{"id":3532,"date":"2026-05-27T20:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/?p=3532"},"modified":"2026-05-27T20:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:52:13","slug":"hot-bed-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/?p=3532","title":{"rendered":"Hot Bed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Spring on the farm has been cool and busy. With no greenhouse we decided to use the old hot bed method to raise some transplants. It was common in France and England years ago. The process is to use the heat from fresh horse manure, as it composts, to provide bottom heat for the seedlings. It worked very well with the exception of a -6 Degree Celsius night. We lost a few tomato plants… however, after that all was well. The initial temperature of the composting manure went up to 150 Degrees Fahrenheit. (Our thermometer is still in Fahrenheit, but the weather is in Celsius.) Once the temperature of the composting manure dropped to 100 Degrees Fahrenheit it was safe for plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cold frame on top of the pile of horse manure in May. The pile of manure had sunk by about a foot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Temperature of manure in March.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Successful Transplants in Hot Bed!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spring on the farm has been cool and busy. With no greenhouse we decided to use the old hot bed method to raise some transplants. It was common in France and England years ago. The process is to use the heat from fresh horse manure, as it composts, to provide bottom heat for the seedlings. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3533,"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532\/revisions\/3533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}