Building a hot propagation bed, phase one.

On Tuesday, inside the skeleton of our to-be-completed propagation tunnel, we constructed most of the hot bed on which we will raise this year's polytunnel seedlings (and some for early outdoors crops).

The hot bed frame laid out and being screwed together by Pete and Tommy.

The bed is 7.5 square metres, which we hope is ample to propagate and pot-on this season's tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers, chillies, aubergines, squashes and herbs.

Nikki trimming the lining.

We built a raised bed of 7.5 x 1m, lined it with polytunnel plastic offcuts, added a layer of gravel then coarse sand, and fixed hoops across the top to hold the plastic cloche (see phase two!).

Pete raking the first layer of coarse sand level.

The next phase will be to lay the soil-warming cable, wire it in plus thermostat, lay another layer of coarse sand, and erect the plastic over the hoops. Then to start sowing!