The Solar Garden Greenhouse: The Design and Construction of a Year-Round Solar-Powered, Carbon-Neutral Greenhouse

The Solar Garden Greenhouse is a description of my journey to research, plan, and build a greenhouse that would work well in Northern Idaho, where we have short summers and hard winters. I explored and researched earth sheltering, insulated foundations, rainwater harvest solutions, and geothermal principles that would allow a successful greenhouse not requiring a high carbon footprint. I developed automated heating and cooling systems that would not require a daily presence (such as by manually opening doors, windows, and/or turning on fans). The book provides a discussion of these considerations and includes a pictorial description of the construction of the greenhouse and assorted systems, as well as a description of how they worked out once built. My hope is to inspire others to continue this journey of finding means and methods to build effective greenhouses without a large carbon footprint and perhaps find further improvements to the solutions I describe. This process has been a labor of love and successful beyond what I could have hoped for.