WyOasis (in the snow) Greenhouse Build

Join us for an old-fashioned barn raising. Well, actually we are starting the exciting greenhouse build. Using the greenhouse-in-the-snow kit from Russ Finch in Alliance, NE, we will be building a 72' greenhouse in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The center "pit" is dug and all the supplies have arrived. If anyone is interested in sharing the experience, we can use all the help we can get. Over the next few months we will be assembling the greenhouse: digging post holes for the inner retaining wall and completing it; digging the foundation post holes and assembling the frame; attaching the lexan to the frame; attaching the back wall (roofing metal); building the end and interior walls; running water and electricity; improving the soil for planting; and planting this year's crop inside and the ground cover crops outside.

Also on the agenda is to continue with the swales and berms and ponds--we are expecting about 1,000 seedlings from the conservation district that need to be planted. They should arrive at the end of May.

Please contact us at seifertks@gmail.com if you would like to volunteer to give us a hand with this adventure! We'll feed you!

Due to a huge influx of windfarms being built, there may be no motel rooms available. However, we have room for campers or tents on our property. Check the town website for lodging and local attractions (camping, fishing, hiking, etc.):  www.medicinebow.org.

Kani holds a PDC from Geoff Lawton and we are in the process of permaculturing our 8 acre homestead at the edge of town.

Here is a video on The Greenhouse in the Snow up in Nebraska.  

HERE is more information about Medicine Bow and forming a community.

Kani, that's an awesome and inspiring video! Thanks for sharing it! It's so cool that you guys are building an earth-sheltered greenhouse. I've thought about making one where I am, but our ground water is so high, and we have very limited winter sun (like 2 hours a day due to trees and being north-facing), so I'm doubting that a greenhouse would do much good.

We are not as far along as we'd like to be due to the last snowstorm, but we've built the inside retaining wall. Lots more to come. If you want to join in the fun, you'd be welcome!

We're a little further along now.

How have I just seen this. Yay Wyoming. Did you get one of the grants for this? Can't wait to see how it goes for you!

We are now much further along, but with much more to go! Things always take longer than anticipated. We are almost to the point of getting the electricity installed. We have a frost-free hydrant already put in to insure our water supply. The west end wall is about to be completed. The inner and east walls are going to be built after we get some compost and mulch put in. Unfortunately, the frame is too low to be able to use the skidsteer to move soil. Drat!

We'll keep adding more information as the project continues.

Loving it! I think a metal frame was the way to go in Wyoming as well. I'm interested in the longevity of those panels you have. Keep us updated!!!

Thanks for posting Kani, lots of hard work, good food and good helpers all around.

Remember permies, if you want to spend some time in Wyoming, Kani and Lyle could use some helpers!

Wow, I just saw this today -- we are about 5 months behind you!  We are planning to pick up our greenhouse kit in Alliance mid-September.  We hope to get the lid on before winter sets in here in the high desert.

Your work looks amazing!  It's really coming together.  It sounds like you have other big projects going on at the same time -- must be overwhelming!

How did the tube trench go?  I saw the cave-in photo.  Our land is pretty sandy, and that's the scariest part of the project for me.  I can't imagine a huge long 8' deep trench having any integrity here (northern NM @7200' below the face of a mesa).  I was even wondering if we could lay the tubes out parallel to where the trench will be, have the excavator dig, follow right behind pushing the tubes in, and back fill pretty quickly...

Also, can the tubes be trenched before the structure is built?  We will be hiring the excavator work so will likely do all the digging at once.

It looks like your floor is wider than most?  Was that just a design/production decision?  Are you planning on more trees and less raised bed area?  Or did I misjudge that in the photos?

All the best to you!  We'll be watching for updates!

Why are all the tubes in the same trench?  I thought the goal was a much mass contact as possible and that each tube was its own loop.

1. These were buried 12' deep, so being in the same trench works. The trench is wide enough that most are touching dirt. We had them twist around each other a bit to provide turbulence to the air flow.
2. Digging separate 250' trenches for each drain tile would be cost prohibitive.
3. It is what Russ Finch designed. All of his are built this way.
We do have one separate pipe in the vestibule that will suck in air from the outside (it is still in the same ditch, but is only 100'). This is being used to chill the vestibule to temper the heat build-up in winter. We are planning on planting a Santa Rosa plum and an Elberta peach--both need winter chill, but not the cold that we get here. An experiment we hope works.

We will be pushing the air through the pipes with a squirrel cage fan. This will prevent the sandy soil from entering the perforations of the drain pipe that could happen with pulling the air through with the fan. As a quick test, we placed a portable house fan on top of the pipes, and the air exiting at the other end was quite cool. With the appropriately powered fan, I'm anticipating a great cool (or warm in the winter) air flow. When we visited Russ last December, his greenhouse was 85 degrees F. and there was snow on the ground outside.

We are steadily progressing on the greenhouse. If I were to do it again, I'd build the soil on the sides and in the center of the greenhouse before the frame was completed. That would have saved on the ibuprofen! ha! We've had a lot of shovel work as the frame was too short to get the dump trailer in. We ended up taking the cage off the skidsteer and it can go in, but it was close quarters. If we hadn't had to worry about the retaining wall, it would have been better. But, everything is working, just sore muscles.

We'll keep updating with more pictures as the work continues. Hopefully, it will be mostly completed before the snow flies. We've been lucky so far this fall, as usually we've had snow, or at least a frost by now. Cross your fingers!

We bermed the north side (blue) up the wall about two feet. The south berm was just above the bottom rail. After we bermed and smoothed, we built a small retaining wall at the entrance to wrap the berms around the corner of the east wall. This will also keep the corner of the berm from eroding into the door--hopefully!

