06 March 2010

cold frame

I made a coldframe!
It's just an old window over frame of bricks stacked together, with some half ones that had a triangle shape to make a slope, and then boards wedged on the outside to cover the gaps. Set on the concrete patio at the south-ish side of the house, where it gets the most sun, and the back is the white siding, which will bounce light into it. Already the glass is dripping condensation from the plants' breathing, and I took the boards off the sides to let the air circulate a little, as it's quite sunny and I don't want it to get so hot in there the leaves burn (that happened a few times with the plastic one).
It was getting tedious to carry the plastic greenhouse contraption indoors every night, and the cardboard I had lined it with getting soggy. Plus, it was getting crowded in there. Now there's more space, and I think it's warm enough I can leave the plants out overnight, to ready them for going into the ground in a few weeks.

The Cauliflowers are almost too big to fit under the glass; I might have to plant them out soonest, under plastic-bottle cloches.

The Lettuces have all perked up and are growing more new leaves.

2 comments:

Alan Pulley said...

Wow! Nice cold frame. I've wanted to build one for myself but haven’t done so yet. It looks like everything’s coming along.

P.S. My family & I live in VA also...

Jeane said...

Thank you! I wasn't sure I could do it, but it was pretty easy. Just scrap materials and a piece of glass. I do want to rebuild it more permanent someday, so I can move it around at will.