One hotbed completed and some planting

Leia came back to the farm yesterday and helped me with some gardening today. 

We planted some quick growing stuff in the new bed in the polytunnel and finished the first hotbed. (The bed in the picture is about 3 meters long, about 1.5 meters wide and just over a meter deep) The area around the one pictured looks a bit untidy because it's right next to where a lot of the wood cutting gets done.

The new bed in the poltunnel was planted in rows from right to left with Radish, Giant of Sicily, Pea mange tout Norli, Lettuce Ariana, Salad onion Paris silverskin two rows of Pea Early onward, Sage English broadleaf Salvia Officinalis , Broad leaf thyme Thymus pulegioides the herbs will be planted outside when they're large enough. Planted a tray of Angleica archangelica in a tray that I put outside. I'm hoping we have enough cold weather to break dormancy. Planted a tray each of peppermint Mentha Piperita and Dyers greenweed Genista Tinctoria that I put in the new hotbed.

Here's how to make a hotbed:

  Create some walls for the hotbed (We used some polystyrene filled walls from a prefab hut) and fill the bottom with some branches to allow air into the bottom.

 Fill with fresh manure (In this case stable sweepings from Mr Miles next door) leaving a south facing slope walking on the manure from time to time to make sure you have enough in there to get hot. They say you need about a meter depth for it to get hot enough.

 Cover the manure with about 6 to 10 cm of compost and then cover with glass or plastic. The whole thing should have a slight southward slope. I have the means to make another two of these and we're part way through making them.


These beds will make a good place to germinate most of our warm loving seeds and then they'll be planted up with cucurbits like melons and courgettes, aubergines and okra later on.