and wind, and rain)!

Peekaboo, little kale seedling.

Carrots hiding under plastic snack containers.