DIY Network

Plant Old Shower Doors in the Garden

Crafter Michele Beschen, creator of the B Original series, explains how to build a cold frame in the garden.

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	Having a cold frame in your garden can enable you to grow plants that wouldn't normally do well in colder areas.
	Your cold frame should get full sun from mid-morning to mid-afternoon.

Cold frames are a useful addition to any garden

By Michele Beschen

May 14, 2007 — It's spring. It's time to start playing in the dirt, time to plant seeds and time for Mother Nature's miracles to get under way! But, if your green thumb is looking a little blue, here's a way not only to help your garden along, but also to repurpose some of those items you may be tossing out during your spring cleaning efforts.

Cold frames are a useful addition to any garden. They're easy to build and can extend your growing season on both ends. Having a cold frame in your garden can enable you to grow plants that wouldn't normally do well in colder areas. Start seeds and raise seedlings early, and once the summer is gone, to protect tender plants well into autumn.

It's important that you build your cold frame on level ground, facing south, in a nice sunny spot with good drainage and some protection from the wind. Ideally, your cold frame should get full sun from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. It should also be located on well-drained soil, free from flooding during heavy rain.

So, now that you've got the basics down, let's get to the construction. A cold frame is nothing more than a bottomless structure with four walls and a transparent lid that admits light. So be original with your materials. Old windows, Plexiglas and plastic sheeting work well for the lid. The walls could be made out of concrete blocks or bales of hay. Or you can recycle what's out on your curb!

We built ours using the lumber from an old fence gate, creating a primitive and rustic look. The lid you'll be using — in our case it was an old shower door — determines the size of the frame. It's a basic box construction with sloping sides. When customizing your plans, build the back four to six inches higher than the front to maximize the amount of light that reaches the plants inside and to allow water or melting snow to drain off the top easily.

Here's what we did to accommodate our shower door:

First, we constructed a base. For the front of the base, we cut two boards to be 5-1/2 inches wide by 56 inches long. We attached them to each other in the back with two wooden braces. We used three boards for the back of the base. They, too, were cut down to 5-1/2 inches by 56 inches and also were attached on the inside with wooden braces.

We then cut three boards, each 5-1/2 by 31 inches, for each of the two sides. One of these boards on each side was cut on the diagonal to form our slope. We also connected these boards to each other with wooden braces on the inside.

Once we finished cutting, we screwed all the sides together with galvanized screws to complete our base.

For our lid, we first removed all the metal trim from around the shower door. It removed easily with a Phillips screwdriver. We were left with just a bare glass panel. To frame up the glass, we formed more of our fence boards into a picture frame. You'll need two identical frames, one for each side of the glass.

Then we made a rabbet cut on the inside of one of the frames and then inserted the glass door panel into the groove we had just cut. It should sit flush with the frame's sides. We then placed our other frame on the top and screwed the two frames together with galvanized screws, sandwiching our glass between the frames. (For additional strength, we applied exterior wood glue between all boards before screwing them together.)

To attach the lid to the base, we used two 3-1/2 inch hinges that we attached on the backside.

On the front of the inside of the newly created box, we attached some wooden braces of varying lengths. This enabled us to prop open the lid to different heights on sunnier days, allowing more air into our cold frame. It's important to monitor the temperature inside the cold frame so that the plants don't burn up on sunny days. A soil temperature of 70 to 75 degrees F is ideal for germination of most seeds, so be sure to let your soil warm up before planting directly into your cold frame. The soil should be kept moist at all times but not wet. Do your watering in the morning so the plant foliage will dry before evening.

If you give Mother Nature a little helping hand, she'll be sure to shower you with a bountiful harvest of gorgeous blooms and tasty treats all season.

(Michele Beschen is creator of the B Original series for the DIY Network. Contact her at www.couragetocreate.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)

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