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Introduction
Several years ago, I made a serendipitous discovery. It was early spring, and I was cleaning up my garden getting ready to plant my spring crops. I picked up an over-turned children's plastic swimming pool that had been covering some forgotten spinach plants since the previous November, and I was amazed to find that the spinach plants were not only still alive, they had actually grown - in the dark, without any care whatsoever, over the cold winter months, in Lincoln, Nebraska. I didn't know spinach would do that.
After this discovery, I went to work learning about cold frames. I have spent the years since that discovery experimenting and pushing the boundaries of salad crops for winter cultivation. This website is a status report of my progress to date. I offer it for two reasons. First, the food I harvest during the fall, winter, and early spring is both bountiful and delicious . . . far better than anything I can buy in a supermarket. Second, my casual conversations with friends and acquaintances about my winter garden are always answered with disbelief and astonishment. Either I am truly a pioneer in the field of home salad cultivation in the winter or the efforts and results of others like me are not well known (or, perhaps, I'm just too busy in the garden to search them out). Whatever happens to be true, I offer this website to show what is possible, and I encourage others to give it a try.
Two sections comprise the rest of this website. The first is a month-by-month summary of the challenges the garden presents and the cultivation practices I follow to meet these challenges. This is a work-in-progress rather than a final, definitive guide, and as time goes by, I expect many updates to be replacing pages currently in the website. I also invite you, the readers of this website, to offer suggestions: Email: [email protected].
The second section describes construction details. Readers will notice that I use constructed materials, especially cold frames, covers, and insulation blankets to manage the growing environment of my plants. The second section of the website contains details of these including materials, sources, and assembly instructions. These instructions will serve more as examples than as blueprints. Actual cold frames, covers, and insulation blankets that readers fabricate will depend upon available materials.
Finally, readers should not miss the Gallery. I recommend you begin there, and as you look at the cold winter scenes with the large, blue-tarped winter garden hidden from view, imagine yourself walking out in the snow over the cold, frozen ground on a sunny, January day and pulling aside the tarp and the covers to view the bright green growing plants through the glass inside the cold frame. They're alive and growing right in your own backyard, and when you want to put some of those leaves in a salad or in a sandwich at lunchtime, they're waiting for you to come and get them. That's a sure elixir for the winter-time blues.
A few of more things you should know . . . I don't use pesticides. If a planting develops an insect infestation, I use physical means to fight it, like shaking the plants and stepping on the bugs. Putting poison on food seems like a bad idea to me. I keep my costs low. I use discarded materials, collect rainwater in barrels, compost garden waste, and I recycle. Finally, I rely upon the sun to provide warmth to my cold frames. I don't rely upon electric heaters to keep the plants warm.
If you've made it this far, then I'm confident that you'll explore further. Go for it!
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