Picked my first....................2019

[veggiechicken]

Radish Small but perfectly formed.
I would have taken a photo but, its too late - he has been chomped.

[Lumpy]

Picked my first load of Triffid (rhubarb). Huge leaves and six nice thick stalks made a very yummy crumble.

[MyWifesBrassicas]

Photos of hotbed:

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These were difficult to take as I couldn't see what I was photographing due to the bright sunshine. The top photo is the whole hotbed, the bottom one shows the lettuces (Black Seeded Simpson) that I harvested some of on the right, and the spinach is the row on the far left, mostly out of the picture unfortunately.

If you use your imagination you can just see the first signs of a few carrots germinating mid way between the 2 rows of lettuces.

Hi Penellype,

I'm very interested in your hotbed, no pun intended!
How hot is it at soil level?
and how hot is your thermometer showing deeper within the bed?

[Penellype]

Hi Penellype,

I'm very interested in your hotbed, no pun intended!
How hot is it at soil level?
and how hot is your thermometer showing deeper within the bed?

I'm not sure how hot the soil surface is. I have a long compost thermometer (probably 18") stuck in at an angle and pointing towards the middle of the bed. The thermometer got upto nearly 40C in the first few days before dropping steadily to about 15C after a week. We then had some very cold nights (coldest was -6) and the temperature dropped to about 7C but now that the weather has warmed up again the thermometer is showing around 17C.

The hotbed is 3ft x 6ft6in and just under 18" deep. It is made with fresh horse manure from shavings bedding with quite a bit of hay mixed in, and topped with new MPC. If the horse manure had been from straw bedding I would have expected it to get hotter to start with and stay hotter for longer, which might not have suited spinach and lettuce as these do not like to be too hot. It is worth noting that the cover, which is about 18" above the surface of the bed, does get ice on the inside when it is very cold, so the heat is restricted to the bed itself and near the surface of the compost. You can feel the heat from the bed if you put your hand in, even when its cold outside, and obviously it gets really quite hot in there when the sun is on it - I open the cover on sunny days.

[veggiechicken]

Picked my first...........Bijou mangetout, each about 4" long by 1" wide. OK, I'm trying to big them up a bit because there were only 2 but they're my first taste of summer still to come. Don't expect photos - its too late. They're eaten, raw.

[Chestnut]

Picked my first psb and rhubarb today ;-)

[veggiechicken]

Picked my first Perennial Cauliflower and asparagus spear (there is only one) today.