Cold frame.

Last winter I bought an inexpensive (about $50) cold frame and set it up in my very small vegetable garden. Then I didn't do much with it -- just let it sit there -- all spring, summer, and fall. The top blew off once or twice so at some point I just moved the top onto the porch. Finally in November I reattached the top and planted some lettuce plantlets, not seeds but plantlets. Everything is still growing, or at least nothing has been frozen, so I guess the frame is doing its job. Our temperatures have sometimes been in the 20s at night which normally would kill off lettuce (I think). Unfortunately, although alive and presumably healthy, the lettuce doesn't seem to be getting any bigger. Bottom pix was taken yesterday, pix above it was taken 3 wks ago. Maybe if we get a burst of sustained  warm weather -- in the 60s -- everything will grow in a burst.

See the grass in the upper left corner of the top picture? That's my neighbor's lawn. She has a lawn service which comes occasionally to give her lawn a "treatment." The kind where the lawn guys leave little warning flags in the ground near the driveway, warnings about pets and children, maybe? I haven't examined one. Anyway, do you think her chemicals, plus the chemicals from the neighbor next to HER, who also gets such treatments, will get into my lettuce? I think yes, probably. If nothing else some chemicals will be airborne and will float onto my garden.

It would be a big deal to move my vegetable garden to another location in my yard. A combination of not enough sun in some places, not enough free space in others, proximity to the road (and the stuff that cars spew out), and the whole aesthetic factor. We live on a corner lot so two of our four sides are visible and accessible from the street (ie, open to the hands of passers-by...we have a fair number of passers-by since we live next door to the entrance to a park).