North/south or East /west

[nick the grief]

Spent Hops can be used either way FF. If we get a hot summer, a good soaking followed by a mulch might be just the thing!

[andrewo]

Loads of great info gents thanks again. Just a couple more queries (feel free to ignore me if i begin to sound like an overly curious kid).
Andrew do you use the hops as a mulch or rot them down like leafmold?
Nick any thoughts on hotbeds would like to try to grow melons

I use my hops after beer making or dried out, I just add them to the beds in Autumn and allow the worms to pull it down. After using for beer they have broken down already and are mushy. You can add them to your compost bin.

[andrewo]

To make a hotbed, which should be started as soon as possible, fill either a pit with a drainage layer of rubble or a raised bed structure with fresh manure from horses bedded on wheat straw (wood-chips don’t work). Tread this down to 1ft deep and as it rots it will heat up. Check with a thermometer and when the temperature drops to 50C, pile on a 10cm layer of moist top soil. Cover this with cloches or a cold frame and wait until the temperature drops to 25C before sowing early salads, broad beans and herbs.

If you can’t get manure, put a bale of straw with the ends pointing up onto a polythene sheet in the greenhouse. Soak the bale with high nitrogen liquid feed such as lawn fertiliser. Doing this will trigger the rotting process, releasing both heat and carbon dioxide (the gas needed for photosynthesis) for the benefit of other plants in the greenhouse. Cover with soil and when it is as warm and cosy as an electric blanket, sow your seeds.

[nick the grief]

You can gro tomatoes i straw bales as well Andrew & the heat gets them going earlier.

[andrewo]

How do you support them, this would be interesting to read more on.

[nick the grief]

Just like growing in the greenhose or garden border Andrew. The hardest part is cutting the hole to fit the pots in.

Bernard Salt - gardening under plastic

Not just Toms either

http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/strawbales.htm

More info

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/kg_strawbale.html

and more...

http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is1678.pdf#search='growing%20in%20straw%20bales'

had enough yet

http://www.motherearthnews.com/top_a...s_in_the_Straw

[andrewo]

Thanks, much appreciated.

Further info on hotbeds:
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/todo...aqs.php?id=162

[Jaxom]

Lads are you both trying to race to 800, if you are please could you stop and post more than one line all the time. Its not the one line I have a problem with it's the fact that I'm on dial up and all the avatars take ages to load up. As both of you have photos I end up watching paint dry on my computer screen.
Jax

[andrewo]

Sorry Jax.

[Jaxom]

Now I'm a happy bunny. I find both of your posts to the vine so important. Both of you have so much good information to share that I know I can say on many Grapes behalf, me included, Keep the posts coming as we learn so much. When it comes to Vegetable growing I know so little. This year I have been caught in the trap of being over eager to sow seed and as a result have had the propagators going full time but due to the lack of natural light and heat little has grown, as I would have liked. If I had paid more attention to the more experienced grapes such as yourselves, I would only have sown onion seed and little else until now. I think what I am saying is I know that you have so much quality help to give, I vote for quality rather than quantity every time. Plus my dial up was driving me mad
Jax