Gardenfork
Building a cold frame
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Eric: So it is already frosted up here in New England. It is about 65 degrees right now. It got to 70 degrees today. But the other morning, it was 33 degrees so it is time to build what we call a cold frame. A cold frame can be as fancy or as simple as you want. A cold frame is kind of like a portable greenhouse, really. And we are going to put over some stuff we are going to grow, mainly lettuces, and chyle and stuff like that. And it will prolong your growing season. And you can also use it in the spring to get like a head start on the spinach and lettuce and stuff like that as well.
Female: And you want to grow your own spinach.
Eric: Yes, you can grow your own spinach in this day and age. Now they have figured out what is wrong with spinach. It is safe to eat again. So watch, this will be kind of fun. And we are going to build one here and then we are going to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden because they just gave a workshop on how to build your own cold frame as well. So we are going to see what they have built. I am kind of curious to see if theirs is as—
Female: Spectacular!
Eric: Spectacularly unique as ours will be, all right. So let us go. So this is the bed we are going to put the cold frame in. This used to be our tomato bed but they are starting to pewter out. I took them out. I harvested a bunch of tomatoes and I made a mistake of leaving them there. The tomato thief--
Female: Who is that?
Eric: Ran off a quite few of them. We are going to make a cold frame that is four feet wide, and eight feet long. So I am going to build a 2x4 frame, we are going to put that together. Then we are going to take some PVC pipe I got to go hooping across. So we are going to lay the ends in and put on plastic, and we have got a cold frame.
Female: Cold frame making is riveting. Is there any reason it is the measurements you came up with?
Eric: I just measured the bed and I figured out that I wanted a little bit of room inside the bed for the cold frame to drop in to. At an eight feet, I just made it eight foot because 2x4 is come in equal lengths. And that was easy.
Female: I do not think you should eat anymore tomatoes really.
Eric: We built our frame here pretty quickly. And to have the hoops that go across to hold the plastic up, I am using a PVC pipe. So I just went to the hardware store and I was playing with the pipe and I found this kind of bends really nicely. It bends like that. So to determine the length of this, you have to use Math.
Female: Math!
Eric: Math which I am really bad at. Or you could just do like I do and have a 10 foot piece and bend it. But let us have a little math class right now and I will show you how to figure that out. Before you go to the store, you do not have to make two trips to the store.
Female: Like who did?
Eric: Like I did. Because we want to find that distance around.
Female: That is the hoop.
Eric: That is the hoop. This we know, is four feet, right?
Female: Yes.
Eric: So this is half the circumference of the circle. So, pie r squared will equal the circumference of the circle, all right? This is a four foot diameter of circle, all right? So half of that is two. So that would be pie two squared equals our circumference, all right?
Female: What is pie?
Eric: Pie is 3.14, 2 squared is four. So four times 3.14 is basically 12.4 which is the circumference. So we divide that by two and we get six.
Female: Not exactly.
Eric: Pretty darn close and it does not. It is a garden. It does not have to be perfect. We are not going to the moon here. To hold these pieces of pipe in here, little clamps that hold pipe against the wall. So then this goes in like that. So on the end here; we are going to do something a little fancy, a little Eric like. Most cold frames, these kind of plastic hoop kind, they do not have any kind of ventilation and they can get a little hot. Like next week it could be 70 to 80 degrees again. So, I have got a little thermo actuated vent here.
Female: Where did you get that?
Eric: I got it at a greenhouse supply
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