My picks of garden gear, books, and mulch, mulch more, all things I use myself. When he came to the property, he used one row to plant asparagus in. I think they deserve a place in every garden, even my garden, which is a big garden. Before you just either order a cold frame online, or you decide to go out and grab the materials, start by thinking about it. [Laughter.] Right now one of my polycarbonate cold frames is filled with carrots. But also, my favorite mache. Niki’s photo of deer int he garden recently, from her Instagram.]. Niki: For winter lettuces, I do start them indoors under my grow lights, and then I transplant them out when they’re like about 2 inches tall. You can do that as well. Then it’s double-insulated, but polycarbonate is probably my favorite material for the top. [Laughter.] Niki is author of The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener and a 2012 American Horticultural Society Book Award winner. When I first put my cold frames in, oh my gosh, probably 18 years ago, the first frames I had, I put them in the part of my backyard where the snow always melted first, because I thought, well, obviously that’s a bit of a microclimate. But you can use a cold frame for starting seedlings, which will then be dug up and transplanted to your garden. I use untreated hemlock, as I mentioned, but you can use cedar or other types of lumber. I hope you’re writing a book called that, that we can expect to come out next year. But I also use some of them for straw-bale cold frames. Oh my goodness, what should I do?” A light bulb, he read about somewhere. But if we do get a snow out there, I knock it off the tops. And I thought those were fantastic. No answer or feeling shy? [Laughter.]. Niki Jabbour is the author of the best-selling, award winning book, The Year Round Vegetable Gardener (American Horticultural Society Book Award), Groundbreaking Food Gardens & Veggie Garden Remix (All published by Storey Publishing). Follow Niki Jabbour on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. There’s so many different types of things you can use for them, but also polycarbonate. You can also use bricks or cinder blocks. Margaret: This has been a bad enough year. So it’s not as important for me to make sure the light is getting into that cold frame for the root crops versus the salad greens, like the spinach or the lettuce or the arugula, where they’re still slowly growing and they still need that solar energy to warm up the interior of the frame during the day. Photographs except as noted by Jeff Cooke/Cooked from “Growing Under Cover,” copyright 2020 by Niki Jabbour. Niki: You could totally get automated hinges. Resources. I use them for lots of things. Well, serendipitously, later that day I went to the post office and found a review copy of Niki Jabbour’s new book, “Growing Under Cover,” waiting for me, and had some answers for my neighbor. Hi, Paul. Eat your greens. Oh yes, my friend…you know how that is when you ask questions for a friend. Are you always looking at beautiful vegetables at the grocery store and wondering where on earth they come from? You can also hang little incandescent lights in there as well. Niki: Figs are big here. Apr 19, 2020 - 176 Likes, 0 Comments - Niki Jabbour (@nikijabbour) on Instagram: “If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a sucker for a beautiful cold frame! I mean, again, those carrots aren’t growing now, so having the insulating leaves and straw on top just helps prevent the soil from deep-freezing. I mean, some people do put heating cables in the soil of their cold frame, usually before they’re planted, of course, because you want that to be sunk down at the soil, but that is something you can totally do. Despite living in Nova Scotia, writer Niki Jabbour is a year-round vegetable gardener, coaxing harvests out of every manner of season-extending device imaginable, from cloche to full-on polytunnel. Niki Jabbour. A NEIGHBOR with a new cold frame emailed me the other day, seeing colder weather finally in the forecast and wanting to know how to extend his season even longer inside the unit. You have everything. I would imagine also that the snow melts and drips off–do you know what I mean, it might help with that, like the way that a roof is pitched. She easily earned that badge of honor by actually doing it from one of the most unlikely of places, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Just say something like “count me in” and I will, but a reply is even better. ️ They’re tolerant of cold temperatures and get even sweeter as…” You said snow insulation. Nov 13, 2019 - 1,062 Likes, 39 Comments - Niki Jabbour (@nikijabbour) on Instagram: “Brrrrr it’s a cold morning following our first snow. And then I also have polycarbonate ones that are 3 feet by 2 feet. I mean, that’s amazing to me, that it’s sunny here today and therefore the temperature inside the frame is just above freezing. Look for her next book, Niki Jabbour’s Veggie Garden Remix in January 2018. Thank you, and happy gardening. I need all of those things in your book. WHEN I TALKED to Doug Tallamy in February around the publication date of his latest