Cold Frame Clean Up

Before clean up, 12/27/11

      I was surprised that one cold frame had a lot of die off.  It was the Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, which I think died of old age rather than cold weather.  When Simpson is ready to bolt or die, it is pretty quick to do so.  Luckily I had dug some of the lettuce from a bed from a fellow gardener who has given up gardening for the season.  What a blessing to have replacement plants on hand.
      Yesterday there was a married couple walking around the park looking at their garden and touring others.  They stopped by to chat about the cold frames.  They mentioned they had put in lettuce late that had not matured.  Of course I made the pitch to adopt it for a community garden down town with a new high tunnel that is begging for plant starts.  I must have done so well talking about winter salad greens, that instead of giving me permission to dig, they left in search of some garden fabric they had in the garage to make their own protection for the lettuce.  She seemed delighted by the outcome; he rolled his eyes, being quite happy to see the lettuce succumb to the cold.  Isn't that what usually happens?

After clean up, 12/27/11

      There, looks much better.  I left the frame open last night as it was supposed to rain and have a low of only 38 degrees.  Tonight is forecast to go to 23 degrees, so I need to remember to cover it again.  Note the Mizuna mustard at the top left that I dug from my park garden.  I wanted to have some of those pretty greens near at hand.