Saturday 7 February 2009

Making a cold frame / construire une petite serre

It's hard to believe in the cold weather we're having that we should be sowing tomato, pepper and courgette seeds very soon. Some of our neighbours have done this already. In preparation for all this spring activity, Lo Jardinièr has been making a cold frame.

C'est difficile de croire qu'on doit semer les tomates, les poivrons et les courgettes bientôt. Quelqu'uns de nos voisins l'ont déjà fait. En vue de toute cette activité de printemps, Lo Jardinièr construit une petite serre.

crate 1_1_1 cold frame_1_1

Some friends gave us two crates, one of which we decided to use as the basis of a cold frame, and a couple of weeks ago we trimmed the bay tree in the corner of the garden so that it won't shade the finished frame.

coldframe1_1_1_1 coldframe2_1_1

Now all that needs to be done is to fill in the sides with planks of wood and polythene sheeting. We're especially pleased because it has cost nothing at all to make - we've used only recycled materials that people have given us or that we had lying around, things ...

handle_1_1 ...like this piece of metal salvaged somewhere by Lo Jardinièr from a previous life as a curtain rod holder. It makes a very good handle for the top of the cold frame.

Another one for Melinda's Buy Sustainable challenge, I think.

Soon, we hope, the cold frame will be full of thriving seedlings!

Bientôt, on éspère, la serre sera pleine de plants à croissance rapide!

Lemons at last! / Des citrons enfin!

Our three lemons - our first ever - have ripened very slowly during the cold weather, but at last they are turning very yellow, rather than yellowy-green. Very soon I'll pick one, slice it and add it to a gin and tonic!

lemons_1_1_1

6 comments:

Jan said...

What a great cold frame!

ilex said...

I'm in love with your clever and beautiful coldframe. It's so much bigger than most- that extra height will no doubt serve you very well.

chaiselongue said...

Thanks Jan and Steve and ilex! We're hoping to have room for the tomato and pepper plants to grow quite tall in there.

Melinda said...

This is FABULOUS - wow, I love it! I'll add a link to my upcoming post on seed starting. Wow! Thanks for letting me know. : )

Kate@LivingTheFrugalLife said...

Very nice! I happen to have an intermittent supply of pallets, so this is something that I could do with them. Cold frames were on my List for this year anyhow. What exactly do you use the polyethylene sheeting for? Is it just to protect the wood from rotting?

-Kate

chaiselongue said...

Kate: the polythene sheeting is just to let more light in at one side. The wood shouldn't rot in our dry climate, but if it were likely to it might be better to protect it with timber preservative. Good luck with making your cold frame!