- Joined
- Sep 17, 2017
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- Location
- Huddersfield.
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- Country
Just a simple project to get me into the garden; I found the ideal place to build a very basic cold frame; our gardens are so steep building anything is a problem but the three paving flags laid in front of our old hut looked ideal. Nothing at all special other than it cost me nothing as I had plenty of offcuts of timber to hand. The offcuts only needed ripping to width and cross cutting to length which is easy given my workshop kit. The front is a length of scaffolding board the sides are made up of assorted timbers all being screwed together.
The top frame is double layer ripped timber butt jointed and screwed; the rear top cross member is attached to the sides with crude angle iron; the top frame is then hinged to this with a pair of brass butts. Heavy gauge polythene sheeting was stapled then secured using clout nails. Nothing fancy at all and the timber is a mix of treated and untreated but even the untreated could last ten years; I made a fence panel over 16 year using untreated pallet timber and it's only just rotted and been replaced.
The size is roughly 50" long and 24" wide; the front is 9" deep the back is 14" deep the actual back being the lower hut front. I intended to replace this hut next year because the hut was second hand when I bought it 30 years ago so it owes me nothing; I'm now using this hut as a potting shed so I think I've come down with a dose of gardening bug?
I've enjoyed making this cold frame; the sun has been shining which is rare and I've made use of lots of offcuts of timber; just a prop to make in order to keep the top panel open as needed but it's ready for use and hasn't taken much time nor effort to make; I made it up as I went along using the timber available and no great accuracy was needed; a nice project and hopefully more to follow.
Bron and I visited a local garden centre this afternoon; a basic cold frame there with thin timber frame and much smaller than mine costs £60.
Kind regards, Colin.
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