I figured I would ask this since it seems a lot of what I think I know about gardening is so different here in Oklahoma :), I was wondering how many of us on the board have a cold frame and what has been their experience with it? I want to build one and grow veggies in the winter, but I don't know about the summers, it gets so hot here....

Thanks!

At some point, after the freezing weather ended you could open the glass or plexiglass top and put a screen or Remay or lattice top over it and keep your winter greens going a bit longer, but once the real heat arrives, anything you put into it would be roasted because of the greenhouse effect. Even with shadecloth over it, I think the larger issue than the heat likely would be the humidity which could lead to foliar diseases even if you had the cold frame in shade.

In the fall, I have built a cold frame from several bales of hay lined up in a rectangular shape with an old glass window placed over the top. It is one of those things you can use to keep salad greens or herbs or very dwarf tomato plants going for a few more weeks after freezing weather arrives.

I saved an old storm door from the screened-in porch last year and it is still in the garage waiting to become the top of my cold frame, which DH has not yet built. The cold frame is No. 2 on my 'to do' list. No. 1 is a potting shed, which we just started last week. So, maybe by the end of February (depending on the weather), I'll have a completed potting shed with a cold frame nearby.

Jay has a cold frame and I'm sure he'll post about it later. And I think either Carol or Ilene grows salad greens in a cold frame.

There is a beautiful (but small) cold frame on the cover of the Spring 2010 issue of Urban Farm magazine. I'll link it so you can see it. I love how white and bright it is even though it is small.

Dawn

Jay - are the screen doors kept on over the winter, or just the summer?

Thanks everyone!

I go to lots of auctions. I build most everything from stuff I buy at the auctions, old boards the recreation dept. removes from the bleacher seats or scraps from work and other projects. One of my frames is made out of 2x12's as that is what I had free. I'm making my greenhouse frame from old galvanized posts and rails from a commercial fence around an old compressor station that was removed. Gave me the fence and posts for taking it down. Will be heavier made than any you could buy. I feel certain it will be here as long as I am. I like to build things as cheap but as sturdy as I can.

I looked at the Julianna and other commercial greenhouses but felt I could make one as sturdy or sturdier for a lot less. Two weeks ago I bought a 42" brand new storm door for ten dollars I will put on my greenhouse. There are lots of information and designs on the internet on how to build cold frames. I built mine from information from a grower in WI who has several. I will start seeds inside them also. I bought one old storm door that is tinted black. It doesn't get as warm during the day then seems to hold heat in better after sun down. Jay

I think this spring I might get them out and set up for hardening off my seedlings.

Urban Farm is a new magazine and I really like it. It debuted late last summer and this is only its second issue.
Despite its name, it really isn't aimed at farmers but is for people who might like to be farmers and instead content themselves with raising veggies, herbs, fruit and flowers, often along with chickens/eggs, and other smallish farm-type animals like goats, etc. on small property. The focus is on doing all the above but in a sustainable, ecologically-sane manner. It reminds me to a certain extent of Mother Earth News.

I need to go write a thread about it and introduce it to folks who missed it last summer.

Dawn

For several years I worried about having small animals in my fenced yard until I began to note that my neighbors had dogs that ran free, made more noise, and did their business in my yard. At that point I got a few chickens. (grin)

About the cold frame. Back when I had an operating cold frame, we removed the cover in the summer and planted tomatoes in it. You can't raise anything under glass or plastic in midsummer in Ok.

I'm glad you liked the first issue and I like your description of it. I liked the second issue so much, I wrote a thread about it too.

The second issue has some cute little backyard chicken coops. I love cute little urban chicken coops. I bet your chickens are better neighbors than a lot of those roaming dogs. When I was a kid you could have chickens, goats, rabbits and sheep in our neighborhood which was a sleepy little suburb of Fort Worth. By the time I was in college in the mid-80s, though, there weren't many chickes, rabbits (on a large-scale), goats or sheep left.

Dorothy, I agree whole-heartedly that goats should be allowed. Of course, out here in the sticks we do have neighbors with goats and I just love the goats. The first animals Tim and I learned to 'herd' after we moved here were goats....because one of our neighbors had goats that were escape artists.

Dawn

My daughter lives on 2 1/2 acres and they have pet goats, but some of their neighbors have horses so it isn't a big deal where they live.

Once though, back when the garden had only a little bitty 3' tall fence (all it kept out was rabbits and armadilloes because everything else just jumped it) I looked up and saw about 25 cows down in the roadway and running up the driveway towards the garden (and towards me!). At the sight of a crazy woman jumping up and down, waving her arms and yelling at them they all stopped and stood and stared at me while I ran to the house to get Tim and a rake or hoe or something. They didn't come any closer to the garden, but it did make me a bit nervous knowing that they might. We put up a sturdier and taller fence after that but I doubt it would keep out cows if they wanted to get to those plants.

