Last summer I planted eggplants for the first time. Lucky for me I planted two varieties, because one of them didn’t grow. Here are the two varieties I planted:

The Early Long Purple Eggplants grew beautifully, and produced abundantly. They were delicious, especially lightly breaded and baked. But they were slender, and I wanted something more meaty. I’d like to try stuffing them, or maybe not having to bread and bake a million pieces the size of quarters, but instead just half a dozen pieces the size of saucers.

These Early Long Purple Eggplants are the ones I got:

These Black Beauty Eggplants are the ones I want:

Unfortunately, living in zone 3, our summer nights can still get pretty chilly. My Black Beauty Eggplants flowered, but then the flowers would fall off in the cold night. No flowers, no fruit. Since I’m not willing to move to a warmer zone, and an expensive hoop house or greenhouse just isn’t in the budget…. I made a hotbed! This should create a warmer environment for these cold sensitive plants.

Here’s how I built my hotbed for free:

Supply list:
3 or 4 pallets
Screws, nails or metal wire for tying pallets together
Cardboard boxes, broken down
Hot manure (horse, cow, chicken, rabbit, or llama will do)
Brown compost matter (such as leaves, straw or hay)
Composted soil

Instructions:
Start by screwing, nailing or tying the pallets together to form a large C, or if you want it to have four sides instead of three, you can make a square. I did three sides because I’m short and don’t want to reach up and over the hotbed to tend my plants.
Then line your three-sided pallet box with cardboard and fill about half full with hot manure and brown compost (I used dried leaves). Layer the manure and brown compost matter so you’ve got about one foot of manure, then an inch of brown compost, then a foot of manure, then an inch of brown compost. You can use a large piece of cardboard to act as a fourth side to help hold and shape the manure.
After your hotbed is about half full, pile on at least 18-24 inches of soil.
Then plant your eggplants on top and let the manure warm your little garden bed!

A hotbed can be used for any plants that love heat, or it can be used to extend your growing season by providing warmth for your plants. Once my eggplants are flowering, I can easily cover them with garden fleece from edge to edge of the hotbed when the evening forecasts are cold, which will be kinder to the plants than if the fleece were laying on top of them while they’re planted on the ground. The high sides of the pallets can also act as a bit of a windbreak, which will help keep my plants toasty and cozy.

What do you think? Will I have Black Beauty Eggplants this summer??? I’ll update you when I know!

Have you ever built a hotbed? How did it work for you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Update!

At the end of the summer I had pretty, pretty Black Beauty Eggplants growing in my hotbed. It worked and it was so worth it.