To the extent that the threat is at night, I have to assume that if you don't mind some effort every day, just covering the plants with an opaque cover (a box, a pail, a jug, or even a tarp, properly supported) would work as well. Just remove it in the daytime when things warm up. I appreciate the race to get tomatoes in. Northerners have a hard time understanding that down here, our tomato season is actually pretty short. My tomatoes just got planted out today, a week after the arctic blast.

They work as long as you remember to remove them or at least open the vents during the day....

Is there a story there? 😉

I suspect so, and we want to hear it. Garden disaster stories are as good as success stories and often a lot more fun.

Well of course there is LOL! I bought cloches and decided to plant out a few things under them and I didn't open/close the vents so the plants underneath fried -- this was either late April or early May, so the rays of the sun through the clear plastic and heat build-up were strong enough to kill the plants. Oh well, live and learn. Gave the cloches to my sister, she uses them and was thrilled to get the freebies :0) But yea -- in my case it's having a busy schedule and not being able to fuss over things on a daily basis that was the root cause. Plus I forgot. :0p.

I assume they used glass ones decades ago, not sure of the design, but they would not be cheap. I would think the plastic ones would degrade pretty fast, and tend to blow around in a storm.

The plastic cloches I'm using are pretty flimsy but come with long anchor pins. I'm also piling soil around them so they are buried about 2" deep. This setup worked for 45 mph wind gusts. More wind today and tomorrow as another cold front moves through. These winds are so drying -- the most destructive element around here and, unfortunately, a regular feature of spring...

Cool! I love those old square cloches that could be connected to form a low tunnel. So much beauty and function. It's a shame we're losing these tools -- I guess it's hard to compete with a big poly tunnel.