Part 2 - Experimental planting beds – know your veggies!

Research is Important.

We have a book called, “The Vegetable gardener's Bible”. The title indicates it is a book you should be reading every chance you get regarding your veggies. I would give the book a good mark in this case – it is full of info, useful, day-to-day info that you shouldn't even begin to memorize, since it is nicely tabulated in this book.  You will learn and retain the info you most need to know, but the book will always be nice to go back to every year.

One thing I was unaware of until I had this book is the fact that certain seeds need certain temperatures to germinate. I wondered why our carrot seeds didn't start well if we had cool days, sometimes even if it was partly sunny, but not super warm. Yet, cucumber seeds just take off and grow and beans seem to be the most tolerant in terms of early seeding and survival. In the book, it says that carrot seeds need 24 degrees to germinate well. That is quite a requirement in terms of needing that level of heat for the 6 day germination period. Soil in the sun has to warm up in the morning and only keeps it heat when the sun is out. Of course, there is the case of frying the seeds if you don't have enough water to keep the soil wet at the same time the sun is beating down on it.

My new greenhouse has an experimental planting bed will accomplish a consistent temperature control to maximize the seed start. This will allow earlier seeding in the year than one can successfully accomplish outside. So here is the plan.

A planting bed with water line run through the bottom of it in six passes, giving about 120 feet of line in the 60 square foot planting bed. This line will exchange the heat from our outdoor woodstove to the soil. The soil temperature will be monitored with an adjustable thermostat set in the soil, the thermostat will control a valve in the hot water line to the planting bed. Because there is a large mass of soil with 60 square feet and 18 inches of depth, heat exchange should be quite even and easily controlled in this way. I will also have a portion of an unheated planting bed for the same carrot seed and use it as a control model – basically comparing the two plots and recording results. I am excited to see what will happen and will update as data becomes readable.  So in about 2 weeks time I should have things well underway.  It is going to be exciting!