A Look at the Cold Frames

In addition to the greenhouse tunnel, we also have a couple of cold frames in the garden. They were built to size for the garden beds in the old house, so they are not four feet wide to fit our new beds. That's why we have those rows of pea trellises behind them:

Inside the cold frames above are beets, carrots, mesclun, and arugula. To the right is an empty-looking frame that used to have turnips, but now that those have all been pulled, there are new mache and spinach seedlings in there.

The cold frames, by the way, are just boxes that sit on top of the raised bed. The back side is higher so that the glass (recycled storm windows inherited from a friend) sit on a slant toward the winter afternoon sun. We could probably insulate these further with bales of hay around the outside or by having them inside a green house tunnel for double the heat capture. Part of our winter gardening will include finalizing plans for winter greenhouses to use next year that are better than the half-assed ones we did this year. Still, they make a big difference between life and death for all our veggies:

Our carrots, hidden from view since we sowed them in August, are good to go! These we pulled from the first planting in the cold frame. They are "Rainbow Blend" from Hart's Seeds, which Tiegan picked out. It's a little hard to see in the photo, but that bunch has yellow, orange, and red carrots. I think we should get some purple and white, too, but so far the white ones we picked have been very tiny. We haven't yet conducted a taste test to see if color affects flavor, but they all smell terrific!

We also picked a lot of kale from the cold frame. Planting that in the cold frame wasn't a great idea in the first place: it's way too tall, so it's very smushed under the glass, which can lead to the leaves getting burned if we forget to open them up on a sunny morning. (The carrot leaves are also quite tall, but they bend much more easily, and it's no big deal if a few leaves we're not actually going to eat get singed by the hot glass.) Also, kale is tough enough to survive a good deal of frost and cold, so the cold frame is probably not all that necessary except for the very coldest, snowiest days. Like all things cold frame- and greenhouse-related, we'll come up with a more comprehensive plan next year.