Customer Reviews

The Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have fallen in love with this book because it is the answer to most of my greenhouse problems. I was concerned about building an above ground greenhouse due to the fact that I would have to run electricity to the building to heat/cool it. The earth berm concept is so painfully smart am left wondering why more people don't practice this? This book also solved my problem of a location for vermiculture and where to house the chickens I am soon to get for the winter. In order to get a better handle on construction methods I also bought the author's other book ($50.00 and up undgerground house) but if you are a little familiar with construction you'll do fine with this one. A must buy right now due to the need for sustainable living!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I ordered this book on the recommendation of Rob Roy. By the time you finish reading this book, you will like Mike Oehler. The book is well written and very entertaining -- especially the gopher stories. While entertaining, though, there's just not a lot of meat here. The contents, without the humor, could have been boiled down to a technical paper. If the price was one third what it is, that would not bother me. I have yet to see most of this information anywhere else (but it might be I'm not looking hard enough). For the price, I expected a lot more. You gotta' spread the love to those gophers.

The first thing that strikes me about this book is the extremely low quality of production. The second thing that grabs my attention is the $25 price tag - for a soft cover book with 230 pages and very few photos. The photos it does have are of extremely poor quality and half of them are from the 70's. On page 183, the author describes himself as "an irresponsible, frequently-intoxicated hippy". With the price he is charging for the book, be must be drinking Chateau Lafite. I have to take away 1 star for price gouging.

Having said that, the author seems to be just about the only person around advocating earth-sheltered greenhouses. The concept is simple and I have to wonder why it's not more common. In fact, it's so simple that one only needs to read the article by the author on the Mother Earth News Website. I read that article and found the concept intriguing, so I bought the book, expecting some formal, in-depth research on the subject. All the evidence in the book supporting the concept is from the author's personal experience and vague "recollection". I would like to see some university or professional research on the subject. I am in the market for my first greenhouse, but I'm still undecided after reading this. Take away 1 more star for lack of formal test results.

This book would be very helpful to a strong, able-bodied person who is willing to work pretty hard, not only finding (or buying and paying for) materials, but serious digging as well as doing the building. It probably would be a little easier if two people were working together on it. I, on the other hand, would have to pay someone else to do the work, which probably takes it all the way up to "too expensive" and even if it relies on solar heating and earth's constancy, I could never recover the cost if I grew my own vegetables for 40 years.

If I were 35 years old instead of 75, however, I would enjoy the challenge of doing it myself, perhaps with the help of one of my children.
The book makes sense, and his advice is excellent.

The author has an entertaining writing style, but I was disappointed in the complete lack of any recorded performance data for the design. I also note that he only used the greenhouse for a few years, many years ago. He was thwarted by carpenter ants, rodents and gophers, as you would expect with this construction style of only sheet plastic over buried wood planks which offers little barrier to pests.

Also note that his post and plank shoring construction scheme would not be suitable for many soils, as the author notes. He's working in dense clay which will stand well cut vertically, which is a rarity. In many other soils, both posts (set in dirt with plastic bags over the ends) and shoring would fail. It would also not pass a building inspection anywhere.

The design was not successful in providing growth through the winter, only barely keeping alive cold tolerant plants into the middle of the winter.

The layout is original for a pit greenhouse, but if you are serious in seeking pit/earth sheltered greenhouse design alternatives and information, you'll be disappointed.

Is it possible to garden year round in practically any climate, without using costly fuel for heat and light during the cold season? This seems almost impossible in most areas of the United States. Yet Mike Oehler, the author of the well-known "The $50 & Up Underground House Book," claims that he has figured out a way to do just this.

In Mike's latest book, "The Earth-Sheltered Solar Greenhouse: How to Build an Energy Free Year-round Greenhouse," he explains various experiments that he has made over many decades with digging into the ground to take advantage of the inherent heat retained by the earth. Mike has an inimitable, curmudgeonly and witty style of writing that makes this an enjoyable read.

Gardeners have often made simple "cold frames" to extend the gardening season by surrounding plants with low glazing. This works for awhile, but eventually the cold will get through and the plants will freeze. Mike tried digging a grow hole with glazing over it, and this worked to some extent, but ultimately cold and insufficient light got to his plants.

With Mike's experience living in an underground house he had learned a few things about the way heat and cold behave. He knew that hot air rises and cold air sinks down to the lowest spot available. With this in mind he realized that what the grow hole really needed was a place for that cold air to go so that it didn't freeze the plants. His next experiment was to make a little recessed greenhouse that had a space wide enough to walk in on the south side that was lower than the growing bed. This not only provided a place to stand while working in the greenhouse, but also provided that place for the cold air to reside.

This simple idea is really the basis of Mike's remarkable success in greenhouse gardening. He lives in Idaho, near the Canadian border, where winter gardening is a real challenge, and he claims that with this concept he can keep plants alive year round and extend the growing season many months each year...all without additional energy inputs other than the natural heat from the sun and the earth.

The book goes into much more detail about various ways to accomplish the requirements of his underground greenhouse concept. He discusses ways to provide a framework that can withstand the pressures of the earth on it. Different glazing materials are evaluated. Strategies for retaining more heat in the surrounding ground and for providing sufficient light and ventilation to keep the plants happy are explored.

A surprising area of inquiry is that of companion housing for small critters, such as rabbits, ducks, and chickens, within the greenhouse space. There can be a symbiotic relationship there, where the greenhouse provides a benign habitat, and the animals provide needed fertilizer and carbon dioxide for the plants. They can even eat garden refuse and some insects. Of course all of this has to be carefully managed so that both plants and animals are kept in their places. Mike prefers making a space for rabbits under a walkway in the cold sink, claiming that this is a perfectly natural place for rabbits to thrive; they just need a way to get into the sunlight periodically.

With the companion sheltering for animals and plants, there is the possibility of a system whereby a complete diet of veggies and protein from eggs and meat is possible. This is a survivalist's dream! And all can be arranged within a modest budget and without using fossil fuel inputs.

Mike's book is liberally illustrated with many delightful drawings of plants, insects, and animals, as well as diagrams and photos of his greenhouse concepts. I think anyone with a modicum of carpentry skill could take what is explained in the book and create a solar heated underground greenhouse that would enhance most any homestead.

This is a great book. We have been doing research and looking into this for a while now and this is a fact full book.

The book came quickly and in excellent condition. For now, I am day dreaming as I read it.

Outdated ideas from the mid-70s. It's time to bring this book up to the 21st century. There's a lot of interest in being more self-sufficient and "green." However, unless put on a 100 mile forced march I don't intend to dig a hole in the mountainside and sling a haphazard greenhouse together.