At most latitudes, the temperature six to eight feet below the surface stays between 50 and 60°F. An underground greenhouse uses calm below-ground weather to keep plants growing whether it’s snowing or sweltering.
Designs for an Underground Greenhouse
地下温室。内部可以用石头、泥砖或任何能够吸收大量热量的致密自然材料包裹。Cool weather crops like lettuce, kale and brocolli canbe grown during winterin harsh climates. The glazing creates a “greenhouse effect.” If your water table is high, obviously that could spell disaster. You should build your greenhouse at least five feet above the water table.
Mike Oehler’sunderground greenhouse design. Mike digs a deep trench for access on the shaded south side which also allows cold air to sink and be warmed by the deeper, warmer soil. Many install tubes within the soil to transfer warmed air into the earth, yet Mike believes you need only the cold sink to allow the transfer in most climates. How to:motherearthnews. Mike Oehler’s book:The Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book.
Underground greenhouse in Spetchley Gardens, UK. Stairs down to entrance on right. Image byMezzapod通过Flickr。
During the day, the earth walls store heat. The walls are the battery that release their heat at night. A properly-designed pit greenhouse is naturally warmed at night from five sides. In an above-ground greenhouse only one side, the floor, is heated during the day. A waterproof barrier extending along the periphery and down the berms are necessary. Here area couple of earthbag underground greenhouse plans.
温室必须注意防水、排水和通风。效率最高的温室都有朝南的窗户。北墙储存热量。
这个土墙的地下温室有很多天然的粘土来吸收热量。在坑式温室中最重要的两个因素是大量的热质量(石头、土壤、水)和它对太阳的定位。Viaorganica.net.pl
Must-Haves For Greenhouse Owners
Potting Soil
- Black Gold 16-Quart All-Organic Potting Soil
- Roots Organics Potting Soil, .75 cubic feet
- Foxfarm Ocean Forest Soil, Smart Naturals, 1.5 cubic feet
Seedling Heat Mats
- Hydrofarm 9″ x 19.5″ Seedling Heat Mat
- VIVOSUN 10″ x 20.75″ Durable Waterproof Seedling Heat Mat
- Garden Nova 10″ x 20.75″ Seedling Heat Mat
17 Incredible Underground Greenhouses Around the World
An underground greenhouse is called a walipini in South America, from the Aymara Indian language, meaning “place of warmth.” As you dig, you save your upper-most topsoil to serve as the bottom of the greenhouse. Use the deeper soil as the new berm on the north side (or south side if you’re south of the equator). Angling your window 90 degrees to the sun on the winter solstice will allow the pit to store the most heat during those days when the sun shines the fewest hours.
1) Walipini From LaPaz, Bolivia
Here is a large walipini in LaPaz, Bolivia. At two minutes they go inside the walipini, at four minutes they walk around the outside. In Spanish. Obviously they do not get much rain there.
2) Pit Greenhouse Made With Local Stone
Anunderground greenhouse made of local stone in Nepalat almost 10,000 feet altitude, where the temperature falls below freezing 199 days per year.
3) Underground Greenhouse In Mongolia
Thispit greenhouse in Mongoliais currently producing food during three seasons of the year. As the footprints show the entrance is on the opposite side.
4) Pit Greenhouse With Good Insulation
Inside of above pit greenhouse. In a cold climate, the north, east and west walls should be well insulated. The north ceiling should be well insulated as well.
5) Start Of A Homestead Walipini
At this homestead, the owners are beginning to dig for their underground greenhouse. Using the excavator will help cut down on the time it takes to finish the structure.
6) Underground Greenhouse From Tennessee
Agreenhouse built into a hill in Tennessee.
7) Walipini From Sandstone In Texas
This pit greenhouse is in Texas, it is essentially a hole dug into the ground. Here the soil was such hard sandstone, minimal wall support was necessary. The picture was originally listed at https://taroandti.com.
8) Patagonian Underground Greenhouse
Earth-shelteredgreenhouse with earthbag walls in Patagonia. Note the use of plastic around the periphery.
9) Walipini From An Earthen Embankment
An underground greenhouse can help naturally insulate crops, enabling gardeners to harvest all year around.
