Gardening in December?

December 4th and I am just now getting around to planting leafy greens in the cold frame. It’s been almost balmy these past few days, but the cold is coming back so I pushed myself to get outside and get the seeds started.  

When he built it, Ray dug out a bit of dirt to seat the cold frame properly. He used glass and materials from our pieces of greenhouse to make the frame and top, and he used rigid insulation to close it all in. Pretty neat way to reuse materials we planned to just scrap, huh?

What did I plant? Mainly leafy greens like chard, lettuce and spinach that do well in cooler climates, but I also threw in some cilantro and carrots. I don’t have much hope for the cilantro, but I have read that winter carrots are deliciously sweet so I’m hoping they do well.

I mixed some crushed eggshell for calcium and coffee grounds for nitrogen into the soil before throwing the seeds down.

Our house is south facing so, when it is sunny it gets blasted with sunshine for most of the day. That is why we put the cold frames out front. We also made them portable so that in the summer, we can store them.

Hopefully, in a few weeks, I will see little lettuce sprouts coming up!