held together by mortar, youd need do dig deeply enough to lay the bottom layer several inches below

the frost line, so the cement wouldnt be cracked by the inevitable rocking action of alternate freezing and thawing. For a collapsible frame, you could attach hinges to the back corners of wood box-frame and then attach the front panel with screws or hooks. You could also make a conventional box-frame portable by attaching handles to its sides. For a quick cold frame, if you have enough hay bales and plenty of space, arrange the bales in a rectangle, open at the top, to support a storm window. For easier access, use a crap board for the front side. Be sure to position the bales so that the string bindings are on the sides rather than on the ground where they would rot quickly. Monitoring Temperature. Warm spring sun can cold frame interior surprisingly hot. You might want to put a thermometer in your frame so youll know when internal temperatures climb into the danger zone, much above 800F (270C). Different plants, of course, thrive under different temperature ranges: Most tender plants: 600F to 75 0F (160C to 24 0C). Half-hardy plants: 500F to 65 0F (100C to 18 0C). Hardy plants: 450F to 60 0F (70C to16 0C).

James Crockett, former host of the Victory Garden television program, offered helpful advice: when the outdoor temperature rises to 400F (40C), Crockett says, you can open the cold frame cover six inches. At 600F (160C), swing the lid wide open. Then in midafternoon, close the lid to retain the midday heat. Automatic temperature-sensing vents are available from green house suppliers, but theyre not practical for most improvised frames, which usually have lids too heavy for the lightweight mechanism to lift. Accessories. Once the basic structure is made, youll need a few accessories to make the use of your cold frame easier and more efficient. To Anchor an Open Lid. On good days, when winds arent high, you will want to swing back the lid of the cold frame to expose the plants directly to the sun. Sudden wind gusts, though, can be surprisingly forceful. If your cold frame stands up against another structure, or you cant rest the lid on the ground, you will want to devise a way to anchor the glass lid so that the wind wont bang and break it. Our cold frame is built on the south side of the cement-block-enclosed compost pile. When I raise the lid, it leans back and rests on the block wall, but a strong wind can blow it down with disastrous results. (If you think Im warning you about this because I slipped up on it the first time around, youre right!) After Mike replaced the broken glass, he put a crew hook into each of the two top windows and fastened wire around and through a block on each end of the compost-pile wall. Now when I open the glass top, I catch the wire loop in each hook so the wind cant blow it down. Youll avoid in this trouble if you simply lay the windows on top of the cold frame. Although not quite as airtight as the hinged construction, this simple setup makes it easy for you to work in the cold frame: you simply lift the window off. To Prop the Lid Open. Youll need a prop of some kind to elevate the cold frame top a few inches when intense sun warms up the interior. This can be as simple as a handy stick or stone, but an adjustable stop, made of a notched two-by-four, will give you more leeway in arranging

ventilation. Cut three steps into the prop stick at different heights. To use it, simply set the prop stick on the ground and rest the lid of the cold frame on one of the three steps . To Provide Some Shade. In early spring, I use the cold frame to bring on the early lettuce and cabbage under glass. By the end of April its usually safe to start hardening off the peppers and tomatoes Ill plant in the garden in mid-May. When I put out flats of these vegetables, I leave the glass windows open during the day, unless the wind is strong, and close them at night when temperatures dip. For the first week or so, I use improvised slatted covers to shade out about 60 percent of the suns rays so the plants dont suffer from suncald as they would if suddenly exposed to the full impact on direct sunlight. Watering the Plants. Plants in the open cold frame dry more quickly than those kept under lights. For some, daily watering is necessary when the sun is intense. Most flats, unless shallow and lacking moisture-retaining moss, do well for me when watered about every other day. Plants that are being hardened off, youll recall, should be kept on the dry side but not allowed to wilt.

