Hotbed System for greenhouse

[maree t]

hi, I was wondering if anybody can give any advice on these. I have read Tobys article in this months KG but wondered if anybody had tried it. I cannot trust the electric cable attached to the greenhouse and was going to look for a heater but as I have plenty of fresh manure do you think I might get away with this instead.any advice or info welcome thanks maree

[oldherbaceous]

An interesting topic i must say maree t, i cannot see any reason why it would not work in theory, although i have never seen it done inside a greenhouse before.
A few pitfalls though i'm afraid, you need a heap at least three foot deep, you won't be able to regulate the heat, the heap will be very hot for a while then start to cool off, you probably will have to renew the heap depending on how long you want to heat the greenhouse for, and you will get a lot of problems with condensation.
I know at the lost gardens of Heligan, they had alot of trouble maintaining a costant heat in their pineapple pits, and they had to topup and renew the heaps regulary.
I seem to have come up with a lot of pitfalls, but please don't let this put you off.
If you do try this, please let us all know how you get on.