THE HANDLING OF THE PLANTS - Continued
Coldframes.
A coldframe is nothing more than an enlarged hand-box; that is, instead
of protecting but a single plant or a single hill with a single pane of
glass, the frame is covered with sash, and is large enough to
accommodate many plants.
There are three general purposes for which a coldframe is used: For the
starting of plants early in spring; for receiving partially hardened
plants that have been started earlier in hotbeds and forcing-houses; for
wintering young cabbages, lettuce, and other hardy plants that are sown
in the fall.
[Illustration: Fig. 194. Coldframe against a building. Plants at E; sill
of house at A; basement opening at B.]
Coldframes are ordinarily placed near the buildings, and the plants are
transplanted into the field when settled weather comes. Sometimes,
however, they are made directly in the field where the plants are to
remain, and the frames, and not the plants, are removed. When used for
this latter purpose, the frames are made very cheap by running two rows
of parallel planks through the field at a distance apart of six feet.
The plank on the north is ordinarily ten to twelve inches wide, and that
on the south eight to ten inches. These planks are held in place by
stakes, and the sashes are laid across them. Seeds of radishes, beets,
lettuce, and the like, are then sown beneath the sash, and when settled
weather arrives, the sash and planks are removed and the plants are
growing naturally in the field. Half-hardy plants, as those mentioned,
may be started fully two or three weeks in advance of the normal season
by this means.
[Illustration: Fig. 195. Weather screen, or coldframe, against a
building.]
One of the simplest types of coldframes is shown in Fig. 194, which is a
lean-to against the foundation of a house. A sill is run just above the
surface of the ground, and the sashes, shown at D, are laid on rafters
which run from this sill to the sill of the house, A. If this frame is
on the south side of the building, plants may be started even as early
as a month before the opening of the season. Such lean-to frames are
sometimes made against greenhouses or warm cellars, and heat is supplied
to them by the opening of a door in the wall, as at B. In frames that
are in such sunny positions as these, it is exceedingly important that
care be taken to remove the sash, or at least to give ample ventilation,
in all sunny days.
A different type of lean-to structure is shown in Fig. 195. This may be
either a temporary or permanent building, and it is generally used for
the protection of half-hardy plants that are grown in pots and tubs. It
may be used, however, for the purpose of forwarding pot-plants early in
the spring and for protection of peaches, grapes, oranges, or other
fruits in tubs or boxes. If it is desired merely to protect the plants
through the winter, it is best to have the structure on the north side
of the building, in order that the sun may not force the plants
into activity.
[Illustration: Fig. 196. A pit or coldframe on permanent walls, and a
useful adjunct to a garden. The rear cover is open (a).]
[Illustration: Fig. 197. The usual form of coldframe.]
[Illustration: Fig. 198. A strong and durable frame.]
Another structure that may be used both to carry half-hardy plants over
winter and for starting plants early in spring is shown in Fig. 196. It
is really a miniature greenhouse without heat. It is well adapted for
mild climates. The picture was made from a structure in the coast
region of North Carolina.
The common type of coldframe is shown in Fig. 197. It is twelve feet
long and six feet wide, and is covered with four three-by-six sash. It
is made of ordinary lumber loosely nailed together. If one expects to
use coldframes or hotbeds every year, however, it is advisable to make
the frames of two-inch stuff, well painted, and to join the parts by
bolts and tenons, so that they may be taken apart and stored until
needed for the next year's crop. Figure 198 suggests a method of making
frames so that they may be taken apart.
[Illustration: Fig. 199. A frame yard.]
[Illustration: Fig. 200. Portable coldframe.]
[Illustration: Fig. 201. A larger portable coldframe.]
[Illustration: Fig. 202. A commodious portable frame.]
It is always advisable to place coldframes and hotbeds in a protected
place, and particularly to protect them from cold north winds. Buildings
afford excellent protection, but the sun is sometimes too hot on the
south side of large and light-colored buildings. One of the best means
of protection is to plant a hedge of evergreens, as shown in Fig. 199.
