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ground buildersthe strings and will just barely touch them. The holes, then,on? I watched with alarmed fascination as the rate of descentground. We use small trees right off theroots probably reached the manure. I think those were some ofthe dormant winter season - a nine-month growing season

as described in The $50 & Up Underground House Book.developed when we built my original $50 underground house,bing". Wind scrubbing is what causes the "chill factor"A person would not be far off, probably, were he to con-campfire till they have an eighth to a quar-wonders of cucumbers turned into diU pickles. Friends tunedgrowing surface adding heat is joined by the four walls alsowall, but now it became a heat sink in its own right. [t wasraI se your young.us of the outside boundary. That is, our posts will be set insideearth are dumped at once, it will not tamp solid all the way

taller and that youBut again there are two more considerations that must bepared to our own one square foot example above. This is be-stumbled into the earth-sheltered greenhouse and cold-sinkpare it to that of a typical above-ground greenhouse of simi-into wood. We were told it was a common practice amongLet's go back to our beat unit method to calculate thestumbled upon the "cold-sink" concept which was to make mystring beans, corn, pickled beets, peppers and, of course, thebob string visually aligned with the edge of the post. We doground. This is another old-time farmeryou'd be taking up prime growing space. That way you'd beProlog to a happy discoveryopening the hole to work on them? If you were to avoid that,farmers for their fence posts, and they only stopped whenIn the case of the grow hole the ratio is reversed. TheBut where were the fresb winter greens? A prettythe way around because we usually tamp with shovel handlescome up with -162 heat units.things about the concept that looked like they could be im-reinforced with chicken wire and Y. inch rebar

of the cold-sink was a door and was a -10.plants. That way I would have headroom. And with a growedges which may rip the polyethylene. We have previouslyearth is pressed against it during backfill. Then we dig holesmoist sand. Radishes, too, I discovered, would keep in moisthere is what I recall:improvement.pea plants, waist high in a row of similar plants in my garden,25nique that had been used by farmers in cold country for morethe roots and the trapped air in the space above.A grow

fair and objective here, and to try to head off protests by advo-you'd have to work the plants from inside the structure.and it is warmed passively by the heat of the earth . This



we used on the hillside greenhouse.can 't remember all the details, but I do recall that my trans-units, making it now +207 minus -76.begin to shake when none others were. Was it the wind? Then.\mer was doubtless the result of being buried often and also re-

ing the plants as tbeyrays tended to glance off like a rock skipping over water. I10 mil. thick - excepting when we use multiple garbage bagsgrowing season. I was also able to harvest some greens inhole as a dumpingThe Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book+24, while its west wall was 2'x5' for a + 10. The east wallthe end of the post that is to go into thesand. Apples, if they are "keeper apples", will over-winterThen there was the problem of what would happen ifsun when it was low in the sky and in the morning and eve-

than four hundred dollars I was able to permanently triple mywould be considerably larger. It would be a "structure". It17Setting these posts is pretty much a two-person opera-or so early for subsequent transplanting into the garden whenNone of the others were quaking . I stood and pondered thisof most of the42beautifully. Otbers were having success keeping beets, pars-A grow-hole allows you to plant garden plants a month,holes must be large enough to accommodate shovel handles allThis greenhouse had the additional benefit of the earthCorrect tamping is an acquired skill and the most misun-keeps it from stacking back up and covering the plants again.bas over the grow-hole. The hoops have tbeir place. Elliott24 The grow-hole concepttious gardening work deserved more reward than that. [be-season a month or more. Before electricity and central heatclude that a grow-hole is up to eight times more effective thanthick. In our construction we generally use material that is 6 to

5. By storing heat in the surrounding earth, a grow-holewarmed by the sun all day and radiated the heat back into thewhere the earth has lost a lot less heat than tbat on the surfacethat J would need to shore up a grow-bole if I was going to im-Which means it would no longer be a grow-hole now butheadache and requested another assignment.) And there isThe coldest air is removed from the plants passively,pitcb tbe roof, we would get 202' of exposed surface for a -202.losing growing space against both of those walls.greenhouse by night.43

minus 2 for a vent. That would be 38, then. The east andtending the growing season .method, we did some experimenting. One was to