We had the north wall spray-foamed to over 3" thick. This will provide great insulation for those -20F days. When it was finished, I got out my trusty sprayer and painted the foam to prevent UV degradation. The blowers weren't hooked up yet, so it is a bit toasty inside when the sun is shining. Sauna, anyone?

The interior wall was next. It is insulated and divides the interior greenhouse from what we are calling the vestibule. It will be colder than the greenhouse and hopefully we can grow Santa Rosa plums and Elberta peaches.

So we got our first snow. Can you spot the greenhouse? The blowers weren't hooked up yet, so it got frosty inside.

We had transplanted artichokes from the garden and they were struggling with the extraordinary heat during the sunny days and the super-chill at night. We went on vacation, during which the local temperatures plummeted to -17F. When we returned, the artichokes had resurrected. The walipini worked, even without the geothermal blowers.

We have attached the tube with wire along the roof peak and will be setting up a blower to push hot air outside during the summer and underground (remember the trench down the middle?) during the winter. We had a helper!

We tested the geothermal tubing and found to our dismay that Lyle's shortcut of placing the outside air tube in the trench with all the other geothermal tubes allowed the other tubes to share air with the outside tube through the drain slits. This caused an air issue and cool air blew out both ends of that tube! Gadzooks. Hopefully, we'll find that that one tube was redundant and won't be needed. We do have windows in the vestibule to cool it down if necessary in the winter. Its purpose was to create enough winter chill hours for the plum and peach tree. We'll rethink this and post more later.

Also, I'd planted a bunch of autumn crocus with the idea that next fall, I'd get some saffron. They must really like it, because when we returned from vacation, they were blooming. Paella, here we come! We're not sure about the viability of growing more than we need individually. Those saffron threads are labor-intensive.

Last night, we left the blowers on overnight with the thermostat set to 50F. This morning, it was 17F outside and it actually was 50F inside and the blowers were still blowing.

We will update more as things happen and we discover more.  Meanwhile, enjoy the pretty sunset from Wyoming.

So glad I’ve stumbled upon this. You’ve done an amazing job with the greenhouse and also in documenting it. I purchased the $50 set of plans for this and was disappointed at how unorganized everything was.  Did we receive the same plans!?!  

Unfortunately I have no plans in the near future to build one. I have no money and only a small 1 acre north facing property on a steep and rocky slop. I bought the plans to satisfy my own curiosity.

Before I learned of the greenhouse in the snow method I was hooked on the idea of a climate battery like CRMPI has. I would love to hear your thoughts on the differing designs. I see you ran one drain tile through the greenhouse for the “climate battery” purpose (aka. SHCS), but unlike those designs you do this with only one drain pipe.   Don’t you feel it would benefit from much more if not all the pipes directly underneath to “charge” the entire soil mass directly underneath the greenhouse?  In theory would this provide even more heat during the winter?  If it’s too hot in the summer couldn’t ventilation provide enough cooling (especially given the dry climate)?  It works in Colorado and elsewhere.

I do like the sunken design of the greenhouse in the Snow design. He did a great job thinking this through although I’m still very curious about the climate battery technique for the drainpipes.

Could you explain the importance of the vestibule because that was something I didn’t quite clearly understand from the $50 packet. It’s a shame it wasn’t as clear. But then again, I can’t ever imagine being able to afford this anyhow!  Thanks so much!

We are using the vestibule as a chill room in the winter. We plan on planting a peach and a plum that need some winter chill, but we can't plant them outside as we are Zone 4 and they would freeze too much. The vestibules in other designs are different than ours. They work as an intake area for cold air which is "sucked" into the main greenhouse by the vacuum created at the far end with the air being pushed through the underground tubes. Every design appears to be different, so I can't speak to the other designs.
-Kani

Winter arrived, rotator cuff surgery was successful, and laziness ensued. Now, we are back at it with more reporting on the greenhouse.  The temperature hasn't gotten below 29F (and that was only once), yet the outdoor temperatures have been from below 0F to in the 30s, with the majority of days in the 20s and teens. We pretty much neglected the greenhouse and it survived anyway!

Wow, Kani, it's great to see that you are rolling along and making food!  I'm sorry to hear about (your?) rotator cuff surgery, and glad to hear it's behind you.  We are just skinning now -- we are doing the north side metal siding before the Lexan (as we were told to do when I asked, since I had the impression that the Lexan would help size things).  Now we are knocking wood that the Lexan will fit properly...

We are also figuring out the end wall design.  

Re: your snow drifting -- it looks like there's a lot, so this probably wouldn't help much anyway, but we are thinking of extending the horizontal beams farther out to have a sort of eave over the end doors.  We get a lot less snow, so hopefully that will be enough for us.

I thought we would be so much farther along by now... I just hope we can get it done in time to plant trees in March!  It is feeling maybe a little foolhardy to plant trees within a month of finishing the structure; it sounds like you have learned a lot by living with the building for a few months.  

Kudos to you on everything you are accomplishing!

BTW, Kani, I see your posts are still high above the beds... we plan to leave at least some of ours that way too, figuring they'll be handy for attaching lines for vines to climb etc.

We are considering also using these to add some extra bracing for the walls... by putting a brace from the top of the south retaining wall post , up to the north side of the peak, and/or by putting a guy cable from the top of the south retaining wall post and attaching it to the south horizontal rail at the bottom of the Lexan, maybe with a turnbuckle.  Not  to put a huge amount of pressure or anything, but just another bit of support.

Following your reports with interest Kani as our plans for a zone 5 greenhouse progress. Have you considered installing a data logger that can document interior temperatures? We have experience with a WiFi model that has been very useful documenting highs and lows and can be alerted when temps go outside settings you determine . Have you measured the differences in air intake and return on your earthtubes?

Glad the surgery went well!