For our cold frame, barnwood composes the straight sides and tin the curved and pointed end. You can also use salvaged or purchased wood and paint it or leave it untreated.
Join the side pieces, using gauge perforated-steel angle. Cut pieces with a hacksaw. Place washers between the bolts and the wood.
Stretch chicken wire across the cold frame to keep seed flats off the ground. Attach with a washer and screw. Editor's Tip: If you anticipate your flats being heavier than the chicken wire can withstand, use lengths of treated lumber to create heavy-duty shelves.
Your cold frame will warm up quickly when the sun is shining directly on it. Always prop open the lid a little on bright sunny days, even if the air temperature is cool. On warm days, you may want to open the lid completely.
Always close the lid before nightfall to preserve the day's warmth. The frames should cover the entire top of the cold frame to keep heat from escaping. Here is a look at how we built our, step by step. You can easily adjust the material sizes to fit your window. We then cut the pieces to create our side angle boards. It is always a good idea to pre-drill each screw hole to keep the wood from splitting.
Next, we mounted the angle boards to the sides by driving a screw in the bottom portion of each side. For attaching the windows, we used basic butt-style hinges. We used two hinges for each window, securing them to the top back of the cold frame. The hinges allow you to prop open the cold frame easily on warm days. A few years back, we actually installed automatic vent openers to our cold frames.
Using solar power, they automatically open at a certain temperature, and close when it gets too cold. Product Link : Automatic Vent Opener. Even if they're different, I know you're smart - you'll figure it out.
The basic cold frame consists of hinged or fixed windows on top of a base. You can either hinge the windows or affix them permanently and lift the entire frame off the plants to tend to them. Be aware that the cold frame may end up being too heavy or awkward to conveniently lift, so plan accordingly. The frame dimensions will depend on the dimensions of the windows. With four windows placed side by side, my cold frame was about 6 feet wide and 2.
The height of the frame is up to you. It can be low, with just enough room for plants to sprout, or much taller so they can reach nearly full height. I chose to make mine pretty tall, over two feet, so that taller plants could still enjoy the protection the frame provides. Remember that if your plants outgrow the cold frame, you can simply leave the windows open all the time. Lastly, the top can be either flat or on an angle. I put mine on an angle to facilitate drainage when it rains. The windows I had were quite dirty, covered with decades of dirt, paint and old caulking.
The first step is to clean the windows. I started by scraping off all the old caulking. I then washed them off in my laundry tub with mild soap and water. This got rid of most of the dirt. I then sanded the old paint to get the windows ready to be repainted. I could hinge them all against the back edge of the cold frame, I could bolt them together in pairs and hinge them on the back or sides, or even leave off the hinges completely and add handles to remove them completely.
Ultimately, I decided to group them in pairs, hinged together and at the sides, bi-fold style. This had a distinct advantage over hinges at the back.
Namely, that full access to the interior of the cold frame could be given, while needing to move the heavy windows only a small distance. Lay out your windows on the ground and shift them around until you find an arrangement that works the best for you. Take note of the position of each window, marking each one with a number and roughly indicating where the hinges will go. Finally, measure the outside dimensions of the windows as a group, so that you can build the frame based on that.
I guess they'd been painted with oil paint, and I didn't strip them to the wood before repainting them. The windows will be pretty heavy, so they will need a nice sturdy frame. I built this section using 2x2 and 2x3 lumber. This is pretty straight forward. The 2x2 pieces form a perimeter around the outside edges of the windows.
The 2x3s sit directly beneath the 2x2s, the extra inch of width providing a ledge on which the windows rest. Try to make sure the pieces of wood overlap at the corners for enhanced strength. Screw them together with deck screws. Test the fit of the windows before continuing. The rest of the frame is based on these dimensions, so it's important to get them right! Since it's desirable to have a sloped top, it will be necessary to use a little math to figure out the dimensions of the bottom half of the cold frame.
If you don't remember your high school trig, there are plenty of handy resources online to help you. I suppose you could get away without calculating anything if you're clever and have a carpenter's square. First, measure the depth of the window frame you just built, when laid flat on the ground. You can either guess at what angle you want the top to be 10 or 15 degrees from horizontal, maybe?
Propping is definitely useful for visualizing exactly how much slope you want - I recommend it. Take note of either the angle you've selected, or of the height your frame has been raised to. With the depth of the window frame and either the angle or rise you've determined, plug some numbers into your calculator or the handy utility I posted above hint: one of the angles must be 90 degrees!
You should now have a third measurement slightly less than that of the window frame depth - this will be the depth of the frame itself.
Okay, so now you know the width of the cold frame, and the depth. One last thing to figure out before building the bottom - the height. As I mentioned earlier, I deliberately made my frame extra tall to accommodate taller plants. Take a moment to think about what you'll be planting, or what the frame will be used for. Do you want to shelter tomatoes until they're 2 feet tall?
Or are you only interested in herbs? Will you plant things directly in the ground or in boxes? By all means, go outside with a measuring tape and figure out exactly how tall your plants are. I don't recommend much taller than 30 inches at the front though, or it will be a big strain to bend over and work the soil.
Remember, the height of the rear of the cold frame will be the height you just determined, plus the rise you decided or calculated earlier. The sides of the frame will be built first. They will directly reflect the height and depth dimensions you just calculated.
You'll need two sides, one for either end. I built the sides out of 2x4 lumber, so that I'd have enough space to fasten the front and back sections as well as the plywood walls. Here's where a miter saw comes in handy. You'll need to make a few angled cuts to match your calculations, so that the sections line up perfectly.
Dial in your intended angle, and try not to change it until all the angle cuts are finished. That way, at least they'll all line up with each other Attach the pieces together with 2. Since you'll be driving screws into the ends, through the 3. Use one screw per joint.
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