Remember the cucumber seedlings that I planted out this past week? 

Well, it has turned into an experiment. After I lost cucumber babies to some hungry nibblers, I tried two different strategies to protect my next seedlings. 

1. Two plants were put into 3” (?) pots with the bottom cut out, creating a collar for them. This has protected them from being eaten by whatever it was at ground level. 
And, since my first set of plants had their leaves eaten as well as the stalk, I was surprised that these two plants have also NOT lost any leaves. 
WIN. 

2. One seedling was planted in the garden and I then placed a mesh basket (pencil holder) over top and nestled the basket into the soil. (No collar) 
Today, I checked on it and there is no plant. No stalk. No leaves. Nada. Just a basket protecting nothing. 

 Next year (or if I give this one more try) I will definitely be using the “collar method” instead of the mesh cover. (Or maybe both, if something starts nibbling the leaves, but definitely the collar.)