Dead or Alive?

 Last night, my seedlings (in their pathetically ample pots) looked like this. Right now, it's anybody's guess. Last night was their first night outdoors. This morning at sunrise. the thermometer on the North side of the house read 32 degrees. I feel like I did the morning I sent my daughter off on the bus to her first day of kindergarten.

Here's what stands between frost and life for those tiny snippets of green promise. I will call it a cold frame, though I hope to goodness it is, or was last night, a hot bed.
   The frame is built to Eliot Coleman specs (minus his pretty "Dutch lights", which I couldn't afford glass for). Built of 2" pine, the front is 8" tall and the back, 12". If it were on level ground, that would give the light an ideal slope for collecting sunlight and not letting its heat back out. The final dimension is 4' X 8'. The light is framed of 2"X2" with gate hooks at the ends to keep it from blowing away. Its glazing began as 6 mil plastic sheeting, but after a snow load caused it to buckle, I added some welded-wire fence under the plastic to provide support. Next year, I hope to be able to replace this with a small greenhouse or at least replace the lights with 3 hinged panels made of real glass like Coleman's. The bottom is covered with hardware cloth, as I've had problems in the past with voles getting into cold frames and mowing down seedlings.
    The whole thing is set on some hay bales left from the neighbors' yard renovation. I wanted it up off the cold ground and hoped the hay might take on water and start to decompose, giving off some heat. The center is open, because I only had six bales and because I thought it could be filled with something that would decompose quickly and make some heat. The only hot compost I could get was lawn clippings. So, for the first time in my 21 years of home ownership, I was FIRST on the block to mow the lawn, packing two bags of precious green clippings under the center of the frame. (The yard looks nice, too.) By the afternoon of the day I put them there, the clippings already felt warmer in the center of the pile than at the surface. So far, so good. In went the seedlings - just two flats of artichoke and sweet pea, to test the process. The rest made the trip yet again from outdoors to mudroom. I draped the whole frame in sheets to help hold in a little more warmth. It only went down to 40 degrees that trial night (April 20), and all was well in the morning. The thermometer in the frame read a full 10 degrees higher than the air temp outside.
     Now it is 10am, April 21, and everybody—peppers, tomatoes, ground cherries, zinnias, snapdragons—is out there under wraps. The sun is climbing. It's time to go out and see if I have a cold frame or a hot frame. Survive where you are planted.