One Thursday evening I stopped by my parents after work. As I’m telling my dad I need to get home pretty quick because I have plants to put in the cold frame, he says “A coal train? What are you going to do with a coal train?”
Maybe it was the blaring radio he was jamming to while he readied his fishing boat for the next outing. Or maybe those 35 years he worked in a factory really did make him hard of hearing (although we do find it curiously funny that he’s been tested and has no evidence of any issues with his audition).
I make a louder, clearer pronunciation. “I have to go put my plants in a COLD FRAME.”
“A cold frame?” dad says. “What’s a cold frame?”
And some of you may be wondering the same thing. Cold frames have actually been around for thousands of years. According to freelance writer Gwen Bruno, in Rome circa 30 A.D., “Royal physicians have warned the ailing emperor Tiberius that he must eat a cucumber every day. So begins construction of a specularium, a house dedicated to growing plants.” (Source: www.davesgarden.com)
A cold frame is a variation of a greenhouse in that it can retain heat, allowing gardeners to gradually acclimate their seed starts from indoor conditions to outdoor conditions in an effort to prevent plant shock.
We chose an unseasonably warm Saturday morning in February (it reached 70 degrees in Illinois that day) to make our cold frames. One we made out of bales of straw and re-used windows making a box against the south side of the house. Fifteen minutes or so and we were done and onto the next cold frame!
The next one we made was a bit tricky. It involved quite a bit more muscle, time and energy.
You see, cold frames can be made out of any recycled material. According to Webster’s Dictionary, a cold frame is “a small wooden or metal frame covered with glass or plastic that is used for growing and protecting plants in cold weather.”
So we decided to scavenge through the barns to see what we could find. Armed with our dirty jeans, work boots and gardening gloves, we began the hunt.
Old windows were spotted on top of the hayloft. While sifting through the “best” old windows, Bri came across an old sturdy wooden box about 3 foot deep, 3 foot wide, 7 foot long, and heavy…really heavy. Probably about 75 to 100 pounds. “This would make a great cold frame,” she says. “But how will we get it down.”
At one point we even discussed getting some guys to help us but eventually realized we didn’t need dudes, just ingenuity. After much deliberation, we came up with a plan to take three sturdy, long boards and placed them at a 45 degree angle from the edge of the loft to the floor.
Once we cleared the 1980s snowmobile and other items out of the way, we climbed back up the ladder onto the loft to figure out how to shimmy the box down these boards. Not being strong enough to lift it above waste level onto the 45 degree angled planks, we quickly realized we needed some sort of leverage. Two old tires were spotted and moved just beneath the boards. These would work, we thought!
We lifted the 75ish pound box up on top of the two old tires and slid the box onto the 2 by 4s. One of us balanced the box on top of the 2 by 4s while the other climbed back down to the ground. It was the deciding moment….is the box going to stay on the boards? Is it going to slide down so quickly it will smash into a bunch of pieces rendering it unusable? Will it take me with it as is goes crashing down to the ground? Will it slam into Bri down below?
To our surprise it slid down very slowly and stayed in place until we were both able to get on each side of it and carry it out of the barn. Mission accomplished….without dudes.
#garden #recycle #CleanAcresLLC
Submitted by Tabitha Elder
Tabitha is a Central Illinois resident and co-owner of Clean Acres Produce. Follow their journey of starting a Community Shared Agriculture program in the chemical free fresh food desert of rural Piatt County at www.cleanacresproduce.org, www.facebook.com/cleanacresproduce or @CleanAcres.
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