Coleman has had good effect using them inside his above36 The first cold sink greenhousebranch of Scotland's famed Findhom community in the earlycases we think the better move is to berm earth out there,pany executives and other rascals may protest that a lengthy 20-will be radiating heat from the earth's depths plus the suo's

could easily double the heat loss from an above-ground green-model. It would be a super deluxe grow-bole. And if a guyHere's the story of what I fmally achieved near the Ca-protecting tbe posts where they are in contact with the earth.heat which has been absorbed near the surface during the day.whicb extended four inches out the top. Weto guesstimate. During the discussion before of the grow-holefind it.for the above-ground greenhouse. Our earth-sheltered green-efficiency of tbis earth-sheltered, solar greenhouse and com-theless.

plants which wereis 318 heat units to the better compared to a similar above-themselves. One was that the depth of the walls shaded thebing.like ten degrees. What that wind does to you it does toThough tbis problem would lessen as the sun elevated in themade indoor starts practical, it was a real boon to the gardener.That means that this simple, earth-sheltered greenhouse33ing. Wouldn't that bum the plants?FINAL SCOREpicked their own leaves to test.astounded me by making coleslaw from garden cabbage shegetting tired of seeing my hard work go up in frost. Severalthought to be salting with ascorbic acid the samples being soil, and the top foot is growing space for plants. It isHeresky towards summer, there would still be no sun there duringhouse gets an additional -15 wind scrubbing units for a total of- say if you wanted to leave some of the seedlings in the pitvs. hoop and plastic method we gave a -I unit for the five sur-

miserably folks have failed to appreciate earth sheltering .glazed by simply laying a window down on the ground span-factored in. The first is that the earth in our eartb-sheltered$&1 gophers were happy.hole drilled in the post bottom. This is the methodThe Eanh-Shellcred Solar Greenhouse Book 29the above-ground system.40 The first cold sink greenhousestunned.TRADITIONAL ABOVE GROUNDWhen the sun goes down, the five surfaces rearing above

increased till the entire plant disappeared into the earth! I wasof the heat from the sun 's rays.The concept is simple: you construct a post and beam



house over the loss ofa still-air night. Ne'er-do-wells, oil com-Now I'm not a mathematician or a scientist, and this ising problem, too. But it would no longer be the economywinter - but once is enough. The plants need only freeze onceThen we wrap the cooled, charred ends in plastic gar-later read that if the degree is great enough from perpendicu-

volved soaking or otherwise impregnating stovepipe creosoteof surface area on the two sides and top, or a 2/60 ratio. Ln ourthose early years (all right, I didn't have a place at all - I wasanyway, and the top foot of earthen walls would be held inhave to work lying down or sitting bent forward. But if youuse it on both the walls and roof of our houses. For one of theThe Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book 19I discovered the winter pleasure of borne canned peas,total plus of 32 more units to the earth-sheltered green--6/+ 1.ter-inch of charcoal over all the area that is

ate a situation in which a grower might want to put a single- blocking at least half of the sun - and I was spending pre-The grow-hole was not a success for me that year. Igarden soil. There were other tricks like making tea fromhaps 6 to 8 inch depth then compacted to perhaps half that be-tamped around the post must go in small increments, of per-insulate it, cover the insulation with polyethylene and themature did not produce and, in fact, did not survive. The for-A grow-hole is far more efficient at keeping the seedlingsWhat I finally decided was to dig a trencb along thethis, and it is this simple: The coldest air, which would sinkSubtract a +40 for the heat arising from tbe earthen floor, and weceiving too much shade from the walls. The latter had manybed just three foot across, soutb to north, I could work all theditional -20% is probably quite small, we are going to use itCompare the two systems in their relationship to the airout of most of the wind avoids most of the wind scrub-CHAPTER 4And there was a -2 for that vent we mentioned. All together,The seedlings were taking a beating each time this hap-fice. We have taken care before charring to make sure to cut

mile-per-hour wind is rare and might only happen once in aThe Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book 37where there is a need to temporarily shelter long rows of crops.•the months when it would be most beneficial.place by the roots of the grass surrounding the pit. It soundedwould move the glazing a foot or two away from the growto go two to two-and-a-half feet into theThe first cold-sink greenhouse26More problems: We still have the shade factor caused

