I am a newbie, but decided to combine all my watermelon seeds together this year. The varieties I combined are Sweet Watermelon, Yellow Gem, Orange Tendersweet, Winter King and Queen,
Sugar Baby, Crimson Sweet and Golden Midget. I am thinking about winter sowing them in milk jugs, to help them adjust to the cold (zone 5). Does anyone have suggestions?
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I don’t have any suggestions, I’m starting my own watermelons this year.
Janosik watermelon, 80 day, yellow ~10#
Clay County yellow meat, 90 day, yellow
Leelanau sweetglo, 80 day, orange
Early moonbeam, 80 day, yellow, 3-8#
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Hi Kim- When I used to live in zone 5, I depended heavily on diy cold frames, I made them using recycled windows from salvage. The thing that was so great about them is you can direct sow but with protection that you can then control (by opening the frame up or closing it).
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Oh, where did you go to look for recycled windows? I checked my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore for old windows I could use for a greenhouse or cold frame, but they wanted a minimum of $75 each. 
That was a bit pricy for me!
Awesome! This year I had some toughs that I just layed windows on just before the snow and we have had some carrots and beets and cabbage so far. I have never done this till this year and I did it last minute, so I am learning. 
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The windows I got from a neighbor who was replacing their windows. You can call window places and when they install windows, they will give you the old windows, as they just discard them at the dump.
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Oh, that’s a cool idea! Thank you!
@kimsavage75 Not sure if that kinda cold exposure would help or if they would even survive it, but atleast they don’t like their roots disturbed and I dont know how you could sow them in milk jugs and get them planted without shocking them. I would just direct seed them as early as possible. If you have hot days and cold nights, you could sow them even little before last frost, just deep enough to have protective layer of soil. They take about week even in best case to emerge, but might be longer if soil is cool for them.
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That you for the thoughts and suggestions.