THE HOTBED AND THE COLDFRAME 



what you intend to grow. The shallower depth is 

 quite sufl&cient for salad or for flower plants — only 

 radishes and deeper growing root crops require the 

 deeper bed. The planting soil of the hotbed should 

 be rich and soft and friable — good garden earth with 

 a mixture of sand is best. 



Put the sash on the bed, and let it heat up the 

 earth inside. It will be hot for three or four days — 

 much too hot, at first, for any planting. Keep a 

 thermometer inside the frame; do not begin planting 

 until it drops to 90° F. or less. 



As the plants must remain in the bed for two 

 months it is necessary to thin out the seedlings as they 

 grow, to make room. This should be done as soon as 

 they appear in order to give the ones spared plenty of 

 room to develop, right from the start. Some of the 

 plants may later be transferred to the coldframe if it 

 is too early for them to go out into the garden and the 

 hotbed becomes overcrowded. 



The hotbed should be watered with a sprinkler, 

 keeping the soil just moist enough to crumble apart 

 slowly after being squeezed in the hand, as described 

 in the chapter on soil. Be sure that the sash is 

 always in place after you have tended the bed — for- 

 getting to replace it will result in plant tragedy. And 

 be sure to ventilate the hotbed on warm days by 

 raising the sash ever so Kttle, or by slipping it down in 

 the middle of the day, — between 1 1 .30 and i .30 o'clock, 

 when the sim is shining directly on the glass. 



Till the soil of the hotbed as you would anywnere 

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