10) Pit Greenhouse From An Old Missile Silo
A Nebraska couple turned an abandoned missile silo into an underground home. The walls are two feet thick—four feet thick in some places. The place where the missile was held is now the couple’s garage. They’ve covered the ground with wooden flooring and plastic turf. Their underground greenhouse is the only place where natural light comes through. In the (massive) greenhouse they are able to grow tomatoes, garlic, potatoes, and green beans.
11) Walipini With A Drainage Ditch
在温室周围挖一条浅的排水沟,可以把水流从结构上引开。Viadarfieldearthship.com
12) Pit Greenhouse
Pit greenhouse. Many underground greenhouse ownersstore barrels of rainwater at the back of the greenhouse吸收并储存更多的热量。注意右边的入口。
13) Installing A Walipini Roof
When you are deciding on materials, don’t forget to consider your areas climate. Choosing the wrong material could cause the roof to collapse and kill your crops.
14) Pit Greenhouse With Old Windows For A Roof
Walipini is another name for a pit greenhouse,this one is topped with old windows.
15) Hand-Dug Underground Greenhouse
Seestep-by-step photos of a greenhouse in New Mexico dug by hand!
16) Pit Greenhouse Made By Simple Ground
This man, fromSimple Ground, shows us his underground greenhouse. He says that they were able to save money by bending the galvanized steel themselves. Their plan is to use aquaponics for the plants inside, he even shows the start of their fish pond inside. He describes the purpose of the underground greenhouse, and how it regulates the temperature to help plants grow all year around. They haven’t started growing anything yet, only because they finished building at the end of fall.
17) Walipini Built In Ladakh
This mud brick walipini in Ladakh whichproduces food year-round in a very harsh climate.
Many More Uses for Your Underground Greenhouse
This amazing coupleturned an old gunite pool into a ‘closed-loop food-producing urban greenhouse.’ The greenhouse houses tilapia, chickens and hydroponic vegetables and fruits.
An easy way to warm up and bring light into your basement. Build a mini-pit greenhouse on the south side of your home.naturalbuildingblog.com
Apit greenhouse used as dining area.
Apit greenhouse for musicians.
Part 1 of a video series about the construction of an underground greenhouse, by Homesteadonomics. The builder says he’s doing it to extend his growing season, because he lives in an area with high winds, and because it seems like a cool project. He gets about 60% of the digging done by hand, a backhoe finishes the rest. Then he built a rough stairway, and poured a concrete footer. At the end of the video he does a nice job of showing what’s next. As of writing he’s in the middle of building; now he’s up to part 5.
At theNew Alchemy Institute bioshelter, fish tanks and compost heat the greenhouse and adjoining house. Water is dense and holds heat even better than rock, soil takes third place in heat storage. Thesolar aquaculture ponds are above-ground, translucent tanks. The fertile pond water was used for irrigating crops.
Driftless Farm Greenhouse by Roald Gundersen, Wisconsin. The larger you build your pit greenhouse the more efficient, as the temperatures inside of asmall greenhousecan fluctuate quite quickly.
Driftless Farm Greenhouse, Wisconsin. A 2800 s.f. straw-bale insulated solar greenhouse. Thewhole tree supports were made from site-harvested black locust, a fast-growing, sturdy and rot-resistant tree that’s abundant throughout Wisconsin.
Earth Sheltered greenhouse by Hiroshi Iguchi, Japan. A greenhouse that obviously does not completely close. Viafifthworld-inc.
Greenhouse by Rob Stout, New Mexico.swsolardesign.com.
Pit greenhouse attached to a home. Viasolarinnovations.com.
Semi-underground greenhouse surrounded on two sides with a stone wall and earth behind. Viasolarinnovations.com.
This incredible “Greenhouse in the Snow” is in western Nebraska, close to the Colorado border, and when the video was filmed (early December) it had been 1 below zero the day before. Yet, in the greenhouse, lemons are ready to pick. Inside the greenhouse the temperature was in the high 70s during the day, and only fell to 38 F at night. Tomatoes were growing.