It is always desirable, also to place all the coldframes and hotbeds
close together, for the purpose of economizing time and labor. A regular
area or yard may be set aside for this purpose.
[Illustration: Fig. 203. A low coldframe.]
Various small and portable coldframes may be used about the garden for
the protection of tender plants or to start them early in the spring.
Pansies, daisies, and border carnations, for example, may be brought on
very early by setting such frames over them or by planting them under
the frames in the fall. These frames may be of any size desired, and the
sash may be either removable, or, in case of small frames, they may be
hinged at the top. Figs. 200-203 illustrate various types.
Hotbeds.
A hotbed differs from a coldframe in being provided with bottom heat.
This heat is ordinarily supplied by means of fermenting manure, but it
may be obtained from other fermenting material, as tanbark or leaves, or
from artificial heat, as flues, steam pipes, or water pipes.
The hotbed is used for the very early starting of plants; and when the
plants have outgrown the bed, or have become too thick, they are
transplanted into cooler hotbeds or into coldframes. There are some
crops, however, that are carried to full maturity in the hotbed itself,
as radishes and lettuce.
The date at which the hotbed may be started with safety depends almost
entirely on the means at command of heating it and on the skill of the
operator. In the northern states, where outdoor gardening does not begin
until the first or the last of May, hotbeds are sometimes started as
early as January; but they are ordinarily delayed until early in March.
The heat for hotbeds is commonly supplied by the fermentation of horse
manure. It is important that the manure be as uniform as possible in
composition and texture, that it come from highly fed horses, and is
practically of the same age. The best results are usually secured with
manure from livery stables, from which it can be obtained in large
quantities in a short space of time. Perhaps as much as one half of the
whole material should be of litter or straw that has been used in
the bedding.
[Illustration: Fig. 204. Hotbed with manure on top of the ground.]
The manure is placed in a long and shallow square-topped pile, not more
than four or six feet high, as a rule, and is then allowed to ferment.
Better results are generally obtained if the manure is piled under
cover. If the weather is cold and fermentation does not start readily,
wetting the pile with hot water may start it. The first fermentation is
nearly always irregular; that is, it begins unequally in several places
in the pile. In order to make the fermentation uniform, the pile must be
turned occasionally, taking care to break up all hard lumps and to
distribute the hot manure throughout the mass. It is sometimes necessary
to turn the pile five or six times before it is finally used, although
half this number of turnings is ordinarily sufficient. When the pile is
steaming uniformly throughout, it is placed in the hotbed, and is
covered with the earth in which the plants are to be grown.
Hotbed frames are sometimes set on top of the pile of fermenting manure,
as shown in Fig. 204. The manure should extend some distance beyond the
edges of the frame; otherwise the frame will become too cold about the
outside, and the plants will suffer.
[Illustration: Fig. 205. Section of a hotbed built with a pit.]
It is preferable, however, to have a pit beneath the frame in which the
manure is placed. If the bed is to be started in midwinter or very early
in the spring, it is advisable to make this pit in the fall and to fill
it with straw or other litter to prevent the earth from freezing deep.
When it is time to make the bed, the litter is thrown out, and the
ground is warm and ready to receive the fermenting manure. The pit
should be a foot wider on either side than the width of the frame. Fig.
205 is a cross-section of such a hotbed pit. Upon the ground a layer of
an inch or two of any coarse material is placed to keep the manure off
the cold earth. Upon this, from twelve to thirty inches of manure is
placed. Above the manure is a thin layer of leafmold or some porous
material, that will serve as a distributor of the heat, and above this
is four or five inches of soft garden loam, in which the plants are
to be grown.
It is advisable to place the manure in the pit in layers, each stratum
to be thoroughly trodden down before another one is put in. These layers
should be four to eight inches in thickness. By this means the mass is
easily made uniform in consistency. Manure that has too much straw for
the best results, and which will therefore soon part with its heat, will
spring up quickly when the pressure of the feet is removed. Manure that
has too little straw, and which therefore will not heat well or will
spend its heat quickly, will pack down into a soggy mass underneath the
feet. When the manure has sufficient litter, it will give a springy
feeling to the feet as a person walks over it, but will not fluff up
when the pressure is removed. The quantity of manure to be used will
depend on its quality, and also on the season in which the hotbed is
made. The earlier the bed is made, the larger should be the quantity of
manure. Hotbeds that are intended to hold for two months should have
about two feet of manure, as a rule.
