** BUILD A COLDFRAME TO EXTEND YOUR GARDEN SEASON ** If you are like me, and miss your fresh salads from the garden, you might want to think about building 1 or 2 Coldframes. A Simple Coldframe will extend your Vegetable Growing Season into the Winter months. All you really need are a few basic supplies to build one. The only essential for the frame’s cover is that light gets through. Almost any transparent material will work: glass, fiberglass, polyethylene, or flexible greenhouse coverings. Many people use old window sashes, but just make sure they dont have lead based paint on them. If you’re buying material to cover your Coldframe, consider Lexan. It stands up well to the elements (like rain, sleet, ice, or snow), and insulates especially well. Other gardeners prefer the corrugated fiberglass (4-by-8-foot panels) sold for greenhouses. Although it costs a little more than other plastics, it lets in a lot of light and doesnt turn yellow with prolonged exposure to sunlight. Ive seen frames built with just hay bales. Just arrange 4 bales of hay or straw into a square shape to make the sides of your Coldframe. Put your glass or plastic cover on top of the bales, and there you have it. Cinder blocks are a good alternative; just be sure to turn them on their sides so the holes point up and down. Otherwise, air will pass through. Cover the top holes, afterwards, to keep the structure warmer. To make a more permanent and easily vented structure, build the sides from wood, and attach your top to it with hinges. Cedar, cypress, and redwood are naturally rot-resistant, but you can use almost any kind of wood—as long as it isn’t pressure treated. Pressure-treated wood contains highly toxic substances, including arsenic. Secure the pieces of wood with elbow braces at each corner, glue, and then screw in with two 1- or 1 1⁄2-inch galvanized screws. If you garden in an extremely cold area, you’ll need a more permanent and better insulated Coldframe. Jan Scheefer, a high-altitude gardener in Gunnison, Colorado, made her Coldframe walls out of 6-inch-thick poured concrete, which she then painted black to absorb solar heat. She capped the frame with corrugated fiberglass framed with 2 x 4s of pine. Its best to orient your Coldframe to the south, with the top angled about 25 to 30 percent from front to back. If that isn’t possible, at least make sure your Coldframe is in a sunny spot, and angle the top to allow rain to run off. Proper ventilation is probably the most important part of growing inside a Coldframe! On warm or cool sunny days, heat can build up inside the sealed frame, so you’ll need to have the lid open.. Leave it closed, and you will cook your Veggies early before they are even harvested. You can install a thermometer to check temps at a glance. The best venting tool is a sturdy stick or dowel that you use to prop open the top, late in the morning of any sunny day when outside temperature is expected to rise above 40ºF. (On a sunny 50ºF day, the temperature inside your Coldframe can quickly get up to 80ºF.) Make notches in the stick so you can prop open the top at different heights, depending on the outside temperature. And always close the lid or vent by late afternoon so some of the insulating heat of the day is trapped inside to help protect against the night’s chill. You can grow anything in your Coldframe that you would normally grow in your garden. In many areas, you can sow seeds for spinach, lettuce, kale, bok choy, arugula and other salad greens to enjoy in winter. Or, start your Seeds indoors, and then transplant lettuce, cabbage, and cauliflower inside the frame. In areas with an extra-short growing season, a Coldframe may be the only way to grow warm-weather crops. High-altitude gardeners and Alaskans use Coldframes through summer to raise tomatoes, green beans, and cucumbers. After building your Coldframe, you will want to plant some great Heirloom Seeds in it, or indoors to start with. Here at THE SEED GUY, we have our 60 Variety CHRISTMAS Heirloom Seed Special going on now. The Seed pkg has 26,000 Seeds, all Non GMO, and all varieties are individually packaged and then put in a 10 x 14 silver mylar bag. All Heirloom Seeds are Small Farm-Grown, Fresh from the 2014 harvest, and priced very reasonably at $50 -- so more Families can afford to grow their own Healthy Non GMO Gardens. ** You will get 50 Veggie Seed varieties, and then 10 FREE Herb Seed varieties as a Bonus ** You can see Heirloom Seed varieties and ORDER at theseedguy/78-the-60-variety-christmas-survival-heirloom-seed-package.html If you LIKE US on our Facebook page https://facebook/theseedguy you will be on our list for great Gardening articles, New Seed Offerings, and Juice Recipes. You can call us 7 days a week at 918-906-7381, and will always be able to talk to a Live Person--to ask questions or to place phone orders. Thank you and God Bless You and Your Family.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:11:23 +0000
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