The Trusty Gardener-Let The Gardening Begin!
It’s Time For Cold Hardy Vegetables-Using the Cold Frame
Welcome back fellow gardeners. It’s time! Garden time! Are you ready? A few days ago I officially started the garden. Even though we still had some frost at night. How? Using the cold frame is the answer! I will share with you how mine is set up.
Preparing the Garden
I’ve been working on preparing the garden for almost a month now. Towards the end of April I broke out the old rototiller to wake up the soil from the long winter. Before the 2 week rainy period we got with over 4 inches of rain.
Then on May 9th, I decided to test the garden soil pH, and ended up adding some lime and also some organic plant food. The pH was about 6 to 6.5, which is slightly low. The lime will bring it back into the right range. Most vegetables prefer slightly acidic soil.
Cold Frame 101
The same day I added the lime and the plant food, I planted some plants in the cold frame, which is at the bottom edge of one of my gardens. The cold frame consists of a wooden frame that I built 3 years ago or so with the purpose of protecting my lettuce and other greens from animals and other pests. I use netting over the box and even shade cloth as the summer heat increases.
Last Spring I installed 2 old windows with hinges on top of the box to create a cold frame. This creates a green house type environment that can be controlled by opening or closing the windows. Since the cold frame is covered by glass, it will warm the soil during the day, and the trapped heat in the soil will protect the plants at night’ even if it dips down to near or even a little below freezing.
Using a cold frame is an old technique that my grandparents used. At the time, portable greenhouses weren’t available and cold frames could be easily made from scrap lumber and old windows. Normally, my grandparents would transplant the plants from the cold frame to the garden once the danger of frost passed. However, I decided to place the cold frame right in the garden. This way the plants can remain right in the garden with no transplanting required which sets the plants back a least a week. As the temperatures increase later in May, I just remove the windows from the wooden frame and put the netting on.
The Gardening Seasons Begins!
To be honest, it felt good to get back in the garden and actually plant. After all, it’s been over 6 months since the garden was shut down in October. A long wait to get back to gardening. It seems almost magical to be able get back at it after all the snow and cold during the winter.
It is also of interest that some of the plants I transplanted today were started using the Winter Sowing technique. I wrote a story about this in February. An amazing method that works really well.
I transplanted Pak Choi, Baby Napa Cabbage, Red Russian Kale, all of which were started using Winter Sowing. I also planted some Romaine lettuce that I purchased at a local farm store. For now I just filled one side of the cold frame. I will plant the other side soon. I have some other types of kale and also some Romaine that I started.
Stay tuned for more articles to come, including planting peas and onions.
