Get growing early with some TLC

Lee Senior shows how to provide tender, loving care with early season warmth and protection

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Keen grow-your-own enthusiasts strive to produce early crops where possible, be it for profitable purposes, or the satisfaction of lengthening the cropping season for your family. Generally winters are milder these days, making this aspiration seem even more achievable.

During winter the biggest factors against early outdoor crops are cold air temperatures and cold soils plus of course shorter daylength.

As gardeners we try to manipulate the season as much as we can to overcome the cold.

There are a number of ways we can try to do this. In this article I am going to concentrate on hot beds, cloches, fleece and to a lesser extent, cold frames.

HOT BEDS-THE BASIC PRINCIPLE

Hot beds are a traditional time-served way of utilising whatever natural heat sources there are available to warm up small, controlled outdoor growing areas during the winter months. They come into their own from December through to April.

The system goes back thousands of years, possibly even before the Romans.

The 'heat source' that warms the beds is usually animal manure, but it can be any decomposing organic matter that generates heat. I prefer horse manure, but it doesn't have to be this.

Fresh bark chippings when piled in a heap will also get very hot in the centre. If you've ever dug into the centre of the heap of a strawy horse manure stack or bark chippings you will notice particularly on a cold day how steam rises from the centre!

Even decomposing leaves can give off heat in the centre of the heap. This can be observed by touch but also the leaves sometimes turn a little grey/white colour in the centre.

Whatever you decide to utilize, it is possible to use heat generated by hot beds to germinate, grow on and harvest crops, sometimes several months before their normal date. This can provide crops very much out of season such as salad leaves in March and new potatoes in April.