could be up to l4 times more effective in sheltering plants thanbedded longer, perhaps for the season. So that was my firstincomplete combustion of wood. Not many critters, mi-



hold it with one hand while scraping in the earth with a shovel18young Seventb Day Adventist cook in my favorite restaurantthis first experiment, but these will be close enough: theabove-ground walls each had 8 sq. ft of glazing for a -16.the plants. That may have been the year that I saw one of my

cates of the above-ground systems. We gave you that oneThe Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book 41must stretch beyond the string to acco=odate the shovel han-The grow-hole conceptand on a slant on thenow, is what could be called the "Chariprove the pitch this way. Vague memory recalls that tbe sec-tal square feet. That's 40 square feet of horizontal surfacederstood part of post setting. The earth to be backfilled andarea. Clearly, I was going to have to shore everything up.not sink the posts into tbe earth at all, but to set

for tamping of course - as long as they do not have sharpstructure in an excavation and, before backfilling, you protectr did and it worked. I put the potatoes in sacks or inhippy days. Cold this be an acid flashback? Had I suddenlythe other which is on the surface. A reasonable guess is tbat itcause in a 20' hoop row there is only one square foot of above-,we anticipated from the start.2. There is littleless than that. I did not repeat the experiment a second year.Chapter 2neighbors, to cover tbe tomato plants at nigbt in dread of theground for tbe earththe grow-hole so we can add another plus unit there. Thenfor reason of comparison factors we have to add +41 moretraditionalwould also give morePost/ShoringfPolyetbylene, or P/SfP, is the method wehouse, raising its score to + 148 and the comparison finalfrom the excavation which we piled behind the north wall./.:r--

would find yourself cramped by the low glazing there. You'dto see if the plumb is off. If a person is using milled lumber,I' ll take you through my thought process, fumbles, di scover-penta and diesel oil solution. When we came to our sensesOne supposed old-time method we were told about in-I didn't have either electricity or a place with central heatabout five surfaces - add another two plus units. And, finally,at a time, pulling the surplus to the sides, then wrapping itof what under-greens fresh from the garden nine or ten or even twelvebegins the backfilling. Because of the irregular surface of un-

CHAPTER 3excavation to tbe northcover long rows of plants, for the sake of illustration let's cre-



decomposition of the fresh horse manure.one square foot example above the ratio was 2/3 or 40/60. Ifsituation.P/S/P construction38 The fi rst co ld sink greenhousedown. Poorly-set fence posts

fore the next course is scraped or shoveled in. On a post sunkmethods of post preservation.donnant January garden a volunteer crop of green and ediblePost and beam itself is simple. You set posts that havebuildings and above-ground greenhouses also. Beingroots in her family's root cellar. Not prime stuff to be sure,milled trees, the easiest way we ' ve found to check plumb is byTne Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book 35push both the post and pier into the structure a bit,And there was thc problem of just where a guy was toreplaced after ten or twelve years. In the $500 Underground

slipped the post down over the rebar via a 'I.-inchWe have progressed througb a number of methods foradvantages which we will mention soon that the hoop metbodto grow after transplanting. Or if you were late in transplant-34position himself to work on the plants. If you utilized thearethe principle upon which this book is based.proved upon. One was the pitch of tbe glazing. If you are los-tle perhaps, but a descriptive one for a sys-Those were problems due to lack of materials andThe Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book 31than a century. A grow-hole consists of a pit two to three feet..ground greenhouse.1980's. (In fact [ was put to work in that greenhouse when thenips turnips, onions, garlic, squash, and pumpkins, tbougbers and farmers straddle the plants with hoops stuck in thegrowing space forground surface area on each end proportionate to the 60 sq. ftwe had one that was 5'x8 ' with 6' walls witb a one-foot rise to

,Imethod of fence post preservation. Char-adding heat or +40 energy units. The back, or north, wallgrating from the ultraviolet rays. Within a half hour 1 had athe advantages ofI. It is down outcious time blowing and shaking and washing off as mucb as Inot a million-dollar researcb study, but it would seem to me aAlmost immediately I had gopher problems. This was toeffect of wind scrubbing on the hoop unit so we can probablywhy weren't any of the other plants shaking? Earthquake?

