Cloches and Cold Frames

It's getting cold outside, finally. Our extended summer and mild fall have allowed us to continue growing some mild season crops. We've got pole beans and beets and radishes and lots of greens.
Now, though, the nights are getting cooler and the temperature is in danger of dropping below zero. That means frost. A transplanted Lamb's Ear is really beautiful covered in frost.













But our other plants would hate it. Their leaves would wilt, their growth would be stunted and ... they could DIE! We couldn't have that. So we made some protection for our plants. There are two simple types of cold weather protection for plants. One is a cold frame. A cold frame is any transparent-roofed structure to protect plants from cold weather.


You can build a box and top it with a window on hinges: The top is hinged so that the box can be opened in the day time. Otherwise, the interior would get too hot. It also helps to angle the window-roof slightly so that it can face south and get more sun. That takes a lot of time and materials. Plus, it would have to be a pretty big box to fit along our rows of crops. We made a number of cloches over our rows, instead. A cloche (French for bell) is a plastic tent that can be placed over vegetables to protect them from the nighttime frost.

We drove metal poles into the ground, along the long edge of our planting rows. The poles are spaced about five feet apart. Then we used a flexible plastic tube to connect the poles together and form an arch over the bed. When we know the temperature is going to drop below freezing over night, we just drape long sheets of plastic over the arches and secure them to the ground with bricks or rocks.















Now our plants are happy and protected.

Ben