Hotbeds
A hotbed is simply a cold frame that is supplied with extra warmth. The heat, usually from the bottom, helps to promote seed germination and steady growth of seedlings that are cold sensitive. Using a Soil-heating Cable . One effective hotbed design uses a soil-heating cable imbedded between vermiculite and soil. A 30-foot cable will heat a 3-by 6-foot cold frame. To build such an arrangement follow these steps: 1. Spread a two-inch layer of vermiculite on the bottom of the cold frame for insulation. 2. Lay the cable on the vermiculite in long loops, keeping wires eight inches apart from each other and three inches away from the edge of the bed. 3. Cover the cable with an inch of soil or sand. 4. On top of the soil, place a layer of wire screening to prevent the cable from accidentally being dug up. 5. Cover with four inches or more of good fine soil. This will give steady bottom heat. A Temporary Hotbed. If you already have your cold frame set up and dont want to install a permanent heating arrangement, you could warm the frame temporarily with a chicken brooder lamp, or for very gentle warmth, take a tip from one of our neighboring master gardeners and tack a string of outdoor Christmas tree lights around the inside of the frame. A Manure-heated Hotbed. Conservation-conscious gardeners are turning increasingly to the manure-heated hotbed, since its possible achieve the same end without drawing on electric power. In addition, you improve your soil and eliminate equipment purchase and care. Most old gardening books offer elaborate plans for the construction of hotbeds of heroic proportions. Our grandfathers, who farmed with horsepower, had an abundance of this quick-heating manure at their disposal. Even today, though, the common keeping of pleasure horses by people who dont always have a use for the by-products puts horse manure within the reach of city and suburban as well as country gardeners.

The following instructions will take you through the simple process of making a manureheated hotbed: 1. Dig a rectangular hole three to four inches larger all around than the dimensions of your cold frame and 1 1/2 to 2 feet deep. 2. A week to ten days before planting, pack horse or chicken manure into the hold up to six inches from soil level. 3. Hose this layer down to start decomposition. 4. Spread six inches of fine soil on top of the manure. The manure will reach its peak of heat within three to six days. Wait to plant, though, until the soil temperature fall to 850F (29 0C), or youll cook your seedlings. Ventilate the bed as necessary to keep the temperature below 900F (320C). Improvisations. If you like to improvise, perhaps some of the following ideas, used successfully by other experienced gardeners, will work for you: Make a mini-hotbed from a discarded refrigerator crisper drawer set in a hole over packed, moistened manure as described above and topped with its original glass. Back a portable cold frame up to a cellar window, which can be opened to admit heat from the house. Make a long, low tent from two screen doors covered on each side with a layer of tacked-on plastic sheeting. Attach triangular end frames of outdoor plywood in which ventilation holes have been drilled. Use this as a cold frame, or bury manure underneath to it make it a hotbed. Make frames from scrap wood covered with poultry netting (or use old screen doors). Tack on plastic for an inexpensive portable cold frame. Line sturdy cardboard cartons with black plastic that is stapled on. Top with a flap clear plastic that is stapled to the back end and clipped to the front end with clothespins. The waxed cartons used for chicken parts work especially well; you can get them from grocery stores.

As youve no doubt noticed by now, part of the satisfaction of rigging up a cold frame or hotbed - for me at least - lies in using materials at hand to make a useful thing. See what you can come up with.

Cloches and Other Season Extenders

A bit of extra protection in early spring can make a significant difference in the growth of your plants. Probably the most effective use of temporary row or plant covers is to moderate harsh spring weather for seedlings planted at or near their normal planting time. You can also use spot covers to enable you to get away with planting up to three weeks early, but dont expect much more than that. Although they certainly do reduce heat lost by convection and radiation, small temporary covers cant retain enough of the suns heat to tide a tender plant over a severe freeze.

