hotbeds on gardeners' world

[safronsue]

Last friday's gw had a bit on a chap in yorkshire, i think, using hotbeds to extend the growing season. fascinating and inspiring. the concept was familiar to me but now i'm thinking it is actually practicable for us with two horses producing the essentials. does anyone on here use such a setup? I'd be interested in some input. what do you grow? My initial problem i was thinking would be transporting the heavy fresh stuff to my growing area but then i thought i could just have a boxed setup on top of the muck heap and transport some light top soil there. wow that would be lovely and warm for some lucky veg.

GW is great but there should be a dedicated ish kind of programme. any tv producers on here??? there is so much to learn about ish ness i'm sure material would never be a problem.

[oldjerry]

[quote="safronsue"]Last friday's gw had a bit on a chap in yorkshire, i think, using hotbeds to extend the growing season. fascinating and inspiring. the concept was familiar to me but now i'm thinking it is actually practicable for us with two horses producing the essentials. does anyone on here use such a setup? I'd be interested in some input. what do you grow? My initial problem i was thinking would be transporting the heavy fresh stuff to my growing area but then i thought i could just have a boxed setup on top of the muck heap and transport some light top soil there. wow that would be lovely and warm for some lucky veg.

Have tried this to grow melons.It's,a Victorian idea,I think,to be honest,many of the newer F1 melons\pumpkin\whatever have been bred to withstand slightly lower temps anyhow.If you're using it to force early veg,you'll still need a frame or similar over it,andthen you have to be careful it doesn't get too hot(which if I recall is what happened,when I did it).That said,it's freeheat,and I have a long history of cocking things up.It's got to be a good idea,especially in't frozen North,but maybe not Greece!

[oldjerry]

GW is great but there should be a dedicated ish kind of programme. any tv producers on here??? there is so much to learn about ish ness i'm sure material would never be a problem.

I think this format is probably the best,although the image of half a dozen would be tenants of extremely expensive non-existent allotments in Wales,being taught to make wine by an increasingly irritated and inebriated MKG before having to line up and have their efforts judged by veiwers at home phoning in, does have a certain appeal.

(And incidently if any TV producers ARE looking in,as luck would have it,I'm unexpectedly available for any presentation opportunity,and though I may lack some of the photogenic qualities of a first choice presenter for this subject Widdecombe\Andre\Jordan ,I do come cheap.)

[demi]

@ OJ

we've been reading about hot beds too and we'll probably make them from the manure if we get the goats.
there doesnt seem to be too much information in books or online about hotbeds, seems to be an old fashioned method not really used nowadays, i dont know why though? seems like a good idea to me!

[wabbit955]

its a great idea if you got the roonmand transport
but with my small garden and only a moterbike to transport the muck i don't stand a chance :O(

[sarahkeast]

Fancy having a go at this, there is a stables near me so plenty of free manure available. What is the minimum size needed to be effective in heat generation ? does it need turning ? I guess not if growing on top. Could I just make a 'raised bed' on top of the pallet compost bins once filled ?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Funnily enough I was discussing this only last week. The owner of the stables where we keep our nag does this. The arrangement is of a hinged glazed lid (his are about 80cm by 80 cm covering a sloped-top wooden box. The box is orientated so that it faces south. The box is mostly filled with fresh horse poo layed on a bed of straw: about 300l of shit on about 5cm of straw. He than lays about 10cm of well rotted compost on top of that for plating.

Mostly he uses it as a seed bed for getting his peppers, aubergines & tomatoes away. He plants in February and by now he has plants 30cm high ready to go out. The clever bit is that the manure rots down as the plants push so giving them more head room. Once he's planted out he just adds the contents to the general compost heap finish breaking down.

[Mrs Moustoir]

I seem to recall hotbeds being featured in the Victorian (or was it the Wartime..) Kitchen Garden series.

Whole episodes are on youtube if anyone is interested.

[Odsox]

On a different tack ...
I have a hotbed that I made just too late for last winter, but mine is heated with an electric cable fed from a wind turbine.
It's built like a small greenhouse and is inside my big greenhouse, and has so far grown lettuce, carrots, spring onions and radishes continuously since February.
The plan is to produce salad stuff all through next winter regardless of the outside weather.

[Broad Bean]

I saw it and found it quite interesting but not something I'd ever do as it looked like a heck of a lot of work to get things slightly out of season. I already extend my season in my polytunnel and produce more veggies than we can eat so don't see the need to do any more - it would have been better if they'd explained it properly though rather than just glossed over it all in a few minutes but that's always the way with GW

[oldjerry]

On a different tack ...
I have a hotbed that I made just too late for last winter, but mine is heated with an electric cable fed from a wind turbine.
It's built like a small greenhouse and is inside my big greenhouse, and has so far grown lettuce, carrots, spring onions and radishes continuously since February.
The plan is to produce salad stuff all through next winter regardless of the outside weather.

