Seriously. It's a way of forcing vegetables to grow quickly. The old country estate gardeners of old use to place them in large glass or green houses and cover them with a glass frame.
So how did you make your hot bed Dave? Good question Dave!
Well I got an old barrel and made some drainage holes in the bottom and I threw or piked a couple of wheelbarrows of fresh fym or stable manure. Then I shovelled a few inches of top soil over the manure.
Last week I planted some of my onion sets in the 🔥 bed.
Already the onions are sprouting and sticking up their own stems. It will be interesting to compare them to the onion sets growing in just the ordinary ground.
Anyone else experiment at even making an hot bed?
Well, perhaps not quite the same but in our old garden P lifted the slabs in the greenhouse and planted strawberries directly into the soil there. They did really well, protected from the weather and the animals. We had strawberries for months back then.
ReplyDeleteSounds like very good growing soil JayCee. I once made a raised bed with paving slabs stood on end and filled it with sieved soil and river sand. We sowed parsnips and carrots and they grew to enormous vegetables and there were no stones to make them fork. Strawberries growers use to place straw under the fruit to protect them and that is why we call them strawberries.
DeleteInteresting - we have seen the fym heating for greenhouse design at Heligan in Cornwall - they used the heat of rotting fym to grow pineapples. F digs a big hole and puts fym in the bottom, fills it in with soil and plants rhubarb on top, but we have never thought of doing it for the onions. The area where the beans will go has been prepared with trenches filled (and buried) with fresh compostibles - the hope being that they will warm the soil a bit before the beans go in. Awaiting your scientific report on the comparison with your 'ordinary' onions.
ReplyDeleteHi Tigger we have seen the Heligan heating system. It's a fantastic place to visit. Some people use hot beds to grow salads like lettuce. It's amazing how the fresh manure doesn't burn the crop planted in soil just a few inches above it. Your compost trenches should also help the beans to retain moisture and the beans are heavy feeders. I was short of soil to fill the barrel so I decided to fill a lot of with fresh stable manure. Sometimes I use old branches and stones for future compost and drainage. I love reading about how the old estate gardeners recycled stuff like mole hill soil to make potting compost.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be rude but you can stick your thoughts about hot beds up your own stem Monty!
ReplyDeleteFair enough.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of hot beds before. Off to Google. You are ever educational, Dave...a regular professor of poop.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Poops compost stories. Thanks Debby!
ReplyDeleteMany years ago my father had a late Victorian/early Edwardian gardening book that detailed many of the techniques in use at the time. Hot beds featured in that book, with versions like yours using fyn to generate the heat, and others that used leaves rotting for a milder heat.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately that book was one of many casualties of my parents downsizing after retirement as I would have found it fascinating to read again now.
Hi Will. I have a few old gardening books packed in boxes in the attic. I must find them and read them and look up the authors on book sites like Abe Books. I have picked mine up in charity shops, old book shops and car boot sales. The old gardeners spent so very little and recycled everything and propagated all their own plants by division, cuttings and seeds. Thanks for telling us about your father's Victorian/ Edwardian gardening book.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of a hot bed.
ReplyDeleteIf you Google hot beds River you will see lots of them. Thanks.
ReplyDelete