Soil Heating cable
 

I was wondering about trying some sort of soil heating.
Can anyone advise?
I'm thinking about a two foot wide strip of earth about twenty feet long
in front of a south-facing wall - and the idea would be to grow lettuce
and radish through the winter. Would that work?
--
Chris

Soil Heating cable
 

"Chris" ] wrote in message
]...
I was wondering about trying some sort of soil heating.
Can anyone advise?
I'm thinking about a two foot wide strip of earth about twenty feet long
in front of a south-facing wall - and the idea would be to grow lettuce
and radish through the winter. Would that work?
--
Chris

I'm growing a lettuce called 'All the year round'. The packet says it can be
sown any time and they certainly seem to be germinating despite the frosts.
Depending on where you are, they may do even better ( I'm in Cheshire).

I think heating the ground outdoors with any sort of powered heater would be
prohibitively expensive. It's cheaper to buy the lettuces from the
supermarket. You could probably get some success making the most of the
solar energy by building a coldframe with a good solid wall around it. The
bricks should heat up with the sun and release the energy at night. It
wouldn't be much but might just give you an edge. I also thought about
planting a low windbreak around it to keep off the cold winds and
positioning a mirror on the wall to reflect extra light to compensate for
the shadow cast by the windbreak. It all sounds like a lot of hassle for
lettuces though.

Martin.