tions. When the concrete set, we removed thetwo hoops into the ground a little more than a foot high at rightstorm window used as glazing. I patched as best as I could



The fi rst cold sink greenhouseto rest on tbe highest part of the mound to the north. That":...------garbage bag system" - not an intriguing ti-ning across the bole and packing loose dirt around the edges.negative units on the hoop method, incidentally, when com-

my sanity. I was just a couple of years up from my Californiacase: It was only moderately successful at best, maybe evenies and successes one by one. And I'll tell you how you (andSo that's what I built. 1 didn' t realize at the time that I'dground greenhouses, and [ saw this used in a greenhouse at aorganic greens for pennies, and need not reinvent the wheel,our disappointment we were never able tohole traps, utilizes and stores the heat generated by themake my land payments to weed and water properly; that theminus 16 units. We'll see in Chapter 16 that we are dubi-and plastic system, a common method today of protecting

Gophers and my poor results aside, there were a couple ofsince, for the glazing to have a reasonable pitcb, it would haveplants. This shocked the seedlings on cold days. No way tobut still edible and organically grown. I learned that if a guyable to drastically cut down loss from predators. This was allSboring would solve the #@%$&! gopher earth dump-first killer cold, then finding that I was only extending tbethen notch girders into them for floor joists and rafters.It would be nice after that big build-up for grow-boles to...,.", .Hgood in theory. But the end result was the gophers discoveredond year I actually got a new bole dug and the earth piled toshould be as simple asHAnd we have forgotten that the horse manure is adding beat toThe grow-hole in practicenadian border in a North Idaho mountain valley. For lessbe able to report my roaring success, but, alas, that is not theachieved without any energy other than my labor, the warmthfor this. They' d be taking them off the house in the spring

(l0'x I2 ') $50 Underground House - we soaked the posts in aafter the charring. We char them over aEPDM, the artificial rubber swimming pool and containmentbegan (a) immediately crumbling into the grow area and (b);1----',- ,lar floor space. I can ' t remember the exact measurements ofbrought in for testing - till the lab technicians went out andand what we are using on our structuresthe lumber siding (shoring) from the damp of the earth with adeep in which the bottom six to twelve inches has been back-And there is the wind scrubbing factor. This is a toughie

.,'correct it, or at leastthemselves. Polyethylene comes in rolls of various sizes. We



"Gophers," they said.covering my seedlings and throwing the earth out of the grow-thegreenhouses four-season successes. The cold-sink concept ispoly with several inches of earth. That could tum thoseseedlings and sometimes mature plants. This is when garden-

CHAPTERSadding heat. Since there is only one unit losing heat, it is arate times during the post-setting process. If large amounts ofplanted seedlings were spindly, and that the plants I left in tofriends told me about the grow-hole concept. This is a tech-No doubt many of the old-time farmers used storm windowsanyway, thereby squashing the hysteria of critics. We add an-polyethylene. We use five bags as a rule, but put them on onehouse projects the smaller, white garbage pail liners might suf--91 units. The fmal math then reads like this:been protected from the earth in some way into the ground,

COLD-SINK GREENHOUSE: +116 HEAT UNlTSlayer of polyethylene.-11+5 unit situation.staked out the site with batter boards, and run string to informsince there is five times more surface area receiving and stor-to keep squeezing the air out of the bags so not to have anystrong in natural vitamin C tbat autbor Ewell Gibbons waslem with the hoop method - score another.)boxes or bins up off the ground and the carrots in pails ofmade of, only garbage bags are usually just 1.2 millimetertrapped on sunny days.was not going to faU back in. The result was [ was daily un-The Eanh-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book 3944 P/S!P constructionearth behind the wall pushes in hard enough toMy quest to extend the growing season began when

jthe loose earth wouldn ' t of its own stand in vertical walls, itIn the original $50 Underground House we hadn't protected-242 units -91 unitsthen, this first earth-sheltered greenhouse had a score of

pened, of course. Their leaves were coated with dust and mudbackfilling and tamping, but stopping to check every so often+40 units. The nortb wall of the heat sink was 3'x8' for agrowing bed at all.dried strawbeny leaves. These brew into a beverage soof the sun and the warmth of the earth. How I pondered andwhen wrapped with clear polyethylene glazing. Let's say thatthe ground. I stood there, mouth agape. I began to questionimprove upon it? ThatCOLD-SINK GREENHOUSEfilled with fresh horse manure, the middle is a layer of grow-

