Kitchen Garden Forum

There appears to be many small stable owners advertising their manure for free collection. Perhaps this fresh manure could be used for hot-beds that were popular in the past. The idea is to get fresh straw manure that can be mixed with fresh leaves then turned and watered to produce a slow fermentation. A four inch layer of good loam is placed on the hot-bed to grow the vegetables and Dutch lights or cloches placed on top. I have never constructed such a bed and wonder if others have had experience of raising early vegetables by this method.

Barney

Sure I've seen it on the tellingbone.

Was it Harry Dodd in the Victorian Kitchen Garden, Titchmarsh on GW or someone else?

Peter,
It was definitely Harry Dodd....
And Ruth in the kitchen should have been hung, drawn and quartered for scaring that poor Alison out of her wits like she did !
But WHAT a wonderful series....
A classic in its own way really.

I think the Heligan Gardens still use the method for their pineapple growing demonstration. TheTV series "Lost gardens of Heligan" some time ago showed the method. Whether you use it or not is going to depend on whether there is enough cheap labour to do it and they have to have a certain amount of savvy, there is no knob to turn to control the temperature. Of course the well rotted byproduct has many uses where the original manure would be damaging, if properly done it ought to be free of live weed seeds.
Allan

Someone offered this great hotbed link earlier this year (apologies, can't remember who), I'm very tempted to have a go this year!

http://www.holon.se/garden/howto/hotbed_en.shtml

Hello Deb

Thanks for the site, I am also tempted to give this a go.

All the best

Barney

Our allotment neighbour made a hotbed (just as described) this summer and grew some wonderful squashes, so it seems to work.

Do check out the February issue of Kitchen Garden. Toby Buckland is writing about hot beds.

I can feel a KG wide hot bed trial coming on......to go with the Piglet and JB Banana Shallott one that we'll be starting next month.

These hot beds seem to be getting more interesting by the moment.
I think one of the biggest problems with hot beds, was to make sure they didn't get to hot and steamy while in use. Or it would burn the young roots.