Up until about a year ago, I had never heard of a cold frame. Not to say that anyone is naive, but just in case you are in the same situation I was in a year ago I'll explain what this is. A cold frame is essentially a mini green house formed by a box with a glass top. The idea is that even when it is cold out, the sun will heat up the interior of the box via the glass and then the contents of the box will stay warm through the cool/ cold night. Even if it is cold during the day, if the sun is shining the cold frame will heat up. A great way to extend the growing season if you don't have room, money or desire to build a green house.
People use all sorts of different materials to build their box (wood, hay bales, bricks...). I chose due to space limitations to build a well insulated box using stacked cinder blocks which I will eventually fill with earth as added insulation. To top it off, I purchased a old window from Builders Depot in Cortez which is a used building material warehouse. I was hoping to find used cinder blocks at the BD as well, but no luck...
I used Google Sketchup again to model how to best lay the cinder blocks and to get an idea of how many I was going to need once I obtained the window.
After adding some manure and turning the soil in the footprint of the cold frame I laid out the cinder blocks and voila, a Cold Frame. (Note the snow falling)
I added some additional soil and have planted Chard, Lettuce, Basil and Cilantro in half of the available space. In the other half I purchased a large seeding try which I am going to grow sunflower sprouts in.
I planted a trial batch of sunflower sprouts a week and a half ago in a lettuce container, and got my first batch of home grown greens on Sunday!
I am very happy with the results and the micro greens are very tasty! I bought these seeds from Let it Grow, but it was fairly expensive because I had to buy 3 packets of seeds as they don't sell them in bulk. Online I found a sprout supply supplier and have ordered 7 lbs of sunflower seeds which should be waiting for me when I get home! I'll plant these in my new tray and put it in the cold frame and let it soak up the sun!
Hopefully the snow is over for the year, and we can get on with putting more plants into the garden!
