Cold frames should now be filled with tender material, awakening the final planting-out in the garden.
Hardy and semi-hardy annuals and vegetables should all be in the garden by this time. The final planting-out date of the tender material depends upon your locality.
The protection afforded by the cold frame is still needed in the northern sections, where nights are still cold. However, over a greater portion of the area, many will see the end of this phase of cold-frame gardening.
Next Year’s Sowing Dates
It’s a good time to take stock of your progress for future reference. For example, are your plants too large to handle easily, so there’s a danger of checking growth in transplanting, or are they smaller than they should be? Next year’s sowing dates should be adjusted accordingly.
Efficient, economical operation of the cold frame will depend upon finding the sowing dates best suited to your conditions. The sowing date is directly related to the actual planting-out date, considered in all cold frame sowing.
Normally, it requires about 8 to 10 weeks from sowing to planting out. Such plants as eggplants, peppers, and other tender things need longer.
If cold frame space permits patting such things as cabbage, broccoli, and tomatoes, seeds can be started earlier.
On the other hand, you can reduce the cold frame time to three or four weeks if it’s just sowing the seeds and then transplanting the seedlings in the garden.
Cold Frame Space For Rooting Cuttings
As the plants are moved to the garden, cold frame space can be devoted to rooting chrysanthemum and dahlia cuttings.
Clumps previously planted in the cold frame to force green shoots should have a quantity of cutting material ready now.
As cuttings are taken, more shoots will be produced. Dahlia cuttings, which are planted in pots sunk in the soil to their rims after rooting, can remain in the cold frame for another 3 or 4 weeks.
Should garden space be limited, seeds of cabbage? Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and kale can be sown in the cold frame toward the end of this month to furnish plants for setting out in July for late crops.
Tomatoes, too, can be sown to provide later Vants to prolong the fruiting season. Cucumbers, melons, and squash, sown in 3-inch plant hands, sprout better in the cold frame than in the garden and provide plants that will bear fruit earlier.
Thinned to just one plant in each hand, they are carried along in the cold frame and set out in June when the weather is warm. Care should be taken to see that the roots are not disturbed when transplanting.
Shading Plants In Summer
For the remainder of the summer, it will be necessary to shade the glass from the hot sun. This lowers the temperature and lessens the light intensity.
The heat generated by the summer sun is such that it would be impossible to supply enough moisture to keep plants or cuttings alive.
Slat shade, made from wooden lath slats to fit each sash, can be purchased. The half-inch spaces between slats allow light but no direct sunlight. However, anything that excludes the sun but allows light is sufficient.
The more general method is to use whitewash. Thin milk of lime may be put on with a brush or sprinkled to give a mottled shade. Since it washes off gradually with rain, a little salt in the whitewash mixture will help make it stick.
Be careful, however, as too much salt will make it difficult to remove in the fall when sunlight is again needed.
When sufficient moisture is supplied under this subdued light, conditions are favorable for germinating seeds and rooting cuttings. More information will be given about this during the next months.
44659 by P. J. Mckenna