[strawberry queen]

Anyone out there tried using a hotbed?  Built using fresh manure and then covered with soil/compost mix into which seeds/plants are placed.  The idea is the breakdown of the manure raises the temperature of the bed allowing plants be be grown early in the year.
with all this cold weather I thought it might be worth a try. I have lots of fresh manure!

[cob nut]

We haven't tried this ourselves but our lottie neighbour did last year & got some amazing results, he had carrots, beetroot, lettuce & radish etc., long before anyone else & the carrots were a good size.

[Fisherman]

Tried this a couple of years ago when one of my compost heaps started to generate quite a bit of heat. The heap was pallet sided so was easy to cover with a 10” layer of compost which carrots were sown in. Out of memory I think the carrots were called Resistafly which produced excellent results. Slugs were the only problem which popped out of the compost heap every night until I attacked them with a torch and secateurs. I thought I would try again this year so filled the compost heap with horse muck last November but as yet no signs of any heat build up but I guess it’s been too cold! Definitely worth trying and helps using a space not normally used for growing.

[strawberry queen]

Thanks for the information.  I will give it a try, and keep a look out for slugs.