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I live on the fourth floor with no access to a garden, but I do have a balcony and I do want to garden. Come over now and the balcony (small though it is) is full of greenhouse which in turn is currently full of courgettes (zucchini for some) and flowers. It didn't start that way, though. Rather than leap straight into the greenhouse, I started out small and experimented with cold frames.
At its most simple, a cold frame is a structure with a transparent roof built low to the ground to protect your plants from the worst of the weather. You can use any materials you like, as long as you can regulate the temperature (usually by opening and closing the roof). While not the most elegant of solutions, a cold frame is practical and, more importantly, it works.
If you want something more stylish, build a simple wooden frame and then find a suitable lid.My mum uses old window frames as lids to cold frames in her garden (I have visions of her stealing them at night). Another solution is to create a wire frame and cover it in transparent plastic, the aptly named poly-tunnel.
As long as it catches the sun (south facing is good) is one to two feet tall, has a sloping roof (for water run-off) then you are on your way. Heating wires and pipes can be placed into the soil in more northern latitudes to give some additional heat in the frames. The design is up to you, the results – well they will speak for themselves!
And of course, if it turns out that your building skills are not as good in practice as they were in the planning stages, then you can always buy one ready-made.
So what do you do with them? A Cold frame is perfect for hardening off seeds or they can be heated and made to operate as a small greenhouse, which, ultimately, is the route I took. But even without additional heat, they create a small micro-climate keeping the air and soil temperature a few degrees higher than outside. They also offer protection to your plants from the weather (as well as hungry little beasties).
Crops I grew in my cold frames included lettuce, parsley, spring onions and spinach. I have since built taller and deeper cold-frames and used them to start early potatoes and carrots. Lovely!
At its most simple, a cold frame is a structure with a transparent roof built low to the ground to protect your plants from the worst of the weather. You can use any materials you like, as long as you can regulate the temperature (usually by opening and closing the roof). While not the most elegant of solutions, a cold frame is practical and, more importantly, it works.
If you want something more stylish, build a simple wooden frame and then find a suitable lid.My mum uses old window frames as lids to cold frames in her garden (I have visions of her stealing them at night). Another solution is to create a wire frame and cover it in transparent plastic, the aptly named poly-tunnel.
As long as it catches the sun (south facing is good) is one to two feet tall, has a sloping roof (for water run-off) then you are on your way. Heating wires and pipes can be placed into the soil in more northern latitudes to give some additional heat in the frames. The design is up to you, the results – well they will speak for themselves!
And of course, if it turns out that your building skills are not as good in practice as they were in the planning stages, then you can always buy one ready-made.
So what do you do with them? A Cold frame is perfect for hardening off seeds or they can be heated and made to operate as a small greenhouse, which, ultimately, is the route I took. But even without additional heat, they create a small micro-climate keeping the air and soil temperature a few degrees higher than outside. They also offer protection to your plants from the weather (as well as hungry little beasties).
Crops I grew in my cold frames included lettuce, parsley, spring onions and spinach. I have since built taller and deeper cold-frames and used them to start early potatoes and carrots. Lovely!
