My First Foray Into Cold Frames

My experience with growing my own food is scanty, but not so scanty that I haven't watched my seedlings wither and die, scorched my seedlings in greenhouses, come out to find my entire garden reduced to leafless stalks by groundhogs (twice), and later to find it all nibbled haphazardly, but very effectively, by deer. I have been quite industrious. However, the fruits of my labors have been very few.

That doesn't deter me one bit from trying.

This year, instead of setting up my rickety greenhouse, I wanted to try my hand at a cold frame. When I found this one for a mere $160, I was psyched. The reviews of the cold frame were great, it would be delivered for free to the Tractor Supply that is right down the road, the company said it was easy to assemble right there on the box

approximate one minute assembly thanks to the click system

and the price was right. What could go wrong?

For starters, I spent a lot more than one minute just getting it out of the box. The instructions did recommend for two people to assemble the thing, but getting it out of the box was the only step I could have used help doing.

I was aggravated already.

The next surprise was that the instructions were in German. There was a whole lot of

Achtung!

sprinkled about.

There was no going back now, so onward I forged.

I sorted the pieces, and started trying to follow the diagrams.

After about 45 minutes of utter confusion, I noticed the fine print on the box:

By the end of my second day of working on this thing, my assemblage started to resemble the assembled as pictured on the box, and my confidence soared.

I was no longer worried about

• having to call in help
• never seeing the end of this task
• slitting my wrists or throat on polycarbonate

I'd say it took me nearly three hours of work to get this thing put together. I have no idea where the pre-assembly ends and the one minute click system begins.

I was impressed by the ingenuity of the designers, in that there was no way to put this together incorrectly without breaking something. Whenever a piece didn't fit, I took a breath, took another long look at the diagrams, re-oriented something, and got somewhere.

I learned a lot, such as the value of remaining calm in the face of adversity. I was so happy I am good at geometry, and now think that subject is the most important math subject to teach our children. I also remembered that I love puzzles.

Here it is, fully functional, ingeniously designed, and warming up the amended soil within. I hope to put some early spring greens and radishes in there next week. And to not fry them, like I have done a couple of times in my greenhouse. This will entail getting up much earlier in the morning than I am accustomed to doing, so that I can open the lids.

The dang thing does work beautifully. The designers thought of everything.

The next task for my garden is to construct a fence that is 8 feet high for deer control, and fortified around the bottom to keep out the woodchucks, which are the only animals I have ever wanted to shoot.