Hotbed (horticulture)

“ Three to five inches of good garden loam or specially prepared soil is spread evenly over the area inclosed by the frame, the sash put on, and the bed allowed to heat. At first the temperature of the bed will run quite high, but no seeds should be planted until the soil temperature falls to 80° F., which will be in about three days. In most farmhouses enough heat is wasted throughout the winter to sustain a small hothouse to say nothing of a hotbed. ”

“ The most common method of starting early plants in the North is by means of a hotbed. The hotbed consists of an inclosure covered with sash and supplied with some form of heat, usually fermenting stable manure, to keep the plants warm and in a growing condition. As a rule, the hotbed should not be placed within the garden inclosure, but near some frequently used path or building where it can receive attention without interfering with other work. ”

“ HOTBEDS, COLD FRAMES AND FLATS So important is the preparatory work performed by a well started and conducted hotbed that its use cannot be too insistently recommended. The smallest, least ambitious home garden is dependent upon the use of artificial heat in the starting of such plants as cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes and the like, either in hotbeds on the home grounds, flats in the windows or plants grown in commercial greenhouses ”

“ If to the hotbed is added the convenience of a cold frame to which the cabbage and cauliflower can be transplanted as soon as they show rough leaves it will be a decided advantage and the room thus secured in the hotbed can be used to transplant tomatoes, peppers and the like, thus giving better rooted, stockier plants.
Fresh horse manure is used for heating the bed and must be procured from stables where a number of horses are kept that sufficient may be obtained at one time. ”

“ The hotbed should always face to the south, and the south side of either a dwelling, barn, tight board fence, hedge, or anything affording a similar protection, will furnish a good location. The hotbed should be started in February or early in March, in order that such plants as the tomato and early cabbage may be well grown in time to plant in the open ground. ”

“ The season may be advanced and the damage from insects lessened by starting the plants in hotbeds. This may be done by using fresh sod, cut into 6-inch pieces, placing them grass-side down in the hotbed, sowing eight to ten seeds on each piece, and covering with 2 inches of light soil. When all danger of frost is over, and the ground has become warm, these sods may be carefully lifted and set in the prepared hills. The plants usually grow without check, and fruit from two to four weeks ahead of those from seed planted directly in the hill. ”

“ Such a structure is shown in Fig. 207, upon one side of which the manure and soil are already in place. These manure-heated houses are often very efficient, and are a good make-shift until such time as the gardener can afford to put in flue or pipe heat.
Hotbeds may be heated by means of steam or hot water. They can be piped from the heater in a dwelling-house or greenhouse. Fig. 208 shows a hotbed with two pipes, in the positions 7, 7 beneath the bed. The earth is shown at 4, and the plants (which, in this case, are vines) are growing upon a rack, at 6. ”

“ An old cooled off hotbed is really a cold frame.
A cold frame is always useful for—
1. “Wintering over” plants a little too tender to leave unprotected.
2. Transplanting seedlings (young plants) from the hotbed, where they will gradually become accustomed to a cooler atmosphere before they are placed in the outside ground.
Young lettuce plants may be placed in the cold frame in the Autumn, and will supply salad nearly all winter.
Parsley and herbs will stay green the winter through if placed in the cold frame.
Some hardier seeds may be started in the cold frame instead of the hotbed ”

“ I am aware that many young gardeners have the impression that a hotbed is, in some respects, a mysterious thing, and because of this they do not undertake to make one. Now there is nothing simpler than a hotbed when you come to a study of it. It is simply making a place in which summer conditions can be imitated by supplying it with steady, gentle heat, and in confining this heat within an inclosure. ”

“ The place in which the frames are set should be protected from the cold and prevailing winds by a rising slope, a high board fence, a building, hedge, or other obstruction. If the frame yard is near the main buildings, it will be much more accessible in rainy or snowy times, and the plants are likely to have better care. Water should also be handy.
Section of a Hotbed
The time of starting a Hotbed will depend upon the kinds of plants to be grown, the amount of time which one wishes to gain, and something, also, on the quality of the manure. ”

“ The simplest hothouse is the manure heated coldframe or hotbed.
The following directions for making the frames and preparing the soil for them are taken from the author's Home Vegetable Gardening.
For the ordinary garden, all the plants needed may be started successfully in hotbeds and coldframes. The person who has had no experience with these has usually an exaggerated idea of their cost and of the skill required to manage them. The skill is not as much a matter of expert knowledge as of careful regular care, daily. Only a few minutes a day, but every day. ”

“ In order to give our plants the early start that they must have if we want vegetables at a time when most gardeners are getting the garden ready for planting, we must make use of the hotbed. If this is done we can gain from six weeks to two months in time, and have lettuce and radishes before our neighbors who are without hotbed facilities [69] consider it safe to put seed into the ground. ”

“ Even when the hotbed is used, it is better to have small boxes for the different varieties of seeds, and stand them in the hotbed, instead of sowing the seed directly in the bed itself, for some varieties take longer than others to germinate, and it is a difficult problem to ventilate and water a bed containing a miscellaneous 153 assortment, but when the seeds are in boxes, they can be removed from the bed during the warm part of the day, and the difficulty is militated. Boxes should be about two and a half inches deep, and have a few cracks or holes in the bottom for drainage. ”

“ The bean, having no tap root and a broad spread of lateral roots, is one of the easiest plants to transplant and by starting a hundred plants in the hotbed a much earlier crop will be obtained; that will be filling up the time while the open air planting is coming forward.
Another very important advantage in starting seed in the hotbed is the larger per cent. of plants obtained; if good seed is used every one may be depended upon to grow. ”

