HOUSE AND GARDEN 
September, 
I 9 I 3 
i43 
An adaptation of the coldframe principle, utilizing the vertical wall of 
an outbuilding with a southern exposure 
Lettuce is one of the many vegetables that may be grown in frames ad¬ 
vantageously and made to produce early 
boards and two by four inch uprights for holding these in place; 
the usual dimensions are two feet in back and a foot and a half 
in front, which gives a slope suf¬ 
ficient to carry all the rain water 
off the sash, and also catches the 
sunlight at a better angle. Frames 
which are to be used as hotbeds 
—that is, supplied with manure to 
give artificial heat in cold weath¬ 
er—should be made a foot or 
eighteen inches deeper on the in¬ 
side. While the board frames 
may be banked up with earth on 
the outside, so as to be impervious 
to frost and cold wind, and, if 
substantially made, will last for a 
number of years, nevertheless, it 
is far better to go to a little more 
trouble and possibly a greater ex¬ 
pense, and have the frames made 
of concrete. If you cannot have 
them all made this way, then those 
which are to be used as a hotbed at least should be so constructed, 
as these are used for more months in the year and the rotting 
caused by the manure will make them, if made of wood, go to 
pieces more quickly than the ordinary coldframes. A sill or cap 
of wood or iron — preferably the 
latter — may be bought to put on 
top of the concrete, and is so con¬ 
structed that the sash will fit firm¬ 
ly on it. 
The amount of garden stuff 
which you can get out of a limited 
space which is taken up by your 
frames is truly remarkable; not 
only because the planting is done 
more closely in the frames, but be¬ 
cause where several crops may be 
taken from it each season you 
would get one or two from the 
garden. A ten-sash frame used in 
connection with the regular gar¬ 
den would give an ample supply of 
winter and early spring vegetables 
to a good-sized family besides fur¬ 
nishing room to winter over such 
things as might be required and an ample supply of plants for the 
garden in the spring. For such a coldframe garden a convenient 
At the left of the bar is manure ready to be worked in. At the 
right, the prepared bed 
A sunken path in this greenhouse-coldframe allows one to work com¬ 
fortably at the waist-high beds 
Cheesecloth used to shade lettuce in the frames from the hot summer 
sun makes for better and sweeter leaves 
