Sunken Cold Frame

Sunken Cold Frame Experiment

Fresh, organic WINTER lettuce and spinach on January 19, in NJ! I laugh just thinking about it. Never did I believe that an August planting of lettuce would be picked in February, the middle of the winter!

It should be no surprise that this is my favorite experiment / nerd project of the year. I couldn't believe how well the sunken cold frame worked out!   By this time we had weathered some snow and hard frosts and even Hurricane Sandy. Survival of the fittest cold frame . The veggies were planted in August, and new sprouts were still coming out in February!

Protecting the cold frame was easy, but still took some creativity to keep it warm. At first, I covered it with a sheet of plastic, hoping to stop those pesky drafts! Stage 2 was adding a blanket on the single digit nights. Lastly, and also most nerdy (I am a nerd), I eventually added a light bulb to give extra warmth to keep my greens going the distance.  Here's the nerd part, I set the light bulb on a thermostat, so the light bulb would turn on at 32 degrees. Yeah, who doesn't have a thermostat laying around the house?  I love nerding out in my garden. It made winter gardening worry free and hassle free too, and just funny knowing the thermostat was saving me trips outside.

The sunken cold frame was such a success that I excavated and sunk another one! I'll probably use the new one, (on the right in the picture) to harden off my spring seedlings. So, I'm not sure right now if I'll add topsoil to it and plant it for this spring, but it will be planted next winter.

Best of all, the cold frame project didn't cost a dime :)  I used stuff laying around or given to me, piecing it together. Unfortunately, I broke a window tossing a trowel in the wrong direction :( and I learned a physics lesson about projectile motion.

The experiment ended when the greens ran out, so who knows how long it would have gone on. My last pick, was in early February.  I cut the greens near their base and covered them with some straw and leaves to keep them warm. In a few weeks, they'll be sprouting all over again. I can't wait to see my little green buddies again. I peeked in the other day and they are still there under the hay, just waiting for some warm days to begin their emergence.