“ The structure and management of a hot-bed is much the same as that of a cold frame, with the exception that the sashes are usually longer and the back and front somewhat higher; being started earlier the requisite temperature has to be kept up by artificial means, fermenting manure being relied upon for the purpose; and the loss of this heat has to be checked more carefully by straw matting, and, in the far North, by shutters also. ”

“ If the frame is not placed over a pit and the manure is put on top of the ground, it will be necessary to allow the body of manure to project 1 or 2 feet in all directions in order to prevent the edges of the bed from freezing.
In starting plants in a Hotbed, one must not expect to gain as much time in the crop as he gains in the starting of the seeds: that is, if he starts the seeds two months ahead of the normal season, he will not gain two months in the ripening of the crop. ”

“ A well-spaded bed of good soil, enriched with a little well decayed manure—that from last year's hotbed will answer, or bone meal may be used or a commercial fertilizer, for the plants will30 need food at this stage of their growth, should be prepared and the frame set on this or sunk a few inches into the ground to insure warmth and prevent the ingress of small rodents which somehow show a peculiar penchant for hotbeds and cold frames and have been known to destroy a whole planting of seeds in a single night. ”

“ If economy must be observed or the bed is for temporary use, a rough frame of boards will answer every purpose; it need not even extend below the surface of the ground, but merely rest upon it, but such construction is not to be recommended except for temporary structures or where it is desired to remove the frame as soon at it has served its purpose in supplying plants for spring planting; but a well built, permanent hotbed has by no means served its mission with the passing of the spring months, it may be profitably kept in commission the year around. ”

“ If the heat of the manure subsides too early, pack fresh horse-manure all around the outside of the box, and as it heats it will communicate warmth to the inside of the bed. As plants grow up, transplant a part to a fresh bed, so as to give all a chance to grow stocky and strong. Almost everything that grows in the garden may be forwarded greatly in the hotbed. Vines, beets, tomatoes, cabbages, peppers, egg-plants, celery, beans, corn, and potatoes, may be obtained much earlier by this means. ”

“ Since the operation of a hothouse is a hard business proposition to the general grower, involving the question of the greatest production on the space at hand, it is advisable to get a crop growing on the benches as quickly as possible after the bed is spawned.
If some crop that will rapidly cover the surface of the bed is not planted immediately after spawning it is advisable to furnish some sort of a mulch to protect the soil from the direct rays of the sun. It is all the better to provide such a mulch even with the planted crop, filling in the unprotected spaces. ”

“ For example, cabbage seed may be sown in September in a Coldframe and the young plants may be protected therein during the winter. If they are properly grown and hardened off, they will not be injured by the winter, even though they freeze. Lettuce and sometimes cauliflowers are carried over in the same way. Coldframes are also used to receive plants which have outgrown the hotbed and must be transplanted. Plants which need hardening off may also be transplanted from the hotbed into the Coldframe. The Coldframe in these cases is an intermediate stage between the hotbed and the open field. ”

“ It is very important that the plants are not kept too close and grown too soft. It is usually advisable to sow cabbage, lettuce and other hardy plants in different frames from tomatoes and other tender things, in order that the proper requirements may be given to each. At night the Hotbeds (at least early in the season) will need more protection than the glass sash. It was formerly the custom to use thick rye-straw mats to cover Hotbeds, but it is now a common practice to use the straw matting which can be bought of carpet dealers. ”

“ In setting out the plants from the hotbed select those with the stoutest stalks; it is not material whether they have grown tall or keeled over in the hotbed or not if the plant appears vigorous with a robust stem. If one has a good supply of plants to draw from one can discard all but the best.
The reward of your hours of pleasant labor
Prepare the hills in advance by forking in a forkful of old manure; if the plants are long, make a trench two-thirds the length of the stem with a deeper hole at one end ”

“ If, however, you use your hotbeds only for raising seeds, they will not want any linings; as it will be advantageous for the young seedlings to let the beds gradually become cool as the plants increase in size, so that they may acquire strength and hardiness before they are turned into the open ground. ”

“ Those that are injured most by transplanting should be planted in the hotbed, on inverted sods, or grass turfs, six inches square, which can be removed with the growing plants on them, without seriously dis [Pg 251] turbing the roots. Plenty of shade and moisture on transplanting will save the most tender plants, and they will speedily recover. Make a hotbed of any size you may desire on the same principle. The boards and frames will last many years, with proper care, and occasional supply of a broken light of glass. ”

“ All seeds require a certain degree of heat to induce germination. For tropical plants the heat of a propagating house—75° to 80°, with a bottom heat of 80° to 90°—is desirable, and in many cases absolutely necessary; for others, such as half-hardy annuals, a mild hot bed, or a temperate pit ranging from 60° to 70°, is convenient; while of course all outdoor crops have to submit to the natural temperature of the season. It is very important that seeds should be sown when the ground is in a good working condition, and not clammy with moisture. ”

“ Artificial heat applied to the roots, called by gardeners “bottom-heat,” is supplied by fermenting materials such as stable manure, leaves, &c., or by hot-water pipes. In winter the temperature of the soil, out of doors, beyond a certain depth is usually higher than that of the atmosphere, so that the roots are in a warmer and more uniform medium than are the upper parts of the plant. Often the escape of heat from the soil is prevented by “mulching,” i.e. by depositing on it a layer of litter, straw, dead leaves and the like. ”