[lightinglad]

hi to all those like me a newie to this site.
i have had an allotment for 6 months manage to dig out through the nettles and wild raspberries to produce a fair bit of veg.
still a lot of beds to dig out.
but here the main part of the message.
i have purchase a new polly tunnel which subject to the snow should be dilivered this week. As i'm planning to put it up over carpet put down to get rid off the weeds. and intend to use grow bags for the first year.
but the rear end i would like to try a sort of hot bed by digging out about 2ft placing horse poo and a mix of compose and soil. replacing a layer of newpaper on top and then place potatoes growing sacks on this mix.
do anyone think the heat from the bed will get into the sacks to improve spud growth or will i be wasting my time?
 

[DD.]

Hi lightninglad, welcome to the forums.

This is the place really to introduce yourself, so as your are asking questions about gardening, I'll move this to GYO.

Please pop back to the Welcome forum & tell us a bit about yourself.

[DD.]

OK - now that we're here, I'll let someone who knows about hotbeds answer that bit.

Could I please advise you not to use carpet. Toxins can leech out of the dyes etc. and you can get problems with the material breaking down especially if rubber backed. Some councils actually ban it's use for these reasons.

Some weeds can actually grow into and through carpet, giving you a bigger problem when you try to remove it.

[noshed]

The blokes on our site use hot beds for their pumpkins. They just put some soil in a hole in a manure heap and put the plants in there. But not for a good while yet.
I wouldn't have thought it would be worth doing it for spuds - the Victorians used to concentrate more on pineapples and early strawbs. You could probably get some winter lettuce or Mizuma etc to germinate now if you're desperate to get going.