subject: Utilizing Cold Frames Along With Your Crops [print this page] Utilizing Cold Frames Along With Your Crops
Looking for an innovative way to exhibit your prized plants? Are you too short of money to manage to pay for a large scale greenhouse kit but want to cultivate your crops in winter season months? The cure to your problems may be cold frames!
Cold Frame Functions
Cold frames function as little greenhouses for harvesting crops in much cooler weather. Dependant upon the crops and the weather, a cold frame could be enough to uphold plants until the spring unfreeze happens. These kinds of little greenhouses safeguard crops from severe wind and enable the sun's warmth to collect all around the plants and keep the soil down below from freezing.
Cold frames can be constructed from just about any translucent material. A number of people use plastic bottles, old milk jugs or plastic sheeting to create their own homemade cold frames. Nevertheless, most cold frames are built from the same exact materials included in traditional greenhouses.
Frequently gardeners use items like old windows to set-up a glass box for their crops to live in throughout the cooler weather. Other folks opt for a newer approach and buy pre-constructed cold frame greenhouse kits which use glass or plastic panels that filter out harmful UV rays, while letting in a sufficient amount of life sustain heat and light.
Which Crops Perform The Best In Cold Frames
Lettuce is the perfect cold frame crop. Lettuce is an excellent choice considering most kinds are hardy enough to hold up against colder temps and can prosper with the protection from a cold frame.
Spinach, scallions, chard, arugula, broccoli, beets, mustard, radish, kale, onion, and cabbage also are common cold frame crop choices.
Gardening Guidelines: Cold Frames
If you would like to use your cold frame for more than hardening off seedlings or getting a couple week's head start on spring sowing, you can put a layer of compost blended with dry doggy food to your cold frame base. Conceal this compost mixture with at a minimum six inches of garden soil, and sow your crops.
The function of the layer of compost/commercial dog food is to give the cold frame an adequate heat source through cooler days as well as additional nutrients.
You can also use decomposing hay or glass cuttings to generate heat for your cold frame crops. This method essentially transforms your cold frame into a hot bed for cultivating different sorts of crops.
Utilizing the low-cost effectiveness of cold frames can transform your gardening habits from a seasonal activity into a year-round hobby in a few easy steps.
