[codeNshoot]

I just clapped together a relatively tight cold frame from an old storm door. Now I'm wondering how long I have to wait until I can plant. I live in zone 5, and I'm not sure how much of a head start I should take.

Anyone have any experience or guidelines for me ?

[Snowshoe]

I used to live on the Canadian border in northern NY...zone 3 or 4 I think it was. At any rate, we put a good layer ( 6 - 8 inches or so ) of fresh horse exhaust in our cold frames under the planting bed. The heat generated by decomp/composting was enough that we could plant cold hardy veggies in early April and other veggie starts a couple weeks later. Our frames were roughly south facing and protected from wind.

Come fall, the hores ammendment was well composted and stirred into the existing planting bed for the following spring.

[codeNshoot]

Thanks, I've got a cow farm across the street and I'll use that for some bedding. I want a head start on my lettuce and spinach, maybe some tomatoes. I think I'm going to wait until the frost we're expecting this weekend though. Thanks for the advice.Truly appreciated.

[Cross Hair]

On nice warm days Prop it open a ways with a couple paint sticks or something to get some good air in it. I live in zone 5 too, with the wacky weather weve been getting I would just cover them on nights under 50 degrees. I got my eye on a long piece of old counter glass thats been laying around at one of the stores I work on and if they are throwing it out, a cold frame would be a great build for it.

I just usually wait until the last week of April thru mid May to get my outside stuff in the ground. I should build a cold frame, it would be fun project. Glad I didnt plant radishes, lettuce, potato and onion sets like I was going to a few days ago!

[Snowshoe]

A thought on that cow ammendment, codeNshoot. Cow pie needs to be aged before contact with plants, especially new seedlings, or it will "burn" them. And aged manure doesn't have much of the biological reactions going on that produce heat. Fresh horse manure, on the other hand, isn't as likely to burn the plants and being fresh, will generate heat thru the decomp process - not alot, but enough to keep things from freezing. 6-8 inches of horse goes in first followed by another 6-8 inches of soil (and/or compost mix) and seedlings go into the soil - without direct contact with the horse poo.
Of course if you wait a bit and don't feel you need the heat generation then cow ammendment mixed into your soils makes an OK natural fertilizer...so long as it's aged/composted first.

Back in the early 70's I knew this guy who was doing the 'back to the land' thing. Spent about a month developing a huge garden plot and planting some of just about everything. Things were starting to grow nicely when he decided the plants needed fertilizing. Having seen the local dairy farmers spreading cow manure on the fields where they intended to grow corn, (after some aging), he proceeded to coat his entire new garden with fresh cow. Long story short, he fried the entire garden....after all that work. Only managed a few short season veggies on a replant.

[Cross Hair]

Yeah, fresh manure will fry plants, I think from the way I read it, he dug out the site, put the manure down, put his soil in and put the plants in the soil. Next year he could turn or till the area to improve the soil.???? I'm not sure now that I re-read it! LOL.
Bet after a good tilling that plot was good the next couple of years though snowshoe!