A-B-C of Vegetable Gardening

by Eben E. Rexford

In order to have vegetables early in the season it will be necessary to give them a start some weeks before the ground is in proper condition for the reception of seed. Sometimes this is done by sowing the seed in pots and boxes in the living-room, as advised in Chapter VI, but here conditions are not very favorable to healthy growth, unless great care is taken to follow the directions given in the chapter mentioned, and even then success does not always attend our efforts.

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 consider it safe to put seed into the ground.

At the North the first of March is quite early enough to get the hotbed under way.

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 heat is generated by the use of material which ferments, and the inclosure is nothing but a combination of boards and glass so arranged that the temperature inside it can be regulated to suit the requirements of the plants you undertake to grow in it.

The heat-generating material is generally fresh manure from the horse-stable, or a mixture of that and coarse litter.

Because the heat from rapid fermentation is quite intense, at first the material from which it is obtained should be prepared before the hotbed is brought into use. A quantity of it should be spread on the site selected for the hotbed—which should be one that is high and dry—covering a space larger than the hotbed frame is to be. Spread it in layers four or five inches deep, tramping each layer down well. When there is a foot and a half of it, cover it with something that will shed rain, and wait for fermentation to take place. A warm moisture will rise from it like steam. After two or three days fork the material over, and remove all straw, and make another heap similar to the first one, taking great pains to have it firm and compact. It is very important that it should have considerable solidity, as a heap of loose litter will never give satisfactory results. There should be at least a foot and a half of this heat-generating material.

While waiting for fermentation to take place in the manure-pile, prepare the frame for your hotbed.

Let it be about a foot and a half in depth at the back, and eight or ten inches deep in front, with sides that slope from the wider boards to the narrower ones. Cover it with glass set in sash. If possible have the sash hinged to the back-board, so that it can be lifted for ventilation without removing it.

The best location for a hotbed is one facing the south, that all possible advantage can be taken of sunshine, and against a building or fence that will protect it on the north from cold winds. Some persons prefer to make an excavation a foot or more in depth for the reception of the heating material, but this is not a matter of much importance. As a general thing it will not be possible to do this in a satisfactory manner while there is frost in the ground, as there will be at the North until after the first of March.

When the first stages of fermentation are over, set the hotbed frame in place, and fill in with five or six inches of very fine, rich soil. This is what your seed is to be planted in.