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This was part of a project sponsored in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Council for the Humanities For many popular garden vegetables, the New England growing season is rather short. To cultivate tomatoes into ripeness or winter squash into full maturity before the coming of the first frost, you may choose to purchase plants that have been started in a greenhouse. On the other hand, you could take a lesson from history and set up an old time hot bed and start your own seeds late in the winter, like they did in western Massachusetts in the 19th century. |
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 Gulliver, who contributed the manure, and Tom Weldon, who made the hot bed. |
On April 3rd, 1999, Tom Weldon, coordinator of the Bidwell House Land Use Expansion Program, demonstrated the use of a Shaker style hot bed for participants in a workshop sponsored by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. The hot bed Tom uses is a two part structure, a six foot by four foot wooden box with a slanted top made of six old window sashes--this part may also be referred to as a cold frame--which situates astride a four foot pile of hot, fresh horse manure. The decaying horse manure provides a month of heat to soil in the cold frame. The windows provide for a green house type of effect. | ||
| Tom had started a number of seedlings a few
weeks in advance of the program so that certain plants would have
sprouted by the day of the workshop. Small neat rows of leeks, corn
salad, celeriac, perilla, cabbage and lettuce were well established. The
whole process of hot bed management was discussed, including the
construction of the frame, storage of soil in winter (so it won't
freeze), structuring the manure pile with hay for strength and balance,
the proper mixture of soil and compost which fills the frame, and the
sowing of seeds.
Hoping to leave participants with practical information, Tom discussed inexpensive and easy methods to erect useable hot beds. He explained how to make a frame using only hay bales and discarded sliding glass doors. As a finale, feverfew and tomato seeds were sown into the soil of the hot bed, and established rows were cultivated to remove weed seedlings. Tom's plants eventually were moved to the historic vegetable garden and used in demonstrations and education programs throughout the season. |
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