permaculture

["Kirby Fry" <peace@totalaccess.net>]

Hi Mark,

>>  Could you build it detached but close?  <<

You could, but I'm hoping to capture the warmth from the house and protect
the greenhouse from north winds so that the it doesn't have to have its own
source of heat.  Once separate from the house, heating costs start to really
go up.  Of course, with global warming ever accelerating we may not need a
greenhouse soon.

I've always liked the slab / hydronic heat system but we've already built
the house over our slab and I'd rather have as much of the green house as
possible connected to the bare ground as most of the space would be used for
fruit trees, shrubs and vines rather than say containers or table beds -
though I do intend to propagate quite a bit in the greenhouse.

At least in the design I'm considering the greenhouse is on the outside of
the house where as the earthships put their greenhouses inside the house -
which I think is still a great idea, except for the odor problem my friends
have told me about.

The other trick is that in the summer time it has to be well shaded and
vented to prevent super heating your south side.  I've been thinking of
using as many used sliding glass doors as will fit because they open up so
well, a row of windows high up to exhaust heat and some kind of roll out
tarp like you see attached to the side of an RV.

I also always tell folks that a wick isn't done yet until it's heavily
vegetated and the bio diffuser (into which the gray water enters) has to be
partly above the wick's drain line to keep it partially aerobic.

Kirby