It is cold today. And wet. And raining. And snowing. All at the same time!
The inclement weather is a great segue to another project we did last spring. We employed the usual components: tsunami debris, dump finds, hand tools, cordless drill, and 100Yen shop hardware to produce a nifty little contraption we dubbed:
The Driftwood Cold Frame
The inclement weather is a great segue to another project we did last spring. We employed the usual components: tsunami debris, dump finds, hand tools, cordless drill, and 100Yen shop hardware to produce a nifty little contraption we dubbed:
The Driftwood Cold Frame
It all started with a bed frame, a pallet and some plywood...
...then came an old sliding door frame...
...with seven different panes of glass...
The cold frame in action in our field with complimentary recycled desk drawer seed trays
A Driftwood Trifecta!
Cold frames are awesome ways to get seeds started earlier in the spring and to keep plants warm longer into the fall and even winter. You basically need a box or 'frame' with a cover that lets in light, and can be opened or shut to keep in or let out warmth as needed. You can half bury the frame into the soil for more insulation and stable temperatures. We left ours above ground over a 'hugel kultur' bed as an experiment to see if the decomposing wood under the bed would warm the cold frame. We weren't very scientific about it, but it may have had some effect.
The funnest part of this project for me, was getting the seven different glass panes for the cover. We went to the dump and found a massive pile of interior sliding doors used to partition off rooms in Japanese style houses. These were collected from demolished houses and discarded. Most of the frames were broken, but the glass was intact, so, to the pleasure of my inner child, I karate chopped and kicked the doors to pieces and rescued the narrow windows. I then affixed six panes to a door frame that already had one pane in it, then used some hinges to attach it to the box.
We had great success growing just about everything we planted in the cold frame. We used old desk drawers for seed trays and recycled discarded plastic seed pots for some fruit seeds. Still in the cold nights of spring we were able to germinate tomato, corn, zucchini, pumpkin, melon and herb seeds, among others, as well as sprout persimmon, date (tropical fruit-bearing palm tree) and citrus trees from seed.
We learned some important lessons from the cold frame last year. Towards the end of spring we needed to go to the mainland for some family functions but knew that a hurricane was heading towards the island. I watered everyone well and closed the cover to keep our plants safe. Because of the hurricane and a second one that followed it, the ferries back to the island were cancelled, so we had to stay away longer than expected. Once we finally got back to the island, most of the plants had doubled or tripled in size due to the long exposure to the heat trapped under the closed cover. However, the sudden growth spurt was spindly and not hardy enough to withstand a short coldsnap, and most of the veggie starts either died or failed to produce later in the season.
Towards the end of summer I left the lid open with a wire screen on top to keep the crows out. This let our pumpkins explode out of the cold frame and cover an area outside the box more than twice the size of the actual box! That was the good part. The bad part was I left the cover opened and propped up with its foldable legs, well into winter. Either the wind or a massive amount of snow knocked the cover down and one of the window panes shattered and another one cracked. The glass we used was not tempered glass, and therefore is very brittle.
So, cold frames are a wonderful tool for extending your growing season in cool climates but they need to be adjusted daily and should have safe tempered glass covers (or plastic in a pinch if it can be recycled properly at the end of its use). They can be built out of just about anything like: bricks, stone, logs, driftwood, bed frames, and even straw bales. Give it a try and let us know about your experiences growing in a cold frame.
The funnest part of this project for me, was getting the seven different glass panes for the cover. We went to the dump and found a massive pile of interior sliding doors used to partition off rooms in Japanese style houses. These were collected from demolished houses and discarded. Most of the frames were broken, but the glass was intact, so, to the pleasure of my inner child, I karate chopped and kicked the doors to pieces and rescued the narrow windows. I then affixed six panes to a door frame that already had one pane in it, then used some hinges to attach it to the box.
We had great success growing just about everything we planted in the cold frame. We used old desk drawers for seed trays and recycled discarded plastic seed pots for some fruit seeds. Still in the cold nights of spring we were able to germinate tomato, corn, zucchini, pumpkin, melon and herb seeds, among others, as well as sprout persimmon, date (tropical fruit-bearing palm tree) and citrus trees from seed.
We learned some important lessons from the cold frame last year. Towards the end of spring we needed to go to the mainland for some family functions but knew that a hurricane was heading towards the island. I watered everyone well and closed the cover to keep our plants safe. Because of the hurricane and a second one that followed it, the ferries back to the island were cancelled, so we had to stay away longer than expected. Once we finally got back to the island, most of the plants had doubled or tripled in size due to the long exposure to the heat trapped under the closed cover. However, the sudden growth spurt was spindly and not hardy enough to withstand a short coldsnap, and most of the veggie starts either died or failed to produce later in the season.
Towards the end of summer I left the lid open with a wire screen on top to keep the crows out. This let our pumpkins explode out of the cold frame and cover an area outside the box more than twice the size of the actual box! That was the good part. The bad part was I left the cover opened and propped up with its foldable legs, well into winter. Either the wind or a massive amount of snow knocked the cover down and one of the window panes shattered and another one cracked. The glass we used was not tempered glass, and therefore is very brittle.
So, cold frames are a wonderful tool for extending your growing season in cool climates but they need to be adjusted daily and should have safe tempered glass covers (or plastic in a pinch if it can be recycled properly at the end of its use). They can be built out of just about anything like: bricks, stone, logs, driftwood, bed frames, and even straw bales. Give it a try and let us know about your experiences growing in a cold frame.
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