warmer throughout the night and during cold days than is that ofseason a couple of weeks at best. Many hours of conscien--32



ll last most all winter."this has you confused, skip over it. We're merely trying to beWhere these are not available, a guy couldwas supposedly related in one of the Foxflfe books, but toIf we call each heat-losing square foot a minus one unit andgreens in the spring before you can even think of working

through the course of a night or cold spell, and we're talkingLet's compare for a minute grow holes with the hooping the sun's warmtb at any given moment of sunsbine, weglazing on it. Thispiling tbe dirt from thegone through the looking glass with Alice? What was goinggrow bed was 3'x8' for 24 sq. ft. The floor of the cold-sink•..:i!.t -angles to each other so that they form four sides and a topwild winter cress. And you can count on wild dandelionby the low pitch of the sun blocked by depth of the south wall.

as in the illustration. To avoid this, the post mustthe second person standing back and sighting down a plumba three-foot hole with-camping at first), and a grow-hole made a lot of sense as a wayThis was back in the early ' 70s, now, and memory dims, buteach heat-adding a plus one unit, we see we have a -5/+ I unitface. They could instead just shove it horizontally out theirnot all of these are root cellar material.27hole, doing much of the gopher's work for them.score to a win of + 350.A grow hole looks like this:was going to be filled up with horse manure and growing soill"![south wall in the shaded area to stand in while working on thefive -I units. That is probably quite low. Seems to me a 20-required either longer and wider glazing or smaller grow space-42for a greenhouse catastrophe. Now despite the fact that the ad-and the earth. Though the hoop system is generally used toutility on factory farms, where tractors do the cultivating and

Finally, you had to open the grow-hole to work on theHow would a conventional 40 sq. ft greenhouse score? Ifplants by just reaching. I would never have to get up in thethe glass was horizontal to the ground, much of the sun'sous about such glazing in northern climates. In many20had pulled up months before and hung upside down by its+40add another negative unit to that method, making it -6/+ 1.in humans and animals on cold, windy days. It is whatThe rest of the minus units? Well, there was the south

the trench where it is warmed by the earth behind the walls.4. Similarly, a grow hole traps, utilizes and stores muchoff any sharp edges or protruding limb stubs that could tear the



crobes included, want to eat creosote-laced charcoal.I did not repeat my grow hole experiment the next year.46 P(SfP constructionversion - had just dugNo, they weren't eat-What we came up with in the end,

was lucky and the snow melts, he can sometimes find in hisNot only did it eliminate any wind scrubbing against that"other additional -40 units to the -202 for a total of -242 thenpond liner.land for the posts and peel them first.I had met the enemy and he was #%$&! gophers.time. Other problems, design problems, began presenting"hinging". This is when the pressure from themoderates somewhat the effect of excessive heatthe factors, but think also the #%@&! gophers finally found

WINS BY 318 HEAT UNITSwould be soon in mywill add 25 per cent more heat per square foot than the other. So28 The grow.hole in practice30 The grow.ho]e in practice3. A grow-bole utilizes the heat stored in the depths ofdles.guy migbt speculate reasonably that the sunken grow-holefaces combined, or an additional minus 20% for each of thea two-step process. The first step is to charWe call itHouse - whicb was an addition whicb tripled the original tinyNote: The earth-sheltered, cold-sink greenhouse calcu-ring hardens the wood. [t also creates itstwo house roof layers, however, we are now beginning to usethe two. The soutb wall, the cold- sink wall, was 5' x8' for asquare foot example only to stun you into realization of howwould be, in fact, a greenhouse.they no longer had to shove the earth uphill and out on the sur-gan a personal quest to find a passive, low-cost way of ex-;~

they were no longer heating with wood. This informationto the otherwise lowest spot, the growing bed, now spills intoyears in a row I'd scurried along, same as my gardeningSun low in the sky presented another problem: sincebe the first of decades of struggle with those #@%$&! demons.The pier method bas a built-in flaw whicbbegan using the grow-ning. Score one for the hoop and plastic method.the north and slanted on the east and west sides and that, sinceplant, say a tomato start, under protection. Let's say he insertsworked against the north wall where there was head room,

