Ian Gill wrote: > > Hi Susan... this season I had a huge amount of success using the old > fashioned method of fermenting straw to generate heat for my special early > grafted tomato. Basically you get a bale of straw (not hay because of all > the seeds) and saturate it with nitrigen (organic or otherwise). It gets > real hot for about two weeks - then as it starts to cool you plant one > grafted tomato or two standard tomatoes in the bale. I made a plastic tent > to retain the heat at night and keep draughts away. The bale produced > warmth for about 6 weeks by which time Spring temperatures stabalised and > nature was in control. We do some pretty competative tomato growing around > my village. > > Regards Ian Gill > Westland New Zealand > > I visited NZ in Jan and can see that helps to tomato growing would be needed--on the South island anyway--but it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Can you give a few more details--how do you saturate with Nitrogen--pour on liquid fertilizer? And how do you plant the tomatoes in the bale--literally in the straw? We have 30pound or so square bales-is this what you mean? They are about 3feet long, two feet high and wide. I'd love to try this. i saw lots of small unheated greenhouses in Nz mostly with tomatoes in them. Judy Warner