Greenhouse

NOTE: The greenhouse project was interrupted by our move to the farm, but it’s in the works for 2025!

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In order to sustain this whole homesteading project, we are fine tuning-potential enterprises.  The fig production project is one of the important ones but depends on a greenhouse, a structure that will also be used to grow other food as well. An additional purpose for it is to serve as an educational tool in community food security.

We are seeking funding assistance to support this project.  Please contact Byron if this is something you can help with.

Most year-round commercial greenhouses use tremendous amounts of fossil energy. Our greenhouse will be different, using two tried and true systems, that have not yet hit the mainstream.

The first is the passive solar model, where only the south side of the green house is glazed. The energy of the sun during the day is captured by a large thermal mass wall in the north, which will then release that heat during the night.

The second is an in-ground heat exchange system.  Daytime warm air is moved through the underground perforated pipes and is withdrawn at night to warm the space in the wintertime. The cycle is reversed in the summer to provide some daytime cooling. 

This will extend the active growing season in both the early and late months, which will be a bonanza for fig and other Mediterranean plants. During the winter, temperatures will stay above freezing so that we can grow cold-weather vegetables year round. Cross ventilation options in the summer will keep it from burning up without using large volume exhaust fans. 

This is a design where all of the costs are up front. Once it is built, it will require almost no outside inputs.

Greenhouses are not simple. Byron has spent countless hours researching this–figuring out the structures and systems, and their resource footprints, and is very excited about this design.