[indigojac]

Hi all, just joined this fascinating site. Looking for advice / info for my latest project. I am thinking of making a hot bed for my polytunnel using  manure in a raised bed roughly 6 x 4 foot in the hope of increasing the temperature enough to bring seedlings on when I run out of space later in the year. I was all ready to start when I read it was not a good idea to bring fresh manure into the polytunnel something to do with introducing mould spores or dangerous organisms? I have successfully made one outside in previous years above the compost heap. This is my first polytunnel year so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

[mumofstig]

I have no experience of hotbeds, but my hero Alan Titchmarsh, suggests doing just that (about half way down this page)

http://www.alantitchmarsh.com/index.htm?ac=HTHF7-Y

If the fresh manure is capped with soil, I cannot see there being a problem.
I'm sure they did the same thing under glass frames in the Victorian Kitchen Garden.

Good luck and let us know if it works

[GrannieAnnie]

I'm sorry I didn't see this post until now, but like MoS I don't have any knowledge of hotbeds either, but this is what it says in my Victorian Kitchen Graden book about them, but these ones were outside not inside a polytunnel!

I have used chicken and turkey poo dug into the polytunnel soil fairly fresh, then after a while put my tomatoes in there.  I did get quite a few little mushrooms of some sort growing, but I just hoed them off as they appeared.

I didn't have any problems with the tomatoes at all. 

You'll have to let us know how you get on with it!