The Ancient Gardener's Instructor: Dispatches from Wesley Greene
From the Garden, February 13
February 13, 2013
Steaming pile of dung
The noted gardener John Abercrombie recorded in 1778, “The sort of horse-dung to be understood for the purpose of Hot-beds, is the dung and wet litter together, daily cleaned out of stables where horses always stand, and are littered down with plenty of straw every night, which being rendered wet by the urine and dung of those animals, composes the principal material for a dung Hot-bed.”
Loading dung into the hotbed
The dung is first thrown into a pile to heat and once it has reached a temperature of 160° it is loaded into the hotbed pit, which should be two feet deep and of a length and breadth suitable to the needs of the gardener. As the hotbed is loaded the dung must be leveled out and packed down firmly with the end of a rake. The frame is then covered with the glasses and left for a day or two to season the manure. You are then ready to cap the dung and sow your seeds which will be explained in next week’s correspondence.
For complete instructions concerning hotbed gardening you are invited to examine Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way, 18th Century Methods for Today’s Organic Gardeners (Rodale Press)
iCitizenForum
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Wesley,
I hope the garden is progressing on time.
Do the horses stabled at CW provide all the manure over the week or do you have to ask or pay for manure from local stables? I would think the CW stable would be willing to use straw for the week or so to help you out??
Being in the Chicago area I do not have access to fresh manure. How would I, if at all, use this method to start some produce. Sould I just build cold frames and wait a few weeks before I start? I would think even here I should be able to start direct sowing my radishes, onions, potatoes and carrots, in my 18 inch containers the first week of March. And my lettuce, spinach, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower in early April if we don’t have piles of snow?? What do you think since you come from the frigid North.
Stay up wind this week my friend,
Chris
Colonial Williamsburg says:
Dearest Christine,
This year, the stable agreed to use straw in two of their stalls to provide us with a manure/straw mix. This was greatly appreciated and I think has improved the hotbed, but to fully achieve the mixture of manure and urine soaked straw our colonial predecessors had access to, the stalls would have had to become much more filthy than our stable folks would allow. We still went to the pastures to bring in more manure to add to the mix. Today gardeners use mats heated with electricity to provide a bottom heat to their seedlings but this is not necessary for the typical home gardener who can easily start their seeds on a window sill or under grow lights.
As soon as the frost has left your ground you can sow peas, broad beans, spinach carrots, parsnips and radish. I would wait a little longer to plant the potatoes as the young foliage is very susceptible to a late frost. Broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts, in my experience, are better started indoors and set out after the danger of frost.
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Wesley,
Thanks for the generous giving of information. It’s sunny in Chicago today, but the temperature is 10 with a wind chill of 5 below. Burrrrrrr!
Have a good week,
Chris