The manure will ordinarily heat very vigorously for a few days after it
is placed in the bed. A soil thermometer should be thrust through the
earth down to the manure, and the frame kept tightly closed. When the
temperature is passing below 90°, seeds of the warm plants, like
tomatoes, may be sown, and when it passes below 80° or 70°, the seeds of
cooler plants may be sown.
[Illustration: Fig. 206 Parallel runs of hotbeds with racks for holding
sashes.]
If hotbeds are to be used every year, permanent pits should be provided
for them. Pits are made from two to three feet deep, preferably the
former depth, and are walled up with stone or brick. It is important
that they be given good drainage from below. In the summer-time, after
the sash are stripped, the old beds may be used for the growing of
various delicate crops, as melons or half-hardy flowers. In this
position, the plants can be protected in the fall. As already suggested,
the pits should be cleaned out in the fall and filled with litter to
facilitate the work of making the new bed in the winter or spring.
[Illustration: Fig. 207. Manure-heated greenhouse.]
Various modifications of the common type of hotbed will suggest
themselves to the operator. The frames should ordinarily run in parallel
rows, so that a man walking between them can attend to the ventilation
of two rows of sash at once. Fig. 206 shows a different arrangement.
There are two parallel runs, with walks on the outside, and between them
are racks to receive the sash from the adjacent frames. The sash from
the left-hand bed are run to the right, and those from the right-hand
bed are run to the left. Running on racks, the operator does not need to
handle them, and the breakage of glass is therefore less; but this
system is little used because of the difficulty of reaching the farther
side of the bed from the single walk.
If the hotbed were high enough and broad enough to allow a man to work
inside, we should have a forcing-house. Such a structure is shown in
Fig. 207, upon one side of which the manure and soil are already in
place. These manure-heated houses are often very efficient, and are a
good make-shift until such time as the gardener can afford to put in
flue or pipe heat.
Hotbeds may be heated by means of steam or hot water. They can be piped
from the heater in a dwelling-house or greenhouse. Fig. 208 shows a
hotbed with two pipes, in the positions 7, 7 beneath the bed. The earth
is shown at 4, and the plants (which, in this case, are vines) are
growing upon a rack, at 6. There are doors in the end of the house,
shown in 2, 2, which may be used for ventilation or for admitting air
underneath the beds. The pipes should not be surrounded by earth, but
should run through a free air space.
[Illustration: Fig. 208. Pipe-heated hotbed.]
It would scarcely pay to put in a hot water or steam heater for the
express purpose of heating hotbeds, for if such an expense were
incurred, it would be better to make a forcing-house. Hotbeds may be
heated, however, with hot-air flues with very good results. A home-made
brick furnace may be constructed in a pit at one end of the run and
underneath a shed, and the smoke and hot air, instead of being carried
directly upwards, is carried through a slightly rising horizontal pipe
that runs underneath the beds. For some distance from the furnace, this
flue may be made of brick or unvitrified sewer pipe, but stove-pipe may
be used for the greater part of the run. The chimney is ordinarily at
the farther end of the run of beds. It should be high, in order to
provide a good draft. If the run of beds is long, there should be a rise
in the underlying pipe of at least one foot in twenty-five. The greater
the rise in this pipe, the more perfect will be the draft. If the runs
are not too long, the underlying pipe may return underneath the beds and
enter a chimney directly over the back end of the furnace, and such a
chimney, being warmed from the furnace, will ordinarily have an
excellent draft. The underlying pipe should occupy a free space or pit
beneath the beds, and whenever it lies near to the floor of the bed or
is very hot, it should be covered with asbestos cloth. While such
flue-heated hotbeds may be eminently successful with a grower or builder
of experience, it may nevertheless be said, as a general statement, that
whenever such trouble and expense are incurred, it is better to make a
forcing-house. The subject of forcing-houses and greenhouses is not
discussed in this book.