Cloches. For many years, French market gardeners used cloches - bottomless clear glass bell jars - to protect their early plantings. More recently developed plant protectors are easier to use and store than the heavy breakable glass. Whether or not you still call them cloches, as many people do, these covers are used by many costconscious present-day market gardeners, who wouldnt bother with them if they didnt confer a useful amount of protection. You can make your own cloches, of course, by removing the bottoms from plastic gallon jugs. These are easy to stack, although they do get a bit misshapen after a few seasons of use, and they have the extra advantage of being free. Press them well into the soil when you set them over your plants so the wind wont topple them. Tunnels and Row Covers. Tunnels may be purchased or homemade. You can use clear plastic to arch over your early rows, supported by supple bent twigs or wire hoops stuck in the ground. The sides of the plastic should be thoroughly battened down by banking with soil or covering with boards, and the top surface should be slit and intervals to allow excess heat to escape on a sunny day. Sheets of perforated plastic for tunnels are available from mail-order suppliers. A sheet of corrugated fiberglass, bent into a U shape and wrapped with wire on each and to retain its tunnel form, will last longer than plastic sheeting and needs no additional support except, perhaps, a few staked to keep it anchored at the sides. Two recently developed commercial products confer additional protection. Wallo Water . The Wallo Water is a clear vinyl ring of tubes 18 inches high and 18 inches in diameter. When filled, the enclosure will raise the air temperature around a plant by at least 50F (30C) and the soil temperature by about the same amount. The way it works is that the water - 25 pounds of it - soaks up the suns warmth and then gradually releases it to the plants at night. For more support and warmth, you can set a tire around the Wallo Water. Its an interesting idea, and it certainly does help to encourage plants that are set out moderately early - say, seven to ten days ahead of the usual time, but it cant work miracles. I wouldnt use it with tender plants like tomatoes and squash in freezing March weather. It takes about five minutes to fill the tubes with water (a process that can be a comedy of errors if you dont read the directions). Put each ring in a five-gallon bucket for support and fill the tubes on alternate sides, rather than all on the same side, so the device will stand straight sooner. Although stakes are not supposed to be necessary, the rings do occasionally slump, so you might want to slide two smooth stakes inside the rings right from the start to help keep them upright. If you fill the tubes only two-thirds full of water, you can bend the top flap over form a closed teepee. To prolong their useful life, be sure to thoroughly drain and dry the tube rings at the end of the season. Reemay. This lightweight spun polyester fabric is easier to use than the Wallos Water, but short-lived. To use it, you just drape it over your rows immediately after planting seeds or transplanting seedlings and anchor it well on both sides with loose soil. Allow 1 to 2 feet of slack, depending on the size of your plants. This provides leeway for the plants as they grow. The 67inch-wide material is available in lengths of 20, 50, and 100 feet. A sheet of Reemay is wide enough to cover a bed 3 1/2 feet wide or two average garden rows. The fabric is so light in weight that plants can easily shoulder it upward as they grow. Reemay protects seeds and young seedlings in several ways. it reduces light transmission by about 20 percent. Young plants still receive plenty of light, and on a sunny day the space under the cover is less likely to overheat than it would be with a clear cover. The temperature under a sheet of Reemay rises by 8 0F to 10 0F (4.50C to 5.5 0C) on a sunny day, and although heat is lost again at night, the bonded cover provides a good 20F to 30F (10C to 1.50C) of frost

protection. It also retains moisture, which helps to encourage germination, and when thoroughly anchored without any gaps, its an effective insect barrier. (If you use it for cucumbers or squash, remove the Reemay when blossoms form so pollinating insects can do their job). Reemay is permeable, so rain can soak in and hot air can escape. In warm weather, you might need to loosen it is to permit more ventilation; when outside air temperature is 850F (290C), the air under Reemay heats to 95 0F to 97 0F (350C to 36 0C). Reemay offers a few disadvantages as well. It encourages weeds as much as it does vegetables, so youll need to do some weeding. Because sunlight degrades the material, it often starts to shred after a three-month stint in the garden. If you pack it away out of the light as soon as its no longer needed, you might find that it will last for another growing season. Other Row Covers. Other brands of porous row covers include Agronet, Arryl, Vispore, and Kimberly Farms. Agronet is available in a 42-foot width. A newer row-cover material, Tufbell, is made of polyvinyl alcohol and is three to ten times more stable in the presence of ultraviolet light than other row covers. It is also, so far, more expensive. Tufbell is not yet as widely available as Reemay. No doubt these products will continue to be improved in years to come. The best use for these fabrics seems to be to ease plants through those marginal days of early-spring weather, when an ounce of prevention can enhance their growth.

17 Care of the Young Transplant

Extra measures of support given to new plantings - mulching, watering, fertilizing, and staking - should be carried out with regard for variations in weather, plant growth habits, and row spacing. Although difference in climates and individual gardens make rigid prescriptions unworkable, perhaps a few loosely scheduled suggestions would help you to time these practices correctly to encourage rather than impede the plants growth.

Mulching
Mulch spread between rows smothers weeds and helps to slow the evaporation of soil moisture. Biodegradable mulches like straw and leaves have the additional advantage of improving soil tilth fertility. Kinds of Mulch. Generally, you have the choice of mulching with organic materials like leaves and straw or with synthetic plastic products. Mulches of organic materials tend to keep the soil cooler than if the ground were bare, whereas polyvinyl sheets, both black and clear, warm the ground under them. Use any fine mulch you may have for narrow rows and save the coarse stuff for wider aisles. Newspaper. According to recent reports, most newspapers are now using low-lead inks on their newsprint, but not necessarily on their glazed-paper supplements. Both unprinted