Earth-sheltered greenhouse

I was thinking about trying something interesting for next year. I was planning on digging a bit of a deep hole/trench, about 4 feet deep, putting about a foot of manure and then 6 inches of soil over-top of the manure. Then building a bit of a frame around the hole, and wrapping it in polyethylene or putting plastic sheets or glass on the top. That way, it would work like a small greenhouse, allowing the earth to keep the hole warm, as well as having the decomposing compost producing heat. This could potentially increase my growing season, allowