My primary interest was for the solar pod design for winter growing. I was very disappointed.
I expected the designer/consultant to have tested his designs with some temperature measurements of air and soil, inside and out for some months. With that data I could extrapolate for my climate. The authors provide only max-min air temperature data for two days in mid March. I expected comparison data to a conventional cold frame, perhaps with a night time cover, but there is none. I also expected some seasonal performance data for the solar cones, say compared to cheaper wall-o-water devices or paper cloches, but again there is no testing, only vague glowing self appraisal mixed with 70's style solar philosophy.
While the curved pods are attractive looking, they have some serious solar design issues for winter use (glazing angle vs sun angle), and thus despite the book cover, the pods are only spring/fall extenders. The book says they started seeds on Feb. 20th, the two days in March shown with 48/22F and 40/10F max/mins. The insulated pod had lows of 36 and 34; could likely result in dormant growing conditions unless soil conditions are much better. Soil temperature is very important, but no data was given, not even for these two days. These two days of max-min air temperatures for the pod (with and without the angel hair insulation) was the only performance data I could find in the whole book.
The pods are not cheap. It's currently $265 for just the glazing for one 4x8 unit! I think most people would be better served with a plastic film design, perhaps with properly sloped south side, insulated north. Since you're outside and it's just a cold frame, the usual green house problem of stench of hot plastic would not be an issue.
The barrel used inside the pod for water-thermal storage is only shown once in a prototype but never discussed. We must assume it did not work (?) Again, it seems collecting some temperature data is too much trouble.
The angel hair insulation is original and very interesting, but there is zero information on it's light transmission except for aforementioned two days in March which shows a significant reduction of the high temperature- good for warm sunny days, bad for cloudy colder ones. The pods also lack any sort of automated cooling; which on a suddenly warm fall or spring afternoon can result in serious crop loss in just a few hours. Unless you want to be a slave to your cold frames, some sort of automated cooling scheme is essential. If you just lift the whole pod, you lose any protection from rabbits/rodents/squirrels, and then must resort to murder and mayhem.
The "American Intensive" method promoted just means saving space for walk ways around beds, in exchange for having to tend the garden perched on planks over the bed boxes. Perhaps this makes sense for young limber folks with good balance and with no space. Put another 10 years on the authors and they'll "invent" raised beds.
There is some good general gardening info, if that's what you were after. The writing style is enjoyable.
The book is very well edited and is professionally published. It is being professionally promoted as something it is not ("Growing Vegetables Year-Round" is the misleading subtitle), and it is sorely lacking in good solar design information and performance data.
