--- "foodscaping"  wrote:
Can someone explain to me how jars are used to make mini-greenhouses?
Thank you, Leon
 
P.S. New to this group, new to organic gardening, and new to 
Permaculture.  Living in the high desert Southwest.
*************
Welcome home to OHG.

I don't think I've posted about using chipped and cracked canning jars as a mini-greenhouse as yet. If so it'd be in OHG files found at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/organichomesteadinggardening/files/ 

It's something I've been using almost 50 years to better root cuttings, and give some plants a stronger start in life.

We all have our own method of getting cuttings to root: so, I'll skip that process and simply say that once your cutting is trimmed like you like it, and is treated with your rooting compound such as willow water or that white stuff sold commercially in a bottle that's almost all chemical: I poke a hole and waller it out using a big heavy duty screwdriver.

Into that hole I carefully insert my cutting, making sure you don't knock off the rooting compound if you use that white commercial stuff.
Depending on exactly where you live and garden (I know Leon gardens around New Mexico): so he'd want to select a spot out of the wind yet where the new cutting will get at least 8 hours of sunlight.  I mostly use an easterly spot with a southern exposure.

Over top of that cutting you invert a glass canning jar that fits the cutting: leaving air space all the way around the cutting, making sure it does NOT touch the glass anywhere. If it touches the glass the cutting inside the jar will freeze.

You want the jar imbeded in the soil at least up to the 2nd thread, and if you bury the jar completely over all the jars threads, that's okay too so long as the cutting does not touch the glass jar anywhere.

Once that is done, again, depending on exactly where YOU live--meaning folks other than Leon--you'll want to heap wheat straw mulch around the outside of that glass jar to better protect the rooting process as well as seducing worms into the soil around that new cutting.

There is no finer "fertilizer" than worm castings.  And under mulch, under that glass jar, the soil is warmer providing worms a place to munch compost all winter during daylight hours.

I've dug down into the soil a bit, like laying a water line to wee people and fairy homes. Into that furrow, add sand or saw dust or shredded leaves or shredded newspapers...whatever you can get free.
Water it well with willow water until the bedding is somewhat moist but not saturated.  Into this long trench you can insert cuttings. One after another, then cover with pieces of salvaged glass found in dumpsters where folks do windshield replacements, store windows, or desktop replacement: most will let you raid their dumpsters to avoid having the glass hauled off to a hazmat disposal.

If you live in a big city, twould be best to know someone that owns or works for such a place, or find someone who you know that has an inside contact as businesses hesitate to allow folks they don't know to dive into their dumpster due to insurance reasons.

Out in the country it isn't that much of a problem.

You can also grow certain vegetables this same way and extend your salad season far into winter if you don't have thick snow covers that will bury that glass top.

Hope this helps you root your own cuttings, and get more plants cheaper than having to purchase them at a nursery.

Jon