Dirtpatcheaven

I love using my herbivores to choke out bindweed in my backyard vegetable garden/orchard.

I built a pallet and cow panel hotbed greenhouse and filled the beds with it with old hay, cardboard, and manure from various animals on our farm. Now I am placing our quail in one of the beds to stay warm and continue to add manure to the top for Spring garden beds.

We gardened for over 340 days in 2021. This is a zone 4 growing zone without using propane or electricity for heat. Just compost heat in a single wall Tuff greenhouse. Included in the garden were figs, sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, basil, celery, potatoes, and greens. Everything was still going in November when I cut everything back to give myself a break and start over for Winter gardening.

In this video I build my second hotbed using pallets for the ends (2019). Currently I don't use dimensional lumber on the side but instead use pallets for all sides. I like to build beds out of pallets because I don't have to cut anything, they just need to match in size.

I use a form of composting that heat up to grow food in the winter and is then turned into soil without ever having to turn it. Hotbeds work without electricity or other source of power for heat production. It is just 4'x8' composting of household and farm waste with a tiny bit of soil on the top for plants to grow in for the first season. Then you can remove the compost as the topping for the new hotbed.