East Pit House hotbed

February 13, 2023 | Garden goss | 2 minute read

Hotbeds are warm growing environments that use the heat generated from decomposing organic matter (such as manure) to raise the temperature of the soil in an enclosed space. This allows gardeners to extend the growing season. Here at Holkham, we have a number of pit houses that were originally built as hotbeds. In the picture below (taken last summer) you can see the two sunken pit houses – they are the lower of the glass-roofed houses.  Over the past few weeks, our gardening team has been working to restore the houses to their original use and are now eager to start sowing.

Our head gardener, Mark, explains:

We are ready to sow seeds of salad crops, and french beans, and to force strawberry plants in our two fully restored hotbeds in the East Pit House.

Over the past two weeks, we have collected horse manure, leaves, and faggots (twig bundles) and turned the manure three times to get a decent heat to allow us to start using the hotbeds for the first time since they were superseded by a coal-fired heating system around 170 years ago!

We will later move on to planting melons for which the beds were first constructed in 1786.

The beds each measure roughly 6x3ft, and contain a 4ft deep layer of manure producing enough heat to allow crops to be planted around four months earlier than they would outside. This would have allowed the gardens to produce fruit and vegetables well outside of the normal growing season.

We will keep you updated on our progress as the seasons change.