I planted the first seeds in my Hotbed today.

I planted seed for Celery Verde Pascal, Celeriac Giant Prague, Leeks Blue Solaize, and Mammoth Pot Leeks,Lettuce Iceberg, and Romaine,Onions Evergreen Bunching, Chard,Argento and Peppers Chimayo, Baby Belle Tri-color,Melrose, and Carmen. The soil temperature after four days, down  four inches is about 60 degrees, so well see what happens. I've decided to only plant the Evergreen Bunching Onions because they survive the winter and you can dig them all winter long. The soil already was starting to dry out and I had to water after I planted. I sprinkled milled Sphagnum moss on top of the seeds and tamped them down lightly

 Also you can see the foam insulation I am putting on at night until it gets warmer.

Garden Hotbed with sash

So here is what I ended up with at the end of the day. It doesnt look real pretty, but it should serve it's purpose. I bought two of the sash for five dollars each, some body gave me one, and I had some plexiglass and made one for about $15 . The bundle of foam cost $18. So its more or less a $35 dollar project. The picture doesn't show it very well, but the sash slope away from the shed.  Yesterday was the second day and I put a thermometer in the soil. It said it was 30 degrees, which was a little disappointing. This morning it read 30 again, but it got down to 18 degrees last night. I am covering the sash at night with more sheets of foam. Today was sunny and at 5pm the thermometer read 60 degrees.  Im hoping this shows the manure is starting to heat up,because the probe was down about four inches, and even though it was sunny, it was only about 25 degrees and I don"t think the sun alone would have heated up the soil to that depth. I am hoping I can plant my first seeds tomorrow afternoon. I want to plant celery, celeriac, peppers and a few others that grow slowly. I think I'll wait till about the middle of March for the Tomatoes. I think it would be best if all the sash were made of wood. Also the plexiglass is relly nice to work with, but it's probably expensive in big sheets. My bed is four feet wide but three is probably better. Its probably best to round up the sash or old storm windows and the size your bed accordingly.

Getting the Hotbed ready for the windows.

I sprinkled the soil to wet it, and then I mixed up some subsoil clay, type S lime, and manure to make a primitive cement or mortar. I had thought about throwing some Portland cement in, but didn't have any. I was really trying to spend as little money as possible. The purpose of the cement is to seal up and slope the ends. This whole bed is on the south side of a garage, which blocks it nicely from the North and the wind.

My home made sieve and the sifting process.

I read that you should run your soil through a sieve to prepare the seed bed. I bought a three foot long piece of hardware cloth "1/4 inch holes", and then with roofing nails nailed it to the two by fours. Then with last years soil I tried to run it through the screen. This part was really tedious, mainly because the soil was wet and really didn't go through very freely. I had a nice pair of rubber gloves and worked it back and forth with my hands. You can see what didn't pass through. The soil that did was really nice, and should work well for the real small seeds I want to plant. This part was real tedious and time consuming. After I was about half done filling over the manure with 4-5 inches of dirt, I had to give up and used the unsieved soil, which will work fine, I suspect down the road a bit. 

Hotbed, Insulation, and Horse Manure.

I lined the pit with one inch polystyrene foam board, to keep the heat from escaping. Then as you can see I began to back fill it with the manure. As I went I watered it real well with a sprinkling can and packed it tight with my feet. I kind of wish I had put the foam underneath as well. Maybe next year. 

My Hotbed Pit

This is the pit that I dug last fall. In January I piled it full of manure

, and then this Tuesday the 22nd as you can see here, I emptied it to begin the process. I'm not really sure it's deep enough and I think next year I might dig out another six inches or so. This is where I grew my tomatoes last year.

Experimental Garden Cloches

Real glass cloches are so expensive. I saw some today for about $25.00 each, so I am experimenting with some different plastic containers I picked up at Walmart. The white tubs were only $1.50. I don't think much is going on inside of them. It seems the limiting factor with plants is soil temperature. Until it reaches plus 50 degrees not much growth is going to happen.

Raised beds using sand bags.

I have some beds that end on a sharp slope, and I wanted to give them a more definite end. A while back I was in the Honduras and saw them using sand bags to make huge raised beds ten feet high or more on one end. I thought it was a pretty good idea. I think these including sand cost about $1.25 each. The sand bags come with strings to tie them off.