ecosistency

Coldframes are like mini-greenhouses and can be used to extend the growing season in colder climates.   This post describes a “green technology” experiment i did in Spring 2010 to measure how much the temperatures increased in a simple coldframe.

Here is the coldframe i built, a simple wooden box with a semi-clear plastic cover tilted to the South:

Then i built an electronic circuit that measures the temperatures inside and outside (aka ambient, in the shade) and wirelessly sends the measurements once per minute to my main computer for logging and analysis:

Here are results from a full-sun Spring day in the Chicago area:

The blue line is the outside (ambient) temperature and follows a natural  curve from 9AM to 7PM.  The red line is the inside temperature and shows the “greenhouse effect”.  i manually intervened around Noon because the inside temperature got too hot (for healthy plants).

This illustration helps to explain other “anomalies”  in the above graph:

The virtues of no-till raised-bed gardening are widely documented.  Here’s a small tip to avoid stepping on your beloved garden soil in beds that are too wide or large to reach properly.    Here i am planting a 4′ wide bed and using a (curb-shopped:-) 4’9″‘ long piece of 2×10 to kneel on and a smaller piece of plywood to spread out the lesser amount of weight from my feet.  This arrangement gives a surprisingly ergonomic posture and can easily be shifted as you plant along the bed.

i’m convinced that plants do better with rainwater than hose water!   So i built this system from a mixture of upcycled and retail parts.    Current capacity is 165 gallons with plans to double both capacity and water pressure by adding a second layer (vertically).  Come for a visit sometime and i’ll show you the details and we can discuss it.

i’ll show you how to grow your own organic garlic and give you some garlic to get you started. All you have to do is visit my house in north Wheaton. Inquire within.

Here is the garlic bed with some established garlic clumps, and some that have been spread out to grow for the season:

Here is a garlic clump dug up and ready for spreading out into individual plants for the growing season: