RADISH 



LETTUCE 



RADISH 



RADISH 



LETTUCE 



RADISH 



RADISH 



LETTUCE 



RADISH 



!.2. J Mj?EAAive: 



-7S OW—B -E.E T 6 



-.B.S.E 7AS 



The Garden Magazine, February, 1920 



for transplanting and others for succession sowings. The 

 working plan will depend upon whether you are using the 

 hotbed for growing things for immediate use or for things 

 that are to go into the garden to. gain on the outdoor season, 

 or both. Usually the vegetables which need starting in 

 flats will go into the frames after the first vegetables for the 

 table have come out; but many times it is desired to maintain 

 production from the hotbed while 

 these tender, long season things 

 are being started. And here is 

 where you must plan carefully in 

 order to have each properly placed. 



The diagrams given suggest 

 something of how the plantings 

 will follow each other; but like all 

 diagrams they are of course only 

 suggestive. Individual tastes and 

 needs must decide in individual 

 cases just what is to be planted 

 and what the follow-up crop shall be. 1 nstead 

 of a frame planted withjust lettuce and radish, 

 for example, as the first shows, all three of the 

 root crops might be used and one row each of 

 lettuce and spinach. The radishes would be 

 out before the other plants were sufficiently 

 grown to interfere; and the thinnings of the 

 lettuce would be set out in a frame kept 

 waiting for them, to grow on into salad heads 

 for use after the first plants were gone. Simi- 

 larly when the spinach was taken out two 

 new rows of radishes would take its place and 

 the thinnings of beets and carrots might be 

 transplanted instead of thrown away. All of 

 the tricks whereby the intensive character of 

 the hotbed may be still further developed 

 cannot be foreseen ; but when one is watchful 

 they will reveal themselves and the results 

 from even a pair of frames will astonish the 

 novice. 



That the hotbed automatically becomes a 

 coldframe as its heating material cools is ob- 

 vious, of course; but that it offers meantime 

 an unrivalled place for growing cucumbers 

 and melons and squash, after it has served as 

 a hotbed and before it is needed as a cold- 

 frame is not so generally recognized. Its soil and the 

 richness underlying it are ideal for these vegetables, and 

 the slight lift from the ground which the frame gives to 

 the vines as they overgrow it, is just what they like. With- 

 out touching it, therefore, once it is set going in February it 

 may be kept full until the following December, what with 

 summer given to melons and such, and then bringing into it 

 from the garden the late lettuces and celery and whatever 

 else is wanted beyond the outdoor garden limits. 



The hotbed as a feeder for the general garden takes on a 

 somewhat different character from the intensively handled 

 producing hotbed, and is in fact a subject for separate con- 

 sideration. But the importance of having a hotbed in- 

 creases rather than diminishes, whichever way it is looked 

 at; and whether it is a very small garden that is being 

 handled or a very large one, there is never any question 



SUGGESTIVE HOTBED 

 DIAGRAMS 



The shorter rows are better when 



several kinds of vegetables are 



planted 



■CARROTS 



■CARROT'S 



■ 7?AT>TSH 



-H ADZ5 AT 



279 



about the real service to be exacted from what someone 

 has aptly called "simply a boarded-up garden covered 

 with'glass." 



The two most important things in the management of a 

 hotbed are ventilation and watering. Lack of ventilation 

 makes the plants grow thin and spindly and weak, while lack 

 of moisture burns them up — for a hotbed is hoi, remember. 



Ventilate whenever the weather is 

 mild and the sun shining, remem- 

 bering that drops of moisture 

 collected on the glass underneath 

 is an unfailing sign that ventila- 

 tion is needed. Water often 

 enough to keep up the moisture 

 but not with clocklike regularity. 

 Every other day is better than 

 every day; and watering must al- 

 ways be done in the forenoon of 

 bright, sunshiny days. Never give 

 enough to wet down to the manure under- 

 neath the soil, but keep the soil itself moist 

 and soft. 



In the very nature of things constant mois- 

 ture is essential, since the plants are growing 

 rapidly and are dependent upon an abun- 

 dance of moisture for their food which they 

 take in liquid form from the earth. On 

 the other hand excess of water is the con- 

 dition which favors "damping off," always a 

 menace to hotbed plants. Be particularly 

 careful that no water is applied so late in 

 the day that it remains on the foliage as 

 the sun descends. Of course this will not 

 happen if watering is done in the morning 

 of a sunny day, as directed. 



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GREENHOUSE HEATING 

 PROBLEM 



E. Seeger 



TT IS 



1 goes 

 system 



my experience that a hot air flue 

 way ahead of any other heating 

 devised. I have tried everything, 

 and had the same trouble that Mr. Slade writes about 

 the January Garden Magazine — though long ago 

 used the hot air flue built out of tile. Only 



in 



I had 



lately did I learn that they can be built of brick quite 



as well. And upon being thus informed I had one built 



right away! 



It is a great success. There is no possible chance for the 

 gas to accumulate inside the house, and though the fire may 

 go out during the night it does not mean a temperature 

 lowered enough to do any harm even in zero weather, 

 if the flue has been well heated up during the evening. 

 There will still be heat there until late the next morning. If 

 moisture is needed in the air, a small boiler can be placed 

 above the fireplace. 



Such a flue can be built at small expense, and the brick- 

 work plastered if a trim appearance is desired. 



