Tweaking my Hot Bed

I had to make a few adjustments today. We had a lot of rain over the week end, and the weight of the accumulated rain pulled some of the plastic loose, so I cut some boards to better support the insulated blanket It is very cloudy with highs of about 35 degrees until Thursday. With the bed covered with the blanket the soil temperature at soil surface was 60 degrees, a little cool for tomatoes and peppers. Since I am not getting any solar support I placed a small space heater inside, which raised the temperature about 10 degrees.

2013 HOTBED PLANTED

I battled wind, rain ,cold, and sleet to get my seeds planted today. It has been 12 days since I put in the manure, packed it down, watered it and put compost on top. The soil temperature has been 110 degrees until it finally cooled down to about 80 degrees today. It was 38 degrees air temperature at the time of planting. It is supposed to warm up this week, but until then I have placed an insulated blanket over the top. I also have a thermometer laying on top of the soil so I will know what the temperature is at ground level.  I planted about 50 linear feet of seed.

I would have liked to have gotten some seeds in a week ago, but it was too hot. It might be a little early for the tomatoes and peppers, but I put them in as well.

My hotbed plants.

I started these plants in my manure powered hotbed about march 1st. So about seven weeks ago. All in all I had really good germination with about everything. The exceptions were with older seed, which affected the onions and some of the Cole plants. We had the warmest month of march in history, which apparently helped the peppers, as I had very good germination with them. The tomatoes have done very well also. The bed is four feet wide, and next year I am going to narrow it to three feet, to make it easier to manage. Yesterday I sowed eggplant, which I overlooked earlier, some black carrots from Turkey, Thunbergia, Evergreen onions, and various beets for a second crop. I think with this bed, I can start plants all summer long. I'm thinking about starting my melons and cucumbers in here as well, in peat pots. It sure beats plants all over the house, and they are used to the sun as well. Several days ago I transplanted in the bed leeks and celery.