book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” I didn’t want to go on and on about the advice in it regarding smart fall cleanup, which is one of the ways I know I’ve dramatically shifted the way I manage my own garden compared to 10 or even five years ago. Niki Jabbour: Hi, Margaret. Margaret: I think for some of the uses that you were… So we were talking about dimensions earlier and I’m just going to backtrack for a second. In winter, the top is still open and clear, so the sun can still get inside, but you can also put evergreen boughs around the outside of them, too, for that extra insulation. succession sowing of vegetables herbs, flowers, with niki jabbour, extend your vegetable garden season, with niki jabbour, productive fall and winter vegetable gardens, with niki jabbour, https://episodes.castos.com/ON-DEMAND-LISTENING/Cold-Frames-with-Niki-Jabbour-A-Way-to-Garden-With-Margaret-Roach-January-4-2021.mp3, unusual seeds, with nate kleinman of experimental farm network, making the switch to native groundcovers, with duncan himmelman of mt. Niki Jabbour is the award-winning author of three gardening books, including The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener, Groundbreaking Food Gardens and Niki Jabbour's Veggie Garden Remix. Well, my sort of frames now, there’s like four scattered around the garden, I like to grow… Because again, they’re not super-tall my frames, you’ve got about, depending on the frame, 12 to 18 inches height inside. Kept me busy. If it’s a light snow, it’ll slip off easier. It’s still hot in September when they’re transplanted, in mid- to late September, so I like to give them that little headstart indoors and it helps. We checked and at last count there are more than 3,000 varieties of heirloom or heritage tomatoes in active cultivation worldwide and more than 15,000 known varieties. Do you know what I mean? I’ve also turned old windows… I have knocked the glass out of them and then stapled thin polyethylene material to the top and bottom to make an instant sort of cold frame top that’s unbreakable. And in the book, I talk about how to use those. Don’t really harvest early or late. Niki Jabbour’s popular book, The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener, sparked a following in the vegetable gardening world.Along with Jabbour’s radio show, The Weekend Gardener—on the airwaves weekly for over a decade–and her new books, Niki’s gardening prowess commands attention. Or if you are going to, like you talked about, forcing bulbs or whatever, or overwintering tender things, sometimes if those are woody things and those things are going to be… Do you know what I mean? I place them…” And I went up yesterday before the temperature dipped and I filled it with some shredded leaves and straw just for extra insulation. Dec 9, 2019 - Niki Jabbour on Instagram: “If you’ve followed me for awhile, you probably know that I am obsessed with nasturtiums. They will take milk jugs or water jugs, 1-gallon jugs, or even… Well, I would call it a 2-liter pop bottle, but I guess I’m not sure what that would be in the imperial system, probably like half-gallon pop bottle or soda bottle. Margaret: Yes, I’m working on the title. It’s like all of the uses for these sort of barriers and enclosures and so forth, right? This is his first late fall-into-winter with them, and he actually did ask me the question I said, but that is the oldest disguise in the book also. There’s two main parts, of course: the box or the frame, and then the top, which is also called the sash. Now living in zone 8 it seems I should be able to grow some greens throughout the winter (arugula, mizuna, spinach, and the miner’s lettuce mentioned). There’s still things growing inside and it was coming up like crazy in early spring. Known for her expertise in cold-weather gardening, she grows dozens of vegetable varieties in her 2,000-square-foot garden that she's able to harvest year round. There are many uses for cold frames. cold-frame 101, with niki jabbour. And here in Nova Scotia and beyond, I’m hearing from so many gardeners, they did put in a bigger structure this year. Great to talk to you again. But it’s very tempting, Margaret, to think about maybe getting another polytunnel and marginally heating it so I can have a fig forest. If you’re into alpine plants or different things like that, you can use them to shelter those over winter, too. And a much happier new year to ALL! And that’s all it takes for him in the very cold Zone 5, whatever, to have a reliable crop. And I’m just jealous. Fertilized by sea breezes, her gardens are comprised of a colourful mixture of perennials, annuals, herbs and flowering shrubs, with a few patches of clover and chickweed thrown in for good measure. Cold-frame 101: Maybe we should start with like what is a cold frame for? For this post, I did receive a copy of the book to read, along with a copy to give away to one of my readers. It was quite beautiful. Well, I’m glad you brought up also starting seedlings in the cold frame, because most of us I think at this point think cold frames are just for harvesting in winter or maybe pushing back spring a little earlier, so