Fall Projects

Huge projects from the last week: harvested 18 rabbits, tanned 6 hides, completed my greenhouse/hotbed, moved a yard of compost into my planters, planted another 10 ft row of garlic and pressed two plugs of tobacco.

Besides the cabbage and brussel sprouts, the front is blasting with fall cover crops. An exciting experiment that turned out was intercropping oats and radishes in the chicken compost/manure mix. Thankfully the manure didn't burn the plants and hopefully they are breaking down the soil for some of the more sensitive crops of next spring.

The reason I am writing this entry is to discuss the pictures above. The construction of the greenhouse/hotbed (ghhb) was an ongoing project that changed as I read more and found things on the side of the road. Besides the paint and plastic, all of the materials are previously used materials. It currently stands at 6.5 ft tall, 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep and set 8 inches below the ground. I started building this structure to start my own seedlings and get a head start. As I researched, I saw the need for an independent heat source and connected my question to my studies in world history, especially the Romans, who made some of the first hot beds. These structures in Rome used mica for the panes and piled the floors with high nitrogen manure to provide heat as it broke down.

I placed a thermometer on the top rack of the ghhb which has a sensor on the main body and another which I have placed on the bottom rack. With this thermometer I have been recording the maximum and minimum temperatures without the manure to understand how the temperature inside compares to that of the outside. So far, my maximum temperature has been 101.8 at the top sensor while the temperature outside was 76. The lowest temperatures inside the ghhb, 38, have occured on the few frosts this fall.

My hope is to use the height of this structure to control the temperatures to which the plants are exposed. The problems that I already see with this design is not having a proper ventilation system. In full sun, which will occur in the winter and fall when the leaves fall, the temperature at the top of the structure could reach temperatures that will fry sensitive plants and possibly set them up for disaster when the temperature drops to near freezing at night. I am hoping that the chicken manure will be able to mediate those temperature changes. I do not believe this will be functional during December and January but hope to start seedlings in the second half of February and the beginning of March.