Hotbeds anyone?

[oxbowfarm]

Some farmer friends of mine wrote an article in Growing for Market about how they use temporary hotbeds to start their seedlings. This was very timely as we were racking our brains on how to get more space for seedlings this year as our greenhouse is non-existant and we are dramatically expanding production this year.

So I built one in one of the hoophouses, a pretty slavish copy from the article except I used a mix of cow and chicken manure instead of horse manure. I know that horse manure is the traditional shit of choice for hotbeds but I am rich in cows and before the effing mink attack I was rich in chickens. I am impoverished in horses and hope to remain so until the end of my days.

I'd love to here more about any experience HG has with hotbeds. I did a search and Johno seemed to use them?

Here is a pic.


I'm really pleased with the tray table, I scored all these warehouse shelving sections from my last job. They were doing the whole stupid Toyota style "5S" thing which seems to mostly involve throwing away a ton of perfectly good stuff and replacing it with exactly the same thing and putting a label on it telling you what the thing is. These racks were tossed out because they were rusty. Imagine a pallet rack getting rusty outside on the back dock where it gets rained on all the time! I've never used them for anything permanent but they are super heavy duty, same guage metal as a cattle panel but 4'X4' and the wires are about a two inch spacing.

[12540dumont]

Here we call those new models "BNG" (Bold New Graphics) This is what the differentiates the old from the new.

Great score on the racks. Love the new hot bed.

[steev]

Good idea. If you keep those bales warm and wet, you'll likely get a crop of mushrooms. Probably a flush of small Coprinus, picked before they start to auto-digest, a handful sauteed in butter, lightly salted, on toast. Yum!

[cortona]

here at home we do it in a different way we usa two old bathtubs half filed wit fresh cow manurue and after this we finish to fill it wit normal soil, wet it and in 3/4 days you have a perfect hot bed, dad sow directly on soil , i use it to start plants in pot, dad built a mini greenhouse over the wole thingh i've put it directly in the old grenhouse but in the two way it work!

[raymondo]

I sort of use this idea from time to time. I build mounds of freshly mown grass, with a bit of straw mixed in, wet it all thoroughly, make depressions, fill with soil and sow cucurbit seeds (melon and squash). They love the bottom heat and get a great start in life. I think I'll try manure next spring.

[steev]

I like that bathtub idea; think I'd put it on blocks, so I could have a pan under the drain for liquid fertilizer.