Can you do any pictures of this Tony?It sounds really interesting.Couple of questions: Turbine system incorporating batteries? if so how big?Also I guess way out there you have much better light levels than here in the English Midlands,so will the system have enough juice to power a gro-lite? Thanks.

[Odsox]

Can you do any pictures of this Tony?It sounds really interesting.Couple of questions: Turbine system incorporating batteries? if so how big?Also I guess way out there you have much better light levels than here in the English Midlands,so will the system have enough juice to power a gro-lite? Thanks.

I'll take a photo tomorrow OJ, it's piddling down at the moment.
I have just got a gro-lite for it, only 24 watt for 2232 Lumen. Yes, it has batteries and an inverter, plus a 48v dc immersion heater in a copper cylinder to a gravity fed radiator to heat the rest of the greenhouse.
I will admit that it is a kilowatt 48v turbine that I have been playing with for some time, so in my devious mind the price for that was written down some time ago, and is now free ... plus I'm recycling it.

[seasidegirl]

I've got a really good old fashioned gardening dictionary. It means a lot to me actually because it was a gift from my grandad when I first showed an interest in growing - I was about 11. It (Blacks Gardening Dictionary) was his favourite gardening book, he was a professional victorian style gardener and he wrote his name in the book and date when he got it, 1929.

Anyway... excellent section on hotbeds. Rather a lot to type up but the gist of it is that prior gathering and preparation of the material is important to get the heat right and lasting. It says that fresh manure gives the strongest heat but that it doesn't last so long. It recommends freshly gathered leaves as good material to mix with the manure although preferably dry. You can even make a hotbed with leaves alone if you don't have any manure but it won't get quite so hot. It suggests mixing materials at least a month before use and heaping it into a conical shape with regular turning (every 4 or 5 days) to get the material from the inside out and vice versa. After a month or so, (although says 3 or 4 turnings will do) and in the right season for what you're doing (cuttings or seedlings), then level it and put soil in a hole in the middle. Insert cuttings and/or sow seeds into soil and then put the frame on top.

It isn't clear on the size of the heap that is best but suggests that it should depend on the size of the frame to be placed on top, or big enough to allow the frame to sit in the middle and have a margin of at least 18" on each side. It says to site it away from North or East winds and also you can dig a hole and put it inside. Last thing is they say take the soil temperature and don't sow seeds until it has fallen to 65 degrees F.

One thing I love about this book is the amount of detail on each topic. Eg referring to the leaves he even recommends which ones are best: beech, oak and elm. Also I love the chatty nature of the writing. On the opening to the 'hotbeds' section:

Editors Note.
'Although not so popular now as they were before artificial heating by hot water pipes reached its present state of perfection, few gardeners can altogether ignore the claims of the old-fashioned hotbed, and where the necessary material can be cheaply had, one or more of these affords ready means of raising ender greenhouse or half hardy annuals which it would be unwise to sow in an un-heated greenhouses or frames until late in the season.'

How funny (and nice) that we are sharing information on a method that was described as 'old-fashioned' in a book that was published in 1921.

[safronsue]

seasidegirl, what a precious legacy from your grandad, and thanks for taking the trouble to quote from it at length. i wonder how we know that romans used the method and if their setup were the same. i guess they came conquering up north and missed their italien toms and worked out the hotbed system was a way to have them. i must say it had crossed my mind how to use the heat that was rising through the snow this winter in particular as the water pipes were frozen solid for 2 months! In mountainous northern greece we are a lot colder than sunny sussex. I did try the plastic water bucket in the dung pile and heaping it with snow to see if it would melt....it did but the quantity was insufficient for 2 horses.
It seems to me if i have a frame and lid ready this setup could be done in situ on part of the muck heap and i'd just try setting spuds around xmas so we'd have new spuds for my birthday in march. This year our old potatoes lasted til about then. I would cover with straw in the Ruth Stout way which would limit the amount of top soil i have to carry.
Seems like a plan.

[safronsue]

demi, where have you been reading?
Excess heat is apparently regulated by first compressing the pile to limit the oxygen OJ. what happened to your melons? did you get any? You jest about an ishness programme idea but i think it would be a winner! we are kind of living it here already with my OH rototilling his bit for spuds and me ruth stouting mine in straw....and mine are looking a healthier colour already but i'm not saying anything yet.
I must have a look on youtube for the kitchen garden series, i've not seen any.