Seedbed

A seedbed or seedling bed is the local soil environment in which seeds are planted. Often it comprises not only the soil but also a specially prepared cold frame, hotbed or raised bed used to grow the seedlings in a controlled environment into larger young plants before transplanting them into a garden or field. A seedling bed is used to increase the number of seeds that germinate.

The soil of a seedbed needs to be loose and smoothed, without large lumps. These traits are needed so that seeds can be planted easily, and at a specific depth for best germination. Large lumps and uneven surface would tend to make the planting depth random. Many types of seedlings also need loose soil with minimal rocky content for best conditions to grow their roots. (For example, carrots grown in rocky soil will tend not to grow straight.)

Seedbed preparation in farm fields often involves secondary tillage via harrows and cultivators. This may follow primary tillage (if any) by moldboard plows or chisel plows. No-till farming methods avoid tillage for seedbed preparation as well as later weed control.

Seedbed (performance piece)

Seedbed is a performance piece first performed by Vito Acconci on 15–29 January 1972 at Sonnabend Gallery in New York.

In the piece, there is a low wooden ramp merging with the floor. The ramp extends across the width of the room, beginning two feet up the side of one wall and slanting down to the middle of the floor.

In his original performance of the piece, Acconci lay hidden underneath the ramp installed at the Sonnabend Gallery, masturbating. The artist's spoken fantasies about the visitors walking above him were heard through loudspeakers in the gallery.

"In this legendary sculpture/performance Acconci lay beneath a ramp built in the Sonnabend Gallery. Over the course of three weeks, he masturbated eight hours a day while murmuring things like, "You're pushing your cunt down on my mouth" or "You're ramming your cock down into my ass." Not only does the architectural intervention presage much of his subsequent work, but all of Acconci's fixations converge in this, the spiritual sphincter of his art. In Seedbed, Acconci is the producer and the receiver of the work's pleasure. He is simultaneously public and private, making marks yet leaving little behind, and demonstrating ultra-awareness of his viewer while being in a semi-trance state." - Jerry Saltz