Over the past year I have become more interested in growing vegetables. I'm already growing so many flowers that it doesn't seem like it should be that much more work to grow some of the stuff I most like to eat - leafy greens, peas, tomatoes, radishes, peppers and so on. Partly this is to be eating better, fresher food and partly it is to try to eat more locally.
While investigating eating locally, everything I read kept mentioning Eliott Coleman's book "Four-Season Harvest" which I finally purchased. I built a couple 4'x8' coldframes based on Coleman's design. I glazed mine with sheet fiberglass instead of glass or polycarbonate because I already had it. The frames are made from 2x12 and 2x8 lumber with a 4' piece of 2x2 lumber in the middle connecting the front and back.
The frames for the covers are made of 2x2 lumber and are not hinged to the frame. This makes the frames much easier to move around. The covers are edged with 1x3 inch lumber so they fit snugly like the cover of a shoebox.
I built the coldframes with the plan of growing some greens for winter harvest, but then realized I can start using them before that. I am going to try placing them over one of the beds I use for lisianthus and try planting out the lisianthus directly into the beds in mid-April. Hopefully this will bring in an earlier crop of lisianthus.
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