The greenhouse is 80 feet long, 16 feet wide, and 12 feet high. Russ Finch, the owner of the home, says, “the entire energy cost for the year is $600.” The video shows a lemon tree so lush, they have to prop up the branches to keep them from crashing. He also grows sweet Meyer lemons. He shows a Valencia orange tree, a peach tree, roses, papaya, grapes, kiwi, figs. He grows a lot of cactus, too. The heating system is entirely geothermal, his only heating system is a small unit that circulates air heated by the ground.
Greenhouse built into a hill. Viasolarinnovations.com
Pit greenhouses attached to stone buildings are also extremely energy efficient! See inside here:solarinnovations.com.
Straw bales are a great insulator (an R-value of 1.5 to 3 per inch). Manure below ground will also help to keep these plants warm. Photo by Terrie Schweitzer, viaflickr.
Cold frame of old windows and straw bales. Placingmanure or compost down below the layer of topsoilwill help keep the area warm.
How to Build an Underground Greenhouse: Resources
Greatstep-by-step guide to building an earth-sheltered greenhouse with center work space/cold sink.
An underground greenhouse in Bozeman, Montana. As you can see in the video, there’s snow on the ground there. But in this completely underground unit, he’sgrowing peppers、萝卜、甜菜、香菜、罗勒和西葫芦。他提到,有一天,尽管外面的温度是28华氏度,但温室里的温度却高达117华氏度(他忘了把门打开)。室外没有暖气,只有一系列的水桶来帮助保持热量。
Thepartially-submerged YMCA Solar Greenhouse in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Aclearinghouse of info on solar greenhousesfrom L. David Roper.
Mike Oehler’sEarth Sheltered Greenhouse.
Photos ofunderground greenhouse construction in Kyrgyzstan.
How Joseph Orrbuilt a mud heat-storage solar greenhousethat even heats an adjacent room.
Astep-by-step look at building a cinder block underground greenhouse.
Photos of abermed, solar-heated greenhouse in Southern Idaho.
Step-by-stepconstruction photos of a small, earth-sheltered greenhouse.
Step-by-step instructions and designs for aquonset hut style greenhouse made from chain link fence top railings. You’ll need a lot of land for this one.
If you’re okay with this,here’s how to build a greenhouse that’s heated by an adjacent chamber of compost.
What life is like atthe Solviva greenhouse, where it’s 4 degrees outside but, inside the greenhouse, you can be plucking fresh tomatoes in 75-degree heat.
Best Books on How to Build an Underground Greenhouse
The Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Bookby Mike Oehler
Solviva: How To Grow $500,000 On One Acreby Anna Edey
The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhousesby Eliot Coleman
Solar Greenhouses Undergroundby Daniel Geery
The Solar Greenhouse Bookby James McCullagh
Gardener’s Solar Greenhouse: How to Build and Use a Solar Greenhouse for Year-Round Gardeningby Ray Wolf
More Underground Greenhouse Resources
National Center For Appropriate Technology:Learn about slope, orientation, glazing, etc
Solar Greenhouses:Lots of info here by L. David Roper!
Compost heated greenhouses:Provided by the National Center For Appropriate Technology
Cedar Built Greenhouses:Wood greenhouse kits, they will make a kit for your foundation
Build It Solar:For other solar greenhouse links
Underground Greenhouse Video
(This is part 1 of 34 (so far)!)
Kvr28says
Thank-you for sharing our project, it helps get the word out. Great site, love all the pictures.
thehomesteadingboards.com
Josays
Wow this is amazing! Thank you so much for sharing, I never even imagined all the ways you could build a greenhouse!
http://www.thedesertecho.com/blog
Roxanne Swentzell Tower Gallerysays
thank you for sharing all this great information!!
Mike Murphysays
爱你的网站!希望一两年后有东西可以分享。mike
Shahidsays
Very informative site. I hope there could be solutions for hot climates.
Eden Ranchsays
Thank you for sharing this information.
The team here at Eden Ranch will begin building one of these as a project for demonstration and growing organic foods at our farm in the Caribbean.
Internships available year round, if anyone would like to participate.
Inquire atedenranch@gmail.comor visit our website at:http://www.edenranch.org
Happy growing and we look forward to post our progress!
