Idea: hugelkultur in greenhouse with RMH exhaust?

I have searched but cant seem to get a clear answer. So here I go...! My thoughts were taking Paul's Picture of the Hugelkultur bed and putting a greenhouse over it! Why not combine a "true" Hugelkultur Bed with a Greenhouse and have the exhaust of a Rocket Mass Heater(RMH) go into the greenhouse after heating up my house? Is this even practicle? I know a RMH exhaust is great for plants, and is already being put into greenhouses, but why not have the best of everything and put your garden bed inside of the greenhouse so you can have food all year long as I live in ohio and winter is not a fun time for plants? Would the gasses coming from the breakdown of the Hugelkultur bed be too much for a Greenhouse? Is there a way to capture any of the gasses and "reuse" this for something else? Any thoughts, suggestions would be great!

I suppose they say the gas is good for plants due to its co2 content, this isnt so good for humans.

The russians would sometimes put smokehouse on the exhaust of russian stove and use the smoke to cure meats.

I recorded a podcast with ernie and erica on why it is a terrible idea to route RMH exhaust into a greenhouse.

I also started a massive thread here on permies called "greenhouse suck factor" making it clear that i don't like greenhouses.

It is possible that the gasses from the hugelkultur bed breaking down could be problematic, but I think it won't be too bad. I have, in the past, advocated against heating a greenhouse with a compost pile in the greenhouse.

I think if you are going to build a greenhouse, then the smartest thing to do is use Oehler's design. And if you put some wood in the bed - hugelkultur style, I think that would be an improvement.

RMH exhaust has a lot of CO2 in it. CO2 is heavier than air, so it will sink. If dogs, cats or poultry get in there, they will die first. Humans, being taller, will last longer, and just pass out...laying on the floor, where the CO2 will displace the oxygen in the lungs. Slow and painless death. "Good night".

If your doing it Make sure that you have better than adequate ventilation. If It's attached to the house be proactive about pest control; fly paper, beer traps, DE, cleanliness, everything.

Here is an idea that I gave someone on here that is using it. Create a greenhouse attached to the house. What he did was knock out the walls and ceiling to an enclosed porch and created a greenhouse that was open to the interior house. A bigger version than a lean-to greenhouse but the same concept. That way all of the space is heated with an RMH. You won't be able to do the full hugelkultur but you will be able to grow plants during the Ohio winters.

As has been mentioned. Probably not a good idea to exhaust any kind of woodstove directly into your greenhouse. however I don't see an issue with routing the chimney through in order to pick up some heat exchange. As far as the greenhouse suckage factor - mostly that is put out by folks who can't for whatever reason get things to grow in greenhouses. There's this guy some of you folks may know called Elliot Coleman who seems to think they are a pretty dandy idea. Certainly I've had no problems with our greenhouse with the exception of a snow collapse one season while we were out.

Perhaps it's the user and not the tools that is at fault?

in Michigan I have a super tiny little greenhouse that I use year around...we heat with an outdoor wood furnace and the pex runs underground to our house and our son's house from the furnace.
we put the greenhouse above where the pex comes out of our furnace about 6' away...and the pex runs about a foot below the surface of the ground or a little more.

Right now in my greenhouse I have some tomato plants finishing up, have lots of greens from mixed lettuce and other greens as well as swiss chard that grows lovely in the greenhouse year around...I let some swiss chard go to seed in there and it really is doing well. I also have a rosemary in there that survives our Michigan winters in a shady corner of the greenhouse where it is a bit drier than the rest of the greenhouse.

I do understand Paul's no greenhouse reasons, but for us here in Michigan it is a really great thing to have. Our greenhouse has an automatic roof vent that opens when the thing gets too warm on a sunny day..and I love it (it was a alum/double wall construction prefab deal at just under $1000 we bought over 20 years ago and have moved it several times, it is on a 4x4 base with rebar into the ground to keep it stable) you can see it in my blog..address below

Could someone post up a link to the greenhouse sucks thread - I'd like to take a read to figure out what folks object to




Never mind - found it. My search skills leave a lot to be desired

BTW the other thing IMHO that would be worth looking into would be cold and hot frames. One of our local friendly riding stables has said I can take the truck over to pick up a few loads of rotted muck. So I'm going to give hot frames a go for next season.

McLeod Jeff wrote:Could someone post up a link to the greenhouse sucks thread - I'd like to take a read to figure out what folks object to




Never mind - found it. My search skills leave a lot to be desired

Could you post that please? Oh, there it is! (Green building section)

Not quite a hugel bed but I did use straw bales under my growing beds in my newest greenhouse. I essentially created a pit greenhouse without any excavation. I am pleased with the results and will continue to fiddle with the concept. The slump of the beds as the bales deteriorated was problematic, a true hugel bed could have been used and I probably wouldn't have seen the drop in bed height that I experienced with the straw.

Thank you all for the great input! Here we finished the greenhouse and hugelkultur bed! We built a Polytunnel and dug a 4ft wide by 7ft hole and piled large and small pieces of rotted and fresh wood inside. Some pieces had mushrooms growing on them already! We then placed all the dirt over the wood to make our first but certainly not last hugelkultur bed! Now we are going to be building a RMH inside the greenhouse and plant some Organic Veggies!! Any ideas on cold hearty plants we can start inside here? We live in Zone 6, Southern Ohio. Thanks! Let us know what you think! This will be our veggie supplier in the winter!

hi to everyone the thread is old but the title got to me on one point on which I am thinking about from sometime. I don't love polytunnels but wanting to put up a farm that will have to sell at local markets I'll need it. then I would use the polytunnel even as a nursery.
anyway, my thoughts were is it possible to put a hugelkultur in a polytunnel? and you came up with thread.
My biggest doubt is polytunnels risk to be very dry in summer and if you have plants inside tou have to water them quite a bit, of course it depends on where you live. Hugelkulturs rot and suck up water as a sponge, that keeps the soil on top of the wood moist and plants love it, I'm putting it really simple. how much water would you have to put on a huglkultr in a polytunnel to make in start to rot an be a sponge? it won't harvest water form the sky it's closed in a tunnel. what have you observed? how is it going?
so my thought was why not have a ditch that goes under the side, or front, of the polytunnel and fill it with wood like if it were a hugelkultur bed, not mound, that lies across the side of the polyutunnel. the wood that passes under the side of the polytunnel then grows in to a hugelkltur mound type. could we assume that the connection with the outside wood that gets water from the sky, covered with soil and used as a bed may even keep the inside hugelkultur mound wood moist?
that i guess would reduce the amount of water we would have to give to the wood. it will probably start slow but could get going well.
what do you think, could it work?
I've just thought about it and don't have drawn anything