Monday, December 03, 2012

december cold frame

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My cold frame is full of greens. The baby bok choy is a good size for eating now, and I love the thought that it should hold at this size for months in the cold. The other plants are a bit small for harvesting. They'll grow more in March, when the sunlight increases.


There are a couple of pots of greens that I didn't have room to plant. I am reminded now that I juts left them in the center of the frame. They don't enough soil and are dying. I hate to throw out seedlings.

My cold frame is being held together with more and more duct tape as tome goes on. And the wood supports have warped a bit and so my husband stapled old towels to block the the cold air from blowing in the spaces.

I have visions of rebuilding it sometime. I'd like a brick base. But there are so many options to decide on. Plastic or glass panes? Walk in or lift up panels? Kit, custom, or homemade? Heated? Same size or bigger or smaller?

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2 comments:

ValHalla said...

I was happy with my cold frames from Gardeners.com until mice chewed them while they were stored in my shed over the summer! Time for duct tape. I have yet to find any need for heat, though sometimes I dream of wood and glass cold frames that I could prop open instead of having to zip open and closed when I am freezing. It still amazes me what I can have over the winter, but sadly my spinach got munched before the cold frame was in place this year.

Anonymous said...

Nice veggies!

some thoughts :

I have a home made cold frame. A plus for making your own is choosing whatever size you want. A brick base sounds great.

I made mine to fit a pair of glass windows from a neighbor but a perk to using plexi would be that you don't have to ever worry about breaking glass.

To protect the glass I ended up making an additional cover out of wood and wire fencing [it looks like a giant window screen], and it is also useful other things like protecting seedlings from squirrels or something completely different like drying onions.

I don't heat [zone 5] and things have done fine even with below zero.