Make a DIY Cold Frame from Storm Windows

I wanted a cold frame in my tiny Zone 5 garden, but I lacked the tools, patience and space to make and store one. Instead, I stacked old bricks in a rectangle against the south-facing wall of my Illinois home. Each side is two bricks high.

I purposefully sized the walls to fit three scavenged storm windows, which I laid horizontally across the top of the bricks. I prop up the glass with a stick as the weather warms. My DIY cold frame was free, it doesn’t waste garden space, and it provides extra-early harvests!

Ginger Li
Homewood, Illinois