Lots of our neighbors have chickens and roosters and I am used to them, but I'd be happier if we didn't have any roosters at all. The roosters seem to greatly annoy the hens who'd just as soon not have the benefit of the 'service' the roosters perform.

It always makes me laugh when people talk about moving to the countryside for the 'peace and quiet' because there's no such thing.....just among the domestic animals, you'll hear chickens and roosters clucking and crowing, cats meowing and hissing, horses neighing and whinnying and snorting, cows mooing, goats and sheep baaing and donkeys braying. Some times of the year are louder tha others....like when the ranchers are (I assume) weaning the calves and put them in one pasture and all the mama cows in a separate pasture. They stand and 'call out' to each other and make a lot of noise for a couple of days.

Add in all the sounds of the wild animals and it is pretty much a non-stop racket out here in the peaceful "quiet" contryside. I'm not sure where you'd find peace and quiet but it wouldn't be here where we live. LOL

I have the perfect spot on the south side of the garage/shop building and that whole long beds needs a complete do over. The weeds, maybe Brome, has taken over! How I hate that grass...then there is the blasted Bermuda. So I really have no excuse this year. I will build a permanent cold frame.

Many people are bothered by airplanes and I don't mind them at all. In fact, I usually stop what I am doing and look up. I guess that comes from spending all those years on an Air Force base. We rarely hear a plane at our house, but sometimes here the medical choppers going over. I don't think I would want to live under the DFW flight pattern however.

I think that the reason the rooster's crow bothers me is that I am afraid that it is bothering others and I know I am responsible. So far, so good, on the pullets I bought from Atwoods, but my problems are those seven "cute" little Sultans that I bought at Baker Creek, that were just straight run chicks from someone's barnyard. Everytime I hear one crow, it gets a net over it's head and goes in another pen so it can "go away". So far there have been three and occasionally I still hear a crow out there. I will have to wait until the snow is gone and they are playing in the backyard again so I can make sure I get the right one. They don't have many rooster characteristics at this stage, except for a lame sounding crow. The Sultans are not good for anything, and were a big mistake, but they were sure fun little chicks. It's like a puppy or kitten I guess. If they didn't have such appeal in the baby stage, we might not have as many pet owners. In some families I wonder if that applies to humans as well. LOL

In the summer, I sometimes hear cows, especially if there is a spring storm on the way. They are not close to me tho, so I can't hear them from inside the house.

In the summer our greatest man-made noise is from motors on the lake. Some boats and personal water craft really make a lot of noise. I can accept that noise tho since I know they are having fun....now when the boat mechanic in the neighborhood is working on an engine, it gets a little loud.

I notice that I am also bothered by pants that are falling down, and it makes me want to get the trowel and "crack spackle" and fill in the offending spaces.

One day when I worked at the courthouse, an attorney came in and asked me if I could see this man that was standing at the window of the clerks office. Well, of course, I could and he was kind of bent over and leaning on the open window. At first glance, I knew what the lawyer was refering to. I just happened to have a tube of lotion at my desk and I handed it to him. It was "Zim's Crack Cream", and I thought he was going to strock out on me before he stopped laughing.

Some day we should do a thread on all the words people say wrong. Even the educated seem to have a problem with certain words. I don't know how we could work that into gardening tho. See there, I'm too lazy to type the real word. LOL

elkwc, I like the idea about a screen door I will have to keep a look out at garage sales for screened doors.

I am definitely doing a cold frame. I think I will wait till about September then I will have crops for winter. I am also refurbishing a small shed for hydroponic lettuce, I don't know about that yet. My hubby thinks I have lost my mind!

With your own fresh greens, you will not have to worry about E. coli or salmonella infecting the greens during the growing, harvesting or shipping process. You won't have to worry that a disruption to the oil supply will drive up transportation costs and cause food prices to spike.

I believe fresh produce is well worth the time, effort and cost involved in raising it. Even though it is now February and the harvest was completed months ago, we are still eating our own frozen, dehydrated, canned or root-cellared produce from our own garden. How wonderful is that?

Many non-gardeners think I'm insane because of all the time, money and energy I devote to our garden, but they all absolutely love it when I give them fresh produce in season or a jar of salsa or pickles or peppers or whatever during the winter months and they beg for more. So, I think that insanity is in the eye of the beholder!

It it too bad you can't have a small goat in the city. Small goats probably would be less noisy, for example, that many dogs.

Dawn