I’ve filled the second section of the cold frame with more lettuces, spinach, kale, kohlrabi, leeks and scallions. Now it looks like this. I may have gone a bit overboard with the salad greens. I’ll have to pick them young, rather than wait until they are big, and then eat lots of salads! I also thought extra would be fine, and I can feed it to the ducks, which should arrive the first or second week of April.
Thanks for the question about construction. It’s good to know someone is reading this! We (or rather, Tim) built a new cold frame top, to be added to the other one, expanding the size. All of these frames are made to fit our framed beds, which are the same width, 3.5 feet. The beds were framed with barn siding material, just because we had some on hand and we wanted to use what we had.
Before the wind storm, we had attached the cold frame with short pieces of pvc pipe placed over the ends of the hoops onto a grooved piece of wood attached to the bed frame, as shown at the right.
After the storm, Tim decided to bolt it to the side of the frame as on the left, with wing nuts on the inside. It’s a little more work to get it on and off for watering and tending, but not bad. It was quite windy again last week, and the thing held on!
The plastic over the hoops is screwed on to the hoops with 1/4 round pieces of pvc piping (3/4″ round).
Tim took the piping on his table saw and ripped it into 4 pieces, as shown.
In order to screw through the pvc and the plastic and the pipe hoops, Tim pre-drilled each hole, which helped a lot to keep the screws from slipping.
The end hoops have an additional 1/4 round piece of the pvc to hold the edge of the plastic in place, on both the frame and the door, as shown. The door is screwed onto the ends of the hoops and opens out. When closed, it is held up by two nails that go through holes in both the door and the frame. (Not shown, sorry.)
There are more pictures, but I think these give the main idea. Here’s a shot of the two, now placed together to give a 12′ covered bed.
Tim has also made two more frames with hoops which we intend to cover with frost cloth to cover the most sensitive plants (peppers, tomatoes) just after planting in May. There are always a few freezing or almost freezing nights that time of year, and hail! We aren’t sure yet if or how we will attach the frost cloth. We may attempt a way to roll it over the hoops, so we can remove it and put it back again at will. We’re just not sure it will hold in the wind, unless we tack it down real good.
I planted lettuces and some cilantro into the cold frame and it looks like this. The lettuces were sown in the house 4 weeks ago. The spinach has been in the cold frame since November. The other lettuces planted in November didn’t survive the cold. Now I know.
There was some spinach growing inside, and I’d been taking new plants out daily to harden off, with plans to plant them soon. It’s a good thing I hadn’t planted the tender lettuces yet! Tim already had a frame built to make another cold frame, so last night he finished covering it with the plastic and put it together, and now we’re set. This one is secured a little better, and as soon as we pick up some bolts we plan to bolt it down even better, so the next time we get wind like that we should be ready for it. Here’s a shot of the new cold frame. Soon I should be able to get the lettuces planted, and some scallions and leeks.
Other than that, the seedlings in the house are coming along nicely. I now have 6 varieties of peppers growing, and just started the tomato seeds as well.
As before, this plan was created on growveg.com. It’s a lot of fun to play around with, and allows me to easily move things from one place to another while I decide what to do, with crop rotation reminders of what had been previously planted in each bed.
Here is a shot looking west, where we plan to house the ducks. We’re thinking of putting their house and run either along the fence, on the other side of the long berry bed, or behind/between the pines and the cottonwood tree, along a fence that will border that area (in front of the small trees in a row). We’ll remove the bed in the foreground that’s framed with railroad ties, and put a gate in the fence leading to the duck area.
Other than that, I’ve received all the seeds I ordered, and started a few more seedlings on Monday.
After tons of research, we’ve decided on DUCKS. Not only that, we’ve decided on a breed. We’ll be looking for Welsh Harlequins. They should be good layers, and are considered “rare”, so by raising these we will help prolong the breed.
We’re making all kinds of plans: how many, when to get them, how to house them, etc. Like we need something else to do! It’ll be fun, a new adventure. We’re planning on making a “duck tractor” or portable pen/house, so we can move them from place to place, letting them forage in the garden when not planted or when plants are established, to eat weeds and unwanted insects.
We are thinking about getting chickens or ducks, for eggs and/or meat. We are still only thinking, and plotting out how we will do this, where they will be, and whether we want one more thing to tie us down. If we do it, we will build some kind of moveable coop that can be moved around to different areas, so they can dig up the weeds and eat snails & grubs, one area at a time, and deposit their manure for us. We might design something that would fit over most of our beds, so we can move it from bed to bed during the winter, and leave it on vacant beds in the summer. Or, we can put them in the weedy area that isn’t planted. We are finding a few plans in different books, and looking for more books and information.
I thought I’d show some pictures of my garden working area. First is indoors where I have my grow lights. So far I’m only using the one light. The seedlings are on a rolling cart, and the seedlings can be raised or lowered according to how much space they need to be below the lights as they grow.
I finally finished buying/ordering my seeds! I really get myself into a tizzy trying to decide what varieties to get, particularly when it comes to tomatoes and peppers. I go back and forth from one website to another, trying to choose which one has the most varieties I want. I want to get as many organic, heirloom seeds as possible, but still get varieties I think will do well. I don’t want to pay shipping to too many places, so I want to keep it to just one, if possible. I also like to buy locally. Sheesh!
Some of the things that sprouted in the MICRO blocks are ready to go into MINI blocks. I’ve made my first batch of 2″ MINI blocks with the 3/4″ pin to make a hole big enough for the MICRO blocks to be inserted.
For “bottom” watering, I’m using these cake pans with lids. (I know, I bought these things, but at least they’re cheap, and re-usable.) I drilled some holes in the bottom of the aluminum pan and place the plastic lid underneath. I can lift the aluminum pan out, pour water into the plastic lid, replace the aluminum pan with the blocks, and the water soaks up from the bottom to water the blocks. Nice.