How and What to Grow in a Kitchen Garden of One Acre (10th Ed)/Hotbeds and Cold Frames
HOTBEDS AND COLD FRAMES.
With a garden of this size I would have hotbeds, cold frames and rich seed beds of fine light soil; these I would not have in the garden itself unless that be the most convenient place. Where there is time to attend to them, they will be a measure of economy, it being much cheaper to raise than to buy the plants, if you use more than a few dozens, while, if you have the time and room, quite a business can be done by supplying your neighbors who do not garden on such an extensive scale. It is best to locate the frames on the sunny side of a barnyard wall, or against a building that will shield them from the north wind and make a warm nook for them on sunshiny days. They should be situated conveniently near both to the manure pile and to a good supply of water, where they will constantly be under the eye in passing to and from the farm work and will not suffer neglect from being forgotten or overlooked. It is quite important that there should be good drainage from these beds, as they are most needed at a rainy time of the year; dampness is not only injurious to the young plants, but it also takes up a great deal of the heat which should go toward forwarding the growth of the young plants. The sashes can be bought, ready painted and glazed, at the planing mills in most cities, and this is much the cheapest way to procure them, as they can often be bought for what the bare sash would cost in a small order at a country shop. They come 3¼ feet wide by 6 feet in length, and are 1½ to 2 inches in thickness, and if stored in the dry when not in use, and are treated to an occasional coat of paint, will last a lifetime.
Three or four sash would be amply sufficient for a garden of an acre if used in succession, sowing one lot of seed as the preceding planting is set out in the garden; though, of course, more sash can be handled without any great increase of labor, and the season much advanced by growing radishes, lettuce, beets, etc., to maturity under the glass.
In making the hotbed, dig a trench a few inches short of six feet in width, or as wide as the sashes will cover, about two feet in depth and as long as the combined width of the number of sashes which you wish to use. This is then to be boarded up with rough boards, but they should be neatly joined and plastering laths or building paper tacked over the
Illustration showing the manner of making the hotbed when sunk below the surface of the ground.
cracks, so as not to waste the heat. The back or north side of this frame should be 6 or 8 inches higher than the front, so that the rain may run off the sashes. The sashes held at an angle in this manner will also receive more sunlight for the front part of the bed than if front and back were level. The whole frame of the bed should be banked round with the dirt thrown out, or better with fresh stable manure, which will help to keep it warm and will make a bank to drain away any surface water, which, being very cold in the spring, would, if allowed to penetrate the bed, tend to chill the heat of the fermenting manure, and consequently check the growth of the young and tender plants, even if it did not generate that great enemy of all young plants, fungus or mildew, causing them to rot or “damp off.”
Illustration showing the manner of constructing a hotbed above the surface of the ground.
Or, if there is plenty of fresh stable manure at hand, it can be corded in a pile two feet high and extending a foot wider than the sash frame on all sides; and when the frame has been put in position on the heap, the manure should be carried up on the outside nearly to the top of the boards, making a warm jacket for the plants within. A portable frame of boards is made for the sash to rest on, twelve inches high at the back and eight inches in front. This style of bed does away with any digging and secures good drainage for the bed. It would probably be the most satisfactory way for the gardener, who is also a farmer, as the bed can easily be removed as soon as it has served its purpose for the season, and the manure, which has become well rotted by this time will make an excellent compost for corn, melons, celery, etc. The frame and sash can also be set on a good piece of ground in the fall and filled with young lettuce plants in the early part of October, which will furnish salad throughout the winter.
The manure and litter which are to produce the heat for the bed should be thoroughly forked over and heaped together a week or ten days before the beds are to be started. While a large proportion of the material should be fresh horse stable manure, where a large quantity of heating material is needed, it can be mixed with any litter obtainable, such as straw, leaves from the woods, weeds, cut fodder, or anything that will furnish bulk and that will decay rapidly, and, by decaying, produce heat; when the material has all been gathered and heaped solidly together, a good sprinkling with water, hot, if possible, will aid in starting the fermentation. In about a week or two, when the heat of the heap has gone down to 95° or 100°, the manure should be placed in the beds and well trampled down; it should come up to within eight inches of the front of the frame and should be covered with about three and a half or four inches of fine, rich soil. It is a good plan to sift the dirt through a coal sieve, as it then makes a fine bed for the seeds and young plants.
