Hotbed

Jordan Burrell · July 2015

Please could someone help me with my my hotbed not giving off any heat. Last week I created a hotbed to help grow some Mellons. I followed monty's instructions and made an 18 inch layer of fresh horse manure and then put a 10inch layer of soil on top. It has now been in place for just over 5 days but it is not giving off any heat. Have I done something wrong? Will it just take time to heat up? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

fidgetbones · June 2015

Did you wet it? It may be too dry?

Jordan Burrell · June 2015

The mixture was fairly wet( quite squishy when treading it down). It was also in the process of decomposing when I shoveled it from the heap as it was steaming.

Palaisglide · July 2015

We used hot beds for years, the ideal was a bale of straw in the base, plenty of very fresh manure on that,( we had horses) another bale of straw then top soil. It would then be covered and left for a couple of weeks to start working. It would gently steam as it heated and as we always started late February and it did have covers soon got up to heat. The straw helped the manure to breath and start working, the covers, glass lights, could be lifted to let in more air. Why you would make one now though five days is not enough time to get heat. I grow melons in the greenhouse but they will grow outside in a sunny sheltered spot, use fLeece on cool days or nights.

They take time, Monty must have had his tongue in his cheek when he made that poor excuse for a hot bed.

Frank

Jordan Burrell · July 2015

Thanks for all your comments. Think I will dig up the manure and mix in some straw and let it rest for a couple of weeks. Will then put back the top should once it has started to heat up.

Hostafan1 · July 2015

lol @ " that poor excuse for a hot bed"

Hotbed

Posts