The flowers planted in the gardens from flats which were started in the coldframe back in April are now starting to kick out the jams, as the Detroit rock band the MC-5 so eloquently stated back in 1969.

The vegetables, which were also started when there was still snow on the ground – tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and more – are doing equally well.

Little did I realize when I built my coldframe four years ago and a from scratch 10-foot by 10-foot greenhouse two years later, my take on gardening would change dramatically; and all for the best. 

In years past I had dabbled in a homemade coldframe and greenhouse – both long since having exited our 14 acres here in Elmira Township. The coldframe, from so many decades past, that today I can’t quite recall its successes and failures. The hoop greenhouse, constructed with PVC pipe and a huge sheet of clear plastic, was a success in that I could start flowers and vegetables and gain a headstart on a number of warm weather plants and was able to harvest vegetables several weeks earlier than those planted later in the garden proper. 

The greenhouse failure lay in its poor design – the PVC pipe and plastic covering were no match for our brutal snowy winters and was prone to collapse after a heavy snow; especially of the wet variety. The only way to save the fragile structure from being destroyed by our voracious winters was to take down the plastic in late fall before winter snow could take it down for me – defeating its primary goal of extending the growing season. That failed hoop greenhouse has been only a memory for the past decade.

I still missed the idea of an extended growing season here in the fickle north and so put together the coldframe awhile back. It worked great – early lettuce, spinach and other greens in the spring, green beans well into October, cheating our usual end of September killing frosts in the garden proper.

There was ample room to start flats of vegetable flats and flowers but not the sort of elbow room one needs to get the jump on summer by planting tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and other warm weather fare. So back in midsummer two years ago I puttered around assembling the necessary materials to build a bonafide permanent greenhouse. 

The design included a severely pitched roof – A-frame style – to deter the heavy snows of Northern Michigan from reducing my greenhouse to splintered timbers and ruined plastic panels. It worked. Simply said, it worked magnificently. The first summer I had ripe greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers and green beans by mid-July instead of mid-August in the garden. Excellent. Early and late season lettuce and other tasty greens extended the salad season from early April to almost Christmas. I picked the last of the lettuce the first week of December and enjoyed a Christmas Eve salad featuring my own greens. 

I was enjoying this new twist added to my gardening repertoire and basked in the glory of early tomatoes and late into fall greens. It was immensely satisfying to grow most of our annual flowers and vegetable seedlings for the garden on-site rather than heading to a big box garden center to make our plant flat purchases.

I’m still fine tuning these two new “tools” in my gardening toolbox in the quest to produce as much food and beauty (those flowers kicking out the jams) as possible right here in my own backyard and look forward to many productive years with greenhouse and cold frame in my gardening repertoire.

Kick out the jams indeed!