Jennifer Price

I am building a passive solar greenhouse and need advice with roof slope. All of the calculators I find use the winter solar elevation at my latitude. However, I want to shut the greenhouse down for the year at the end of Oct and capitalize on an early spring. Our solar elevation is at about 30 degrees on April 1. Can anyone provide a resource to determine roof slope for this elevation? This may be really simple, but it’s a roadblock in my brain.  Thanks!

Does anyone have experience using their greenhouse/ climate battery to grow fruit trees? While some fruit trees and many berries will survive our winter temps, our summer nights are almost always less than 50 F and we have less than 90 days that are frost free. Due to this, very few things have time to fruit.

I've read Forest Garden Greenhouse and seen the citrus greenhouse in Nebraska, however I am not interested in growing tropical fruits and am looking for advice from someone in a similar climate to mine. The plan is to grow trees and berries that would typically withstand our winter and maybe one zone higher, using the greenhouse to allow them to wake up and begin to grow in April, not June, so they would have time to produce. I had almost decided not to use a climate battery, it's just so hard for my brain to wrap around it working in -30 (our spring temps can still drop that low), however after conversing with another poster on this forum, it sounds like it will add some benefit.

I feel like in theory, it should work fine.  I'm just curious if anyone has done something similar with fruit trees and if so what have the problems been that I can avoid and what was successful?

As well, has anyone used phase change materials on their insulated walls and if so what has your experience been?

Thanks!

Thanks, that is a huge help. I actually want to just increase my spring growing season, not necessarily grow year around. While there are many fruiting trees and bushes that can withstand our winter temps, our summer season is less than 90 days frost free and our nights are almost always lower than 50 F, so very few things have time to fruit. The greenhouse is to house in-ground fruit trees and berries that will withstand zone 3/4 winter without input, but will give them an early spring so they have time to fruit. We have incredible winds here, so venting in the spring has been a big concern for me, I'm worried they will immediately break. It sounds like I can use the battery for cooling if I have additional fans, so I won't have to open vents perhaps. Maybe I'll post to see if any one has had success with fruiting trees in doing something like this. Thanks again for your help, I had almost decided not to do the climate battery, but I think it may be the way to go!

Hi Glenn,
I just wondered how the winter went. We are contemplating a climate battery under a new greenhouse build this summer, but we are in zone 3a. I really wonder how it is going to perform in -40 with short, short days. Only about 5 hours of daylight in winter here. TIA.