Lisasays
I use greenhouse-quality 50% shade cloth over a hoop house to garden in the summer in the high desert. In the winter, I change the shade cloth out with greenhouse plastic.
ward rigginssays
We are building a community garden program as a part of Wayne County (GA) Parks and Recreation Department. please post us with your gardening information. This is a hands on learning project. We are working with the local Boys and Girls Club and several community groups. We are also building a data base and library of basic gardening knowledge. The purpose of the Wayne County Community Garden Program is to teach our students how to go out and teach groups how to build community gardens. We prefer not to use poisons and chemicals and will not use any Monsanto products.
Nickisays
Just linked to this in my article about sun pit greenhouses on my garden website – Through Nana’s Garden Gate – great photos!
Ron Colersays
Hi there I love your site – the 5th picture from the bottom shows a pit greenhouse built into a stone wall. I contacted Solar Innovations and they tell me that this is not one of their projects and that your reference is incorrect. Can you please give me the correct reference to the designer/builder/owner. I would love to duplicate the project but need the contact info. Thanks…..
Paulo Mendonçasays
嗨,大家好,伟大的网站和信息,保持良好的工作。However i can’t find solutions for hot weather conditions, we are in Portugal at Alentejo, the temperatures during the summer reach 38/40Celsius
We intend to grow mushrooms that suport temperatures untill 30celsius
can any one tell me if a pit green house hepls me on these ??????
Marksays
看到在这些环境中完成的工作,我印象深刻。有人在新英格兰北部使用这个概念吗?And stories to be shared?
Maggiesays
Hi,
我住在新西兰,我对在我们的土地上建造一个经济型的瓦里皮尼非常感兴趣,我们有3英亩的空间。2022世界杯四强亚盘赔率我尝试过Benson Institute,但每次我被带到那里,我都找不到任何信息或他们说的计划。我也在努力寻找建造瓦里皮尼的详细计划,用粘土夯实墙壁。2022世界杯四强亚盘赔率你是否有这样的计划?Any help would be very much appreciated Best regards, Maggie
Jamessays
I built a semi-pit tunnel greenhouse here in Kansas that I use to grow food year-round. If anybody’s interested, just google my GreenFin Gardens website and click on the ‘Semi-Pit Tunnel Greenhouse’ link on the left side of the page.
Johegorynny Grsays
感谢这些美丽的地下和坑式温室的图片,它们确实鼓舞了我们!
johnsays
NICE ARTICLE.
THANKS!
Bent Terjesays
What I feel is a bit wasted, the walls of they greenhouses which are buried .. walls should be fairly oblique and built in stair – ledges, and then it can be grown on the walls too.
Lynn Mosersays
This concept was being shared with folks by Scott Nearing in his books still available. In the early 70’s he wrote Living the Good Life. It is probably the original pictorial of building a solar greenhouse. There is also the Nearing Frame in his honor by his son for growing on cuttings. Isn’t the search window wonderful?! We even had pictures way back then…
Mary Hollandsays
Scott Nearing did not originate this idea. I inherited a book from my mother, published 1941, called Winter Flowers in the Sun Heated Pit, by Kathryn S. Taylor and Edith W. Gregg. It included several designs for earth sheltered greenhouses.
Audisays
我找到了一个可以帮你构建的网站。
This site won’t let me do a url, the the site is undergroundhousing
hope this helps.
Richsays
Hello,
What would be the best design for up here in Wasilla Alaska where we only get 5 hours at the most of daylight during the winter. And 20+ hours during the summer? My land is almost flat as can be. How deep with you have permafrost? Any aid would be helpful.
Rich
Prohlsays
太好了,谢谢,好主意。
We will try to intigrate one in our food forest …
法国阿尔卑斯山上的安妮和赫伯。
Jonsays
Hey there.
I’m in the process of designing my walipini, and I have a question about sunlight…
In a sunken greenhouse (#9 for example) you will not get any sunlight on the southern wall (particularly in the winter). How much of a concern is this? Does the light diffuse from the panels to cover all that area well enough? Is it better to plant things there that require some shade?
This obviously becomes a bigger problem the deeper you dig your pit down (and of course the higher your latitude). I’m thinking of only going 3 feet because of this (but would also need a sink then, likely under the walkway)