[Illustration: Fig. 209. Useful kinds of watering-pots. These are
adapted to different uses, as are different forms of hoes or
pruning tools.]
The most satisfactory material for use in hotbed and cold-frame sash is
double-thick, second-quality glass; and panes twelve inches wide are
ordinarily broad enough, and they suffer comparatively little in
breakage. For coldframes, however, various oiled papers and waterproof
cloths may be used, particularly for plants that are started little in
advance of the opening of the season. When these materials are used, it
is not necessary to have expensive sash, but rectangular frames are made
from strips of pine seven-eighths inch thick and two and one-half inches
wide, halved together at the corners and each corner reënforced by a
square carriage-corner, such as is used by carriage-makers to secure the
corners of buggy boxes. These corners can be bought by the pound at
hardware stores.
Management of hotbeds.
Close attention is required in the management of hotbeds, to insure that
they do not become too hot when the sun comes out suddenly, and to give
plenty of fresh air.
Ventilation is usually effected by raising the sash at the upper end and
letting it rest upon a block. Whenever the temperature is above freezing
point, it is generally advisable to take the sash off part way, as shown
in the central part of Fig. 199, or even to strip it off entirely, as
shown in Fig. 197.
Care should be taken not to water the plants at nightfall, especially in
dull and cold weather, but to give them water in the morning, when the
sun will soon bring the temperature up to its normal state. Skill and
judgment in watering are of the greatest importance in the management of
hotbeds; but this skill comes only from thoughtful practice. The
satisfaction and effectiveness of the work are greatly increased by good
hose connections and good watering-pots (Fig. 209).
Some protection, other than the glass, must be given to hotbeds. They
need covering on every cold night, and sometimes during the entire day
in very severe weather. Very good material for covering the sash is
matting, such as is used for covering floors. Old pieces of carpet may
also be used. Various hotbed mattings are sold by dealers in
gardeners' supplies.
[Illustration: Fig. 210. The making of straw mats.]
Gardeners often make mats of rye straw, although the price of good straw
and the excellence of manufactured materials make this home-made matting
less desirable than formerly. Such mats are thick and durable, and are
rolled up in the morning, as shown in Fig. 199. There are various
methods of making these straw mats, but Fig. 210 illustrates one of the
best. A frame is made after the manner of a saw-horse, with a double
top, and tarred or marline twine is used for securing the strands of
straw. It is customary to use six runs of this warp. Twelve spools of
string are provided, six hanging on either side. Some persons wind the
cord upon two twenty-penny nails, as shown in the figure, these nails
being held together at one end by wire which is secured in notches filed
into them. The other ends of the spikes are free, and allow the string
to be caught between them, thus preventing the balls from unwinding as
they hang upon the frame. Two wisps of straight rye straw are secured
and laid upon the frame, with the butt ends outward and the heads
overlapping. Two opposite spools are then brought up, and a hard knot is
tied at each point. The projecting butts of the straw are then cut off
with a hatchet, and the mat is allowed to drop through to receive the
next pair of wisps. In making these mats, it is essential that the rye
contains no ripe grain; otherwise it attracts the mice. It is best to
grow rye for this especial purpose, and to cut it before the grain is in
the milk, so that the straw does not need to be threshed.
In addition to these coverings of straw or matting, it is sometimes
necessary to provide board shutters to protect the beds, particularly if
the plants are started very early in the season. These shutters are made
of half-inch or five-eighths-inch pine lumber, and are the same size as
the sash--three by six feet. They may be placed upon the sash underneath
the matting, or they may be used above the matting. In some cases they
are used without any matting.
In the growing of plants in hotbeds, every effort should be made to
prevent the plants from growing spindling, or becoming "drawn." To make
stocky plants, it is necessary to give room to each plant, to be sure
that the distance from the plants to the glass is not great, to provide
not too much water in dull and cold weather, and particularly to give
abundance of air.
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