Building our cold Frame - spring 2010

Even before we started the project, we decided to capture the major parts in photos and on film.  There was a lot about our cold frame construction and design that did not make it into my video.
However, to get an idea of what it looks like, try this link uTube Video - 5 minutes of cold frame info.  This brief write-up should help fill in any gaps.

We started raised bed gardening years ago after turning the soil each spring and battling the same weeds all summer and fall.  In fact, things are so prolific here in the Willamette valley of Oregon that we found weeds quite difficult to control.  Combine this with Karen's desire not to work in a bent over position, we built some nice and tall raised beds in about 2000.  These beds are about 22" tall and have done well for ten years.  We turn the soil annually with a spading fork and have very few weeds.  We covered the bottom with landscape cloth and hardware cloth to keep the thistles and gophers out of the beds.  We filled the beds with compost provided by a local recycler and found we need to add more each year due to settling and some soil leaving with the plants.

All was well until this winter when we visited our neighbors and found them eating fresh lettuce from their greenhouse.  Damn, that looked good in January and February!  After pricing a new or even used green house and thinking we wanted to build it ourselves, we settled on a constructing a large cold frame instead. When you think about it, they are a much more efficient use of materials as you have no human space to maintain - just plant space.  We researched the cold frame market and watched tons of videos on the web from other souls like us and determined, as is often the case, that the things we need are close at hand.  This video from a couple of growers in Washington   pretty much tipped it for us - we needed to use Solexx.  It seemed like a good product and we will know a heck of a lot more about it over the next few years.

In Brooks, next to I-5, a small company has a display of a variety of greenhouses and cold frames and they sell kits as well as manufacture a greenhouse covering called Solexx.   None of their kits fit our existing raised beds, so we visited them in March of 2010.  They were quite friendly and both of the owners sat down with us to discuss our problems and brainstorm solutions based on their experience, our needs and our budget.  They kindly sold us metal fittings to make a complete structure.  They said this was not usual.  They usually sell kits and rolls of Solexx to cover the structure.  We bought the parts and 22' of Solexx.  It all came to around 280$, kind of spendy for our budget but awesome for rigidity, length of life, ease of construction and quality of light for plants.
I had some 3/4" PVC schedule 40 pipe on hand already from installing our farm's plumbing system and used this for framing.  I also got special screws and a tube of GE Silicon to complete the materials list.

The video shows the construction and it was not too difficult.  Measure well and be sure to cut long to start.  The fittings are not all equal (some allow the pipe to go further into the fitting that others) and trial and error helped.  Once the frame was built and covered and the ends were sealed with silicone, we put it on the raised bed.  There it was easy to add the hinges, the small chains to keep it from tipping too far and, best of all, the automatic opener.  These auto-opener devices are magical.  I am still not sure how such a small cylinder can lift the 25# cold frame at such a precise temperature.  Since we setup the auto-opener, the inside the cold frame has never got above 80 degrees.  Some mornings it reaches 80 when it is still in the 50's outside.  As the video shows, we have a remote thermometer inside the cold frame.  

The vegies are loving it so much.  We think we will have the best peppers and eggplant ever this year and look forward to growing our own food all year long.  Almost every inch of the 32 sq foot bed can be used for growing plants up to 3' tall.  Now it's up to us, not the weather, to get good food onto the table for ourselves, our family and our friends.  And we still are growing a summer garden in other raised beds, including one 8'x18' dedicated to just squash varieties this year.

Feel free to leave a message on Utube about the video, the garden or something else that you are working on and we will do what we can to help.