that you can start planting in March or even late February, depending where you live. In a cold frame, it’s a little harder, where it’s a lower profile. Aug 6, 2019 - 1,218 Likes, 17 Comments - Niki Jabbour (@nikijabbour) on Instagram: “It took longer this year with the cool spring but the bean tunnels are finally covered and…” Halifax Seed Company Inc., Canada’s oldest continuously operating family owned seed company, was established in 1866. And during the day when it’s sunny, they’re going to absorb heat. But this past summer, I left a couple on and I kept them half propped open, and I grew melons in my cold frames in the summer, thinking a little bit of extra heat might help. Invariably, one would break over the winter and you’d be picking glass out of the soil, which is just not fun. Niki Jabbour is the award-winning author of Niki Jabbour’s Veggie Garden Remix, The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener, and Groundbreaking Food Gardens. Because, of course, we get rain and then overnight it’s going to freeze. Press Esc to cancel. For years, they’ve been saying, “Oh, I wish I had a greenhouse or a polytunnel.” And this is the year they said, “I’m doing it.” And honestly, hundreds of letters and texts I’ve gotten from people—polytunnels, greenhouses, even geodesic domes. When you pick a bush variety with short vines and pair it with a…” I’ve never grown it, Niki: It tastes like spring. I am amazed to learn how much can be grown in the winter, I never realized it was possible. Oh, I’m having salad from the cold frame.” All these little extra goodies. Cloche means ‘bell’ in French and they’re often bell-shaped glass or plastic covers that you can pop over your veggies. He wanted to stretch it and stretch it a little more. Was just feeling blue about having sold the family farm with its rich, established gardens and having to start all over on a concrete city lot, and here you have brought cheer, comfort, and encouragement. And do I put heating cables in it? You don’t want the lights hitting… If it’s a polycarbonate top, you don’t want them bumping up against that. Niki Jabbour - consulte a biografia e bibliografia do autor de Niki Jabbours Veggie Garden Remix e Groundbreaking Food Gardens Happy winter. She's also an award-winning radio host, in-demand speaker and keynote, and passionate vegetable gardener. Margaret: You just said claytonia. Spinach is direct-sown and arugula, which I’m harvesting now, all that’s direct-sown, tatsoi, claytonia. And I did sink them down into the soil, and I built them from untreated local hemlock. At this point, we don’t get snow as much as we used to 20 years ago. Margaret: Did you sow those direct into the frames, or did you start them somewhere and transplant them? But I use them in so many different ways to not only protect my food from pests and cold weather, but to even grow healthier plants and in the end have a larger harvest, because those plants have been protected and they’re able to produce better. [Laughter. Good luck to all. I think there’s a lot of considerations we often don’t think about when we’re growing under cover, and I wanted to take the guesswork out of that for people for sure. 13.11.2019 - Niki Jabbour on Instagram: “Carrots are one of the best vegetables for fall and winter harvesting. All you have to do to enter is answer this question in the comments box at the very bottom of the page: Do you harvest anything from your garden either extra early or extra late, and what tactic do you use? They have cold frames there as well that are not really in serviceable condition right now, usable condition I should say. The basic sort of engineering before we get started building, scoping it out? It would be great to have fresh greens in the winter. I’m always on the lookout for new or new-to-me…” MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its 11th year in March 2020. Listen live at 8:30 AM EDT Mondays, to the replay Saturday morning, or stream the podcast anytime. Cloche means ‘bell’ in French and they’re often bell-shaped glass or plastic covers that you can pop over your veggies. And even though it’s a small little gizmo or device, it really does take in a lot of solar energy and it heats up. It’s still this sense of the old architecture of a classical estate garden and with these wonderful, ferny asparagus coming out of it. Margaret: The sash, the lid, whatever we want to call it, should it be tilted? Niki: Yeah, for sure. Red veined sorrel: Learn how to plant, grow, and harvest red veined sorrel. You know what I mean? (Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.). In other words, should the back of the frame where the hinged part of the stash is, should that be higher than the front part, maybe where there’s a fastener or something like that? And you can do things, a few tricks, to make them maybe a little more insulating, even straw bales. You also don’t want them touching the food crops. It was great. Niki Jabbour is a Horticulturist and a Writer from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Margaret: Yeah. And I’ll talk about that in just a sec. It airs live Sundays, April through November, from 