Tamara,
Do you know what I tried for the first time this year for my cukes' was putting those juice jugs over them.... **Cut the just the very bottom off, so you have the entire jug to cover up the
seedling**
Keep the top, for night times, and remember to take it off during the day so it doesn't fry inside...
I have right now 5 of them outside, and have been for about say 10 days at least and I know one night it frosted...
*now I should say I had 6
seedlings and one died that night of the frost, but I think because I planted that one late in the afternoon, and maybe it just didn't make it because of that... not sure.. the other 2 I planted the same day, but just earlier in the day, survived...
and the sad thing was, I'd had a couple of each variety of
seedlings *6* that I'd planted in 6~packs and had gotten around to planting the first 6, but left the tray out over night and the other one's all died in the frost, but not the one's under those jugs...
But it is working for me...
I am planning on trying that with direct seeding next year, and see what happens.. we've had some really nice days were the soil warmed up, but at nights they were killers...
Give it a try, try half of what you have, and then if for some reason you still get cold nights/frosts, you still have a couple of
plants left over...