Hotbeds and Cold Frames

Hotbeds and Cold Frames
by Karen Beth Pike, Columnist

"Taking Care"

August 25, 2003

Going back a few years (or generations) brings interesting parallels to light. Consider for a moment the way people used to extend their gardening seasons. In the days before electric lights and heated greenhouses there were hotbeds and cold frames. Hotbeds were prepared in the fall, usually to over winter plants that had some tolerance to freezing and then later to start seedlings ahead of the spring thaw. Cold frames enabled people to get plants out early because of the shelter they provided.

Hotbeds are built over holes in the ground from four to six feet deep filled in with three feet of fresh horse manure covered by a foot or two of soil and topped with a frame and window sash to seal in the heat and seal out the cold. As the manure decomposes, it releases heat and warms the soil from the bottom as the sun is also warming the soil from the top. Many cold-tolerant crops could be kept growing all winter in such an environment, things like lettuce, radishes, herbs and carrots. Kept the household in fresh salads all winter without waste or refrigeration. Cold frames have the potential to extend the season at both ends. The same sort of frame and sash setup is placed over plants where they are in the garden and they are harvested as needed, or moved to the hotbed for longer life. Sensible, prudent and safe, besides the fact it brings fresh produce to the table during the winter months when it was very scarce.

A bit more explanation will round out the irony. Consider for a moment how this parallels what has been happening in society. As we become more sophisticated in our own heads and start moving away from the old ways, we forget the common sense of the past – to our peril and shame in my opinion. Rather than extending our seasons of life with the gentle containment of an emotional cold frame, we have warped our sensibility to the point that we have created a truly cold place where we box ourselves into compartments – tiny prisons of our own fashioning. From that sterile environment, our emotional lives, passions and desires become bottled and pressurized until it erupts into the sordid morality of our current time and creates the hot beds and the steamy stuff that spews from the media and Hollywood. The only thing missing is the load of manure, although the stink is still quite obvious. Without the control and focus that morality brings to our lives, we have lost a large piece of our humanity and have become little more than animals being driven to and fro by instinct.

That being said, it isn’t too late to return to the sensible, decent society that we used to be. There are pockets of individuals that hold to the old ways – the honesty, reliability and hard work that are the hallmarks of a good, solid society. It is within each of us; all we need to do is reach in and draw it out and wrap it around ourselves like the mantle it is. To be able to stand in the presence of greatness, without shame or fear, and without the taint of immorality is the spirit of the promises we were given when we accepted our mission here on earth. To learn and to teach, with the joy that comes from knowing who we are and what we stand for, and the integrity that shines from us when we do the right and proper things. Is it easy? Of course not… but the rewards are certainly worth it. ***

Photo of Karen Beth Pike courtesy of the author