My limited experience with coldframes is that it's more important to watch the higher temperatures so your plants don't fry. Low temperatures in the coldframe (mid 20s) don't seem to bother the cold weather plants. I do have a few peppers and tomatoes out there now as an experiment. They seem to be doing ok nestled against the water containers.

I haven't researched skunk cabbage but it sounds like it could be useful especially in the months surrounding winter solstice.

An interesting idea, but I really don't know how you would keep skunk cabbage alive in the Rocky Mtn region - it is a wild flower of the swamps and marshes, at least in New England where I am from, and I have no idea where you would find a source for this rather remarkable (and, yes, quite smelly) plant. It is also an endangered species in some parts of the country.

Here is a description of the plant, which does mention it's ability to melt snow and ice: http://enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?recnum=WF0015 (I wish GardenWeb would modernize it's forum site so that you could actually put a proper link in the body of a forum message.)

The link below gives even more info - and states that there is speculation that some skunk cabbage plants might be up to one hundred years old! An amazing plant, really.

Holly

Here is a link that might be useful: Skunk Cabbage

I also grew up in New England and am very aware of the smell associated with the plant:/ I guess the growing conditions could be mimicked but not sure of its longevity here in Colorado. I'm wondering if there's a cousin of the skunk cabbage that is native here that would create the same sort of heat...just some interesting thoughts...

Well now, it isn't as tho' they are warm-blooded plants, or anything, right?

So, it is just their environment of decaying plant material from the previous growing season, right?

Interesting that the USDA, plant database shows separate genus and species for the eastern and western skunk cabbages. (Yes Holly, you can put a link in your message but it requires the "a href" code - like a webpage, I guess.)

Anyway, perhaps just a compost bucket would also generate an equivalent amount of heat in a greenhouse or cold frame. I have thought about this but really would need to put it underground since I'm using all the greenhouse space during the springtime. Might get rather odoriferous in there with lots of compost or horse manure.

Another idea was to have lots of chickens in the greenhouse. Of course, they'd have to be corralled and when I had 35 chicks in there once, they didn't seem to generate that much heat . . .

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Building and Using Hotbeds and Coldframes

The amount of calories given off by skunk cabbage may be able to raise temps in a small coldframe by a degree and maybe two for a short time in spring. Not a greenhouse.

Not sure how the space occupied by the plant would make up for the short heating duration. As indicated above, in the old days manure and other decomposing stuff heated coldframes for several weeks.

Nevertheless, I don't heat mine. I don't need to. I'll be harvesting turnips and choi here next week, and kale and chard by mid-April. No heat, just good glazing, weather stripping and about 6 gal of water to moderate temps overnight. And a sleeping bag for the two weeks or so that really gets cold. We have tremendous sun here on the Front Range, and plenty of it, and that is a fine heater in an enclosed envelope with glazing. Heating is a problem for other places. Not here.

Dan

(Yes Holly, you can put a link in your message but it requires the "a href" code - like a webpage, I guess.)
I know! :-o I figured this out after I whined about it in my previous post, but of course you can't edit your posts here on GW after you have submitted them. (There, I whined again!)

I had no idea that there was a western skunk cabbage. Same family but different species and genus, as Steve mentioned. There are some similarities, but they look rather different to me, perhaps they have the same distinctive odor... Here are a couple of links that give more info about each plant as well as pictures of the flowers, etc. - and apparently they are both available commercially, though the site doesn't say where you can get them!

Eastern skunk cabbage

Western skunk cabbage

What have you decided to do, kareng_grow?

Holly

Hi Holly,
I've decided to just use the old fashioned method of water at night in my green house but this skunk cabbage was a surprise I found definitely intriguing.Not sure I would want one in my cold frame either. I do want to experiment with them some day, however. I haven't read anything about whether or not they deter deer. Might be another interesting thing to find out since we have two herds of deer who are regular customers in our yard. : )