pay to solve some of the other problems at the same time?west walls of the growing bed were each 2 ' x3 ' or a + 12 forkind of a trapped bubble that could pop the poly when the



doing the reading is satisfied with the plumb, he begins thebe braced from the inside of the structure. This is a hasslethere is the fact that since the grow-hole is sunken it is downwas going to invest such time and resources, then wouldn't itand not always feasible, so we continued to search for othercauses, I think: the fact that I don 't have a green thumb; that I

when backfilling. A number of other implements may be usedall right as far as it goes, but, trouble is, it does not go very far.this from two directions, say the north and east. When the guyout siding it off with anything - figuring that the lower portiongrow-hole.The Ean h-Shcltercd Solnr Greenhouse Book 45-202 units +1 16 unitsWhen I described this phenomenon later to my friendsand no longer were willing to use that poison~sbould add a final two plusses, bringing the score to -1 /+ I0 vs.

call "wind scrub-'L_--;,:them lip on concrete piers that we had previouslyanyway.sun was shining and the air reeked of the polyethylene disinte-me on to beef and venison jerky, and gave me home dried ap-lar you can lose up to 95% of the rays. (This is not a prob-to start a garden early. So of course I made one.greenhouse, being below ground level, is going to be appreciablybage bags, usually the full-sized black ones, though for green-use three 2x6's nailed or screwed togethergarden. Instead, theywith either posthole diggers or shovels and set the posts. Thedid begin to crumble and they began leaving gaps around thePolyethylene is the stuff your plastic garbage bags arecould, and neitber the plants nor I were happy. Only the #@%can make a day with a thirty-degree temperature seemmile-per-hour wind for any length of time on a 25-degree nightface, wbich was a glazed 8'x6' for a -48 . The east and westThe Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book 23ple slices.

with a twelve-month fresh harvest. Simultaneously I wastem that has worked well for us so far. It'sground over which they stretch polyethylene. This system isMy second improvement came wben it became obviousphenomenon till I saw that the plant was beginning to sink into+40 units +207 unitsaround the post. We tape them in several places and take caremight wish to keepthe earth. It radiates up, warming both the soil aroundwas 5' high x8' wide, giving us an additional +40 heat units,ends into heat sinks and give a + 16 instead of a -16 for a

Among several other advantages, this eliminates the need forshaded area against the south wall - the logical place - youthe protected growing surface beneath is also one square foot.



with boards and earth, but cold air was seeping through none-(x2)ground will be losing heat while the growing surface belowthe roots of the plants reached the fresh horse manure belowown creosote, for creosote, we are told, is the product of thepoured concrete footings.

the posts at all and tbey, of course, rotted out and had to bethe hoop and plastic method. But wait. We have forgotten thesides then resting thein the other, inverting it and tamping with the handle.was 2'x8' or an additional 16 sq. ft for a total of 40 horizon-Tbis is not to knock the hoop system. There are a few2' to)' in the ground, earth might be added six to twelve sepa-GREENHOUSE: - 202 HEAT UNlTS"bad built the economyBut wouldn't it be nice to have home-grown, organic

and mentors they smi led ruefully and shook their heads.poured in greased 6-inch or 8-inch stove pipe sec-the danger of frost has passed. [t can thus extend the growingwarm and it is important to understand why, for it illustratesThe long rows do cut down proportionately on some of thetunnel with no care whatsoever about where it went, because itmonths of tbe year instead of one to three months? I wasLike how about the problem of chilling the plants whenwind.+ 164 and -76 heat units. That's 88 heat units to the plus.tion. One holds the post while the other sees ifit is plumb andthe four sides and top each have an area of one square foot andwas pretty new to gardening; that I was too busy working tosay 6x6s, he might be able to tape two levels to the post andlated here has glazing on the east and west walls, totalingconcept is a tale in itself. So that you may have year ' roundA second problem quickly manifested itself: the sidesI) can have even more grati fying successes in the future.22 The grow-hole concept32from their tunnels. I

ing significant growth rays because of the pitch, then why notstove pipe for the next pouring. The concrete was21Above ground Earth-sheltered

led rue sho

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