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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Tuesday, April 24, 2012
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Joze
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Deer Park, WI
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Entry 2 of 4 |
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Soil heating cables are expensive. And i grow back-to-back, so I use one 40-ft heating cable per 2 plants. I have dug a 6' x 3' x 6" deep area to lay the cables in. My hot houses are 3' x 3', so this layout coincides with two hot houses butted up to each other.
The cable is coiled 3 times around a center planting hole (top of pic), starting with the far end of the cable and working my way back towards the thermostat/plug in. After the first three coils, the cable is strung along the edge of the site (left side of pic) and coiled around the second center planting hole (bottom of pic), ending with the thermostat/plug in dead center of the 2nd hole.
As I am laying the cable, I grab a fistful of dirt and use this to "clamp" the cable to the soil. This prevents the cable from wiggling out of alignment. You can see the clumps holding cable in place in the photo.
I use the pitch fork to fracture the soil before refilling the hole. Fracturing allows necessary oxygen into the soil and minimizes some of the compaction caused by trouncing around in the hole.
After fracturing, I add 1 cup of kelp meal to the hole site and another cup to the dirt on the fringe that will be used to cover the hole up. I also add 20lbs of worm compost to ignite the soil food web. The original soil is scooped back into the hole and voila, its ready for hothouses and seedlings.
I'll plug the cables in a day or two before planting. Tipping the hot houses down and banking up soil along the edge will make for some potent greenhouse effect, heating up the soil surface while the seeds germinate indoors.
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