Place the sashes on as soon as this is done; handling the manure and repacking it will produce some fresh heat and it will still be too warm to sow any seed, but the heat will destroy such weed seeds as may be in the soil, and the steam and gases arising from the manure will tend to put the soil in the finest possible condition for forwarding the growth of the young plants. A thermometer should be placed in the soil of the bed every day or two, to see if the temperature has fallen sufficiently to admit of sowing the seeds. As soon as the temperature has fallen to about 75°; or, if no thermometer is at hand, as soon as the top sod is only perceptibly warm to the palm of the hand, the bed should be sprinkled, and as soon as this has dried off a little, rake it up thoroughly and sow the seed. The seed will produce finer and stockier plants if sown in drills about six inches apart, which will admit light and air to the roots of the plants, and will permit a weekly hoeing. In planting seeds, the depth of their covering should be about five times the diameter of the seed, and this covering should be firmly packed around them after planting. The starting and planting of these beds must be calculated, so as to have the plants ready to set out as soon as the garden can be worked. In this vicinity (Philadelphia) the first sowing of cauliflowers, lettuce, beets and early cabbage should be made about February 15th, or even earlier, depending on the forwardness of the season or of your own particular garden. The plants will then be of a suitable size for transplanting by the time the early part of the garden has been plowed. If the sashes are covered with old carpets or straw on cold nights, it will be a great saving of the heating power of the manure and will prevent the young plants from being chilled. The young plants should be treated to fresh air whenever the outside temperature is not too cold, that they may not become “drawn,” or “spindle up” into long, slim stems. As planting-out time approaches, the young plants should be left uncovered as frequently as is safe, that they may become sufficiently hardy not to miss the covering when removed to the open ground.
Tomatoes, peppers and egg plants and a second sowing of early cabbage should be sown in the same manner about the middle of March. If a few extra early plants are wanted, they can be transplanted into the earliest beds when the cabbage and other plants have been set out in the garden, and the sash again put on. If some sweet potatoes are buried about two inches deep in the dirt of one of the cabbage frames, and kept warm, they will produce a fine lot of sprouts, or, as they are called, “sets,” which can be broken off and planted in the garden when the weather has become sufficiently warm. If a number are wanted, or there is danger of their growing too large, they can be taken off and “heeled in” in another sash until planting time, and the potatoes put back again, as they will produce two or three crops of the sets. Or a hill of cucumbers can be planted in the centre of each sash as a second crop, and by the time it would be warm enough to leave them uncovered, these will have filled up the frame with bearing vines, gaining at least a month on those planted in the open ground.
While the cabbage, cauliflower, beets and lettuce may be planted out as soon as all danger of frost is over, the tomatoes, peppers, egg plants, etc., should not be set out until the thermometer stands at over 60° all night, or until the oak leaves are as large as a five-cent piece. In a small hotbed it is best to have a partition between each sash and the one next to it, so that such as are tender varieties may be kept warm and the more hardy cabbage may have plenty of fresh air, for if the latter should become “drawn,” all the advantages of an early start will be lost and the plants may become entirely worthless.
Sowings of seeds for early plants may be made in the same manner as above described for hotbeds, in cold frames, which are the same without the artificial heat germinated by fermenting manure, depending solely on the heat of the sun and the protection of the sash to forward the plants. They can be planted about two weeks later than the dates given for the respective vegetables in hotbeds, and the plants will be ready for setting out about the same length of time later than those raised with the artificial heat. These frames can also be used for wintering over a few fall-sown cabbage plants, which are useful in a very early season and can be kept full of parsley, lettuce, etc., making a pleasant variety of greens for the table during the winter.
As soon as it is warm enough to dig them and bring them into fine order, seed beds should be made in a sheltered spot of the garden, for the sowings of late cabbage and celery, which will be spoken of in detail under the special directions for growing these vegetables.