Frost Cover Support: Rev 3.0 "Ladder Mesh"

The best version yet!

My first version of a frost cover support for winter vegetables was cobbled together in a hurry from available material with a cold front roaring down from Canada.  It was fast and effective but not convenient. The so-called "improved version" was not much better. This winter I took the time to think through the requirements for the supports before the freezes get here. Planning!  It works!

Improved Frost Cloth Support

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Using Compost Bins As Raised Beds

My composting method consists of tossing stuff into a wire bin and letting it decompose on its own schedule.  Because of the dry climate, things in a bin can sit there for years without decomposing much, so I ran a drip line onto the top to keep the ingredients moist and ensure compost within my lifetime.

Then we had the brainstorm!  Why not try growing stuff in the bin while it was decomposing? It has water and nutrients aplenty. It should be like a planter or extra-high raised bed.

The Construction:

Here's a new bin, made after yard cleanup, with layers of shredded branches, grass clippings,  and oleander leaves and blossoms.  The green thing is a bean plant that grew up the side between filling the bin and making the planter.

New Compost Bin

We made a depression in the middle of the material, lined it with newspaper and filled it with some garden dirt.

Layer of newspaper and dirt

Then we spiraled the drip line on the dirt and planted vegetables along the perimeter.

Drip line

Results

We had success with summer squash and tomatoes.  It's convenient to have tomatoes at a pickable height.

Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato, running wild

Problems

• As the material decomposed, the plants needed to be adjusted for the lower height if they were draped over the edge.
• The compost from the tomatoes was infested with tomato seeds from the fruits we didn't see that fell into the bin.
• Tearing down the heap was a bit more difficult because of the massive root systems the plants developed, but not enough to make me stop using the heaps.

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Raised Bed: REV 2.0 Bigger and Better

The first raised bed was done in a hurry because it was already October and I needed to get something finished for winter vegetables.  It was about 6x9 feet, occupying the available space between a fence, shed, and compost bins.
Six feet is as deep as it can be without getting in the way of traffic through the side yard. However, six feet is too big to weed in the middle without crawling into the growing area. Four feet wide would have been much better, because a comfortable reach for me is 2 feet.

Geometry to the rescue! The new bed is a fat E-shape, 6x16 feet, with two indented areas to keep the entire growing area in my reach distance. It is, however, no longer "tool-free".

Old (top) and new (lower) bed outline

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Improved Frost Cover Support

The frost cloth was working, but rain made it sag and I was afraid the weight of the wet cloth would rip itself.  I added support lines between stakes to support the cloth in more places. It worked well after a moderate rain and a light snowstorm.

Support lines shown in yellow

It's easier to put on and off, and the cloth doesn't snag around the support posts.

The lines use clove hitches around the base of the mushroom cap on each support - it's an easy knot to make and unmake, easy to adjust in the middle of the line, and one of the few that can be made in the middle of a line without untying one end.

Supports with the added guy lines (orange garden twine)

 Possible Variations and Improvements

I don't have time to try these, but they would work.

• Alternate supports ... use PVC pipe with end caps.  PVC pipe can be cut at home, is not as rough and is less likely to snag the frost cloth than rebar.
• For a removable but convenient support system, pound in pipe big enough to hold the supports so you can drop them in quickly. Plug the pipe holes with something between uses to keep dirt, dead leaves, and critters out.

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Late winter planting to avoid the spring rush?

The experiment - I'm exploring the possibility of starting leafy greens in late fall and "storing" them in the garden under a frost cloth during the winter so they are out of my way when I need the seed starting space for chiles (we have our priorities in this state).
If it works, I can have a three-planting rotation for leafy greens: Late fall for harvest in early spring, late spring for harvest in spring/summer, late summer for harvesting into the winter.

I planted out seedling butterhead lettuce in soil blocks December 3. Earlier plantings of chard, kale, bok choy and leaf lettuce - set out in beginning in early November - are looking happy and putting out leaves.  I've been harvesting since mid-January.  They are under a frost cloth tent, but it's not heated.

Bok Choi, planted as seedlings in December

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Dealing with Weed Seeds in Compost

This accidentally turned into a nice demonstration because the various leafy greens germinated in their soil blocks at different times and were planted out at intervals of a few days.

My compost method is known as "slow" or "cold" composting.  This pile it and forget it method doesn't produce enough heat to reliably kill weed seeds.  Some will die of old age before the compost is used, but others will survive.

That means my just-filled raised beds were filled with unsprouted weed seeds. They sprouted as soon as they got  light and moisture, leaving me with a weedy mess of a vegetable bed like this. 

 

Weedy mess and transplanted chard seedlings

It will get worse every day unless ...
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The New Raised Bed Corners

The nail-free raised beds I made have a minor flaw: they leak dirt at the corners because it's a simple right angle butt joint.  The cedar fence slats touch but they are not connected.

Corners touch, but do not connect. Dirt leaks out

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No-Tools Needed Tall Raised Beds

This has been entered in an Instructables.com contest!

The garden used to be the bottom of an arroyo, so it's mostly sand, some silt and some big rocks.  Instead of a short barrier to keep mulch contained, I need serious soil amendments and a deeper vegetable bed to hold it all.

Two slats high, with ends butted together

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Cheap and Lazy No-Tools Needed Raised Beds for Vegetables and Herbs

I do more than just sit around and watch my lawn take care of itself.  I sit around and watch my compost bins take care of themselves.

But, when it is time to break down the bin and actually use the compost, I have to do something to keep the birds from scattering the compost all over the yard.  After much thought and effort, I came up with a design for a border that can keep the compost in place.

No tools required! Well, If you don't have a mallet or hammer, you can pound the stakes in  with a rock, but mallets are easier to use.

Cedar fence boards and stakes = raised bed

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