Thanks for the birthday wishes. Yeah I always want to take pictures later during the season and I always put it off for tomorrow - then I never get around to taking them. Will have to try harder this year. I enjoy seeing other people's gardening photos as well so I urge all to post their gardening pics in whatever forum in which they may apply. Regarding my system, the cost savings is really what my system is all about. As with you, I disliked spending so much money on plants every year and not having much selection to choose from regarding veggie starts, so that is what got me going. That and getting cabin fever so badly during winter that I get desperate to see something, anything growing. Today is a good negative example of my system. The high is 39 degrees and it is cloudy so I only have cold-weather plants (cabbage family mainly and greens) out in the grow box. The impatiens and veggie starts are all under lights in my nice warm growing room. Plants go out or stay in depending on outside temperature and sunlight potential (which affects the potential temperature inside the grow box). It is a bit of a labor intensive system but by doing this I never really have to acclimate my plants. By late April, though, the plants end up outside in the growboxes 24/7 until they are planted in May. I am zone 4b. My average last frost date is around May 10 - I always figure two weeks into May because it is easier to remember when doing my count-back regarding when to start certain seeds. I up-potted 100 impatiens and quit for the day. Went out and did some dividing and transplanting of some perennial flowers until I got chilled. Harvested fresh asparagus, wild ramps, leaf lettuce, winter onions, green garlic, and fiddleheads for my annual charcoal and cherry wood-grilled free-range Black Angus porterhouse steak birthday dinner. Picked up a bottle of wine to round out the celebration. Life is good, despite the inclement weather. Only bummer is that the Morel harvest is still weeks away...

I spent a total of $30 on enough materials to cover 3 beds. What I used for the hoops was the cheapest 10' PVC pipe I could find. At the time it was 3/4" but it doesn't matter much. Just get one more pipe than you need that is large enough to fit the smaller pipe inside it. Make sure you test it in the store. Not all 1" pipes fit a 3/4". To cover it I went 4 mil clear plastic contractor's sheeting. My brother splurged on 6 mil but I think it's a bit too thick to be translucent enough. Not sure, time will tell, we're both doing winter gardens with them. To attach the hoops to the bed, I cut the bitter pipe into 6 inch sections and buy stainless brackets to clamp attach it to the outside of the bed at proper intervals. Then I just take my smaller pipe and put it into the flagpole like stand on each side. That provides great stability. Though I also use one pipe to attach to the top of the hoops. I used zip ties for it but the best way would be to drill holes and connect with nuts and bolts. I may do that. Not sure. All these supplies can be purchased from your local hardware store or big box retailer. I like shopping local but the cost is a bit more (where I am). You're choice. To keep my plastic on, I bought a box of jumbo binder clips from any office supply store. They're big enough to clamp around the plastic and PVC pipe. I realize this isn't a perfect solution as they rust, but they were cheap, so I guess I'll just buy more every couple of years. Hope that helps. Good luck extending your season or fall gardening. Here is a link that might be useful: Post after I rushed to throw it up to battle a spring snow storm...

I have hundreds of ornaments that vary from simple glass balls to rather large oddly shaped handmade ones. For years I used boxes with dividers that didn't have sides on the layers but looked for something that worked better that was not cost prohibitive. I finally found these and they are great! I actually have 4 of the larger boxes, mostly filled, but with room to grow. The drawers all come out individually. I can take them all out and pick and choose which ornaments to hang without disturbing others. The one issue is that they are not acid free, which I somewhat remedy by wrapping any special ornaments in acid free tissue. We put up multiple trees so I use a separate box for each room's ornaments. Works great, not too expensive. Here is a link that might be useful: ornament storage

The further you are off the ground the more ground heat you lose. The taller you make the sides the more heat you lose. The greater the area of exposed sides the more heat you lose. As Dan said above, the effectiveness of a cold frame is its direct ground contact. It is the ground that is the source of your temp control. So no you do not want it to be tabletop height and you do not want insulating filler material between the ground and the growing mix. You'd defeat the whole purpose of it. For cold frames to work you plant directly in the ground and set the cold frame on top of the planted area. Just look at all the cold frame pics on Google Images - they are all low to the ground and in direct contact with it. Dave Cold frames