10 am to noon (Atlantic time) on News 95.7 FM in Halifax, 1310 News in Ottawa, and online at News957.com. Known for her expertise in cold-weather gardening, she grows dozens of vegetable varieties in her 2,000-square-foot garden that she's able to harvest year round. We have a Canadian fig expert for cold climates, Steven Biggs, and he has inspired me and he also has enabled me, because he keeps sending me cuttings. LONGTIME GARDENER AND FIRST-TIMERS went all out in this craziest of years, bringing the expression “victory garden” back into the headlines. Wood I think is probably the most common material if you’re going to build a cold frame. Do you know what I mean? So there’s lots of tricks you can do. The joe gardener Show - Organic Gardening - Vegetable Gardening - Expert Garden Advice From Joe Lamp'l. Apr 19, 2020 - 176 Likes, 0 Comments - Niki Jabbour (@nikijabbour) on Instagram: “If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a sucker for a beautiful cold frame! I have portable ones, and permanent ones. The only winter gardening I do is seed starting in milk jug “green houses”. Not just a heating system to prevent cold. I dream about growing earlier and later in the season here in Central Jersey – a 6A-ish zone. I always make sure I brush the snow off those frames. Heavily mulching hardy crops so they can continue to produce is an interesting idea. There are a lot of reasons to consider covers. Another design variation is if you’re going to use them for storage of things, as opposed to some of these other uses we’ve been talking about, you might want them deeper, if you want the versatility. Generally, I really only give the kales and the winter lettuces a headstart inside and the other salad crops are direct-sown. It’s not just “let’s grow tomatoes in our greenhouse.” Well, how can we get the best crop, reduce diseases and pests, and just harvest a bumper crop of delicious tomatoes? Thank you. You and I are nature’s best hope, and I’m glad Doug joined me again to help us learn to support it. [Laughter. Niki Jabbour returns to the show to talk about her new book, "Growing Under Cover: Techniques for a More Productive, Weather-Resistant, Pest-Free Vegetable Garden." Her wealth of information and her passion for produce have made her a North American celebrity with a work schedule that won’t quit. But they are beautiful structures. But like you say, you could use them for something else as an extra bed, so to speak, without the lid. It’s ALWAYS wonderful spending time with today’s guest – as our resident EAST COAST EXPERT when it comes to all things gardening – Nova Scotia’s Niki Jabbour has graciously shared her infinite wisdom with SEA AND BE SCENE over the years. Niki Jabbour is a garden writer and radio host from Nova Scotia. Niki: Oh my gosh. Niki Jabbour is a real year-round vegetable gardener. 'horticultural how-to and woo-woo' | margaret roach, head gardener. It’s super-convenient to do as well. How inspiring you two are! And then during the night, they will release some of that heat, just preventing huge temperature swings. But I take those polycarbonate cold frames and I put leaves or straw around the perimeter of them just to bulk up. I’ve done that in my mini hoop tunnels. It’s quite a steep angle. Often people use heat sinks. What about that? by Niki Jabbour email: nikijabbour@hotmail.com Niki Jabbour is an Ornamental Horticulturist and a writer from Halifax, Nova Scotia. I’m Margaret Roach, a leading garden writer for 30 years—at ‘Martha Stewart Living,’ ‘Newsday,’ and in three books. You can do that, too. My last harvest is red raspberries, sometimes as late as November. Appearances. Her work is found in Fine Gardening, Garden Making, Birds & Blooms, Horticulture, and other publications, and she speaks widely on food gardening at events and shows across North America. 3,239 Likes, 40 Comments - Niki Jabbour (@nikijabbour) on Instagram: “Current view inside my polytunnel... please note the snow outside ️. Last year, I did a test of them and most of them went all winter long with no extra protection other than the cold frame. Snow shedding and rain shedding and all that. Required fields are marked *. I used to live in a hot, dry zone 9 and the winter garden was more fruitful than the summer garden. And he was like, “What can I do? I’LL BUY A COPY of Niki Jabbour’s “Growing Under Cover” for one lucky reader. Maybe you want to grow vining cucumbers or melons in those in the summer. And I will use insulating materials, like if I have a carrot cold frame. I used these old…” I think the common name of that I think is miner’s lettuce. Let’s be clear. Lots of applications. It’s hilarious. Margaret: I wanted to just double back to the book. But since I work from home, I just generally… If the temperature is going to be over 40 or about 4 degrees Celsius, I just go up and I prop them open. [Laughter.] She knows a thing or two about extending the growing season. It’s not heated, though, but I inflate them with straw and stuff. (Above, at Niki’s, a cold frame full of carrots in fall that will be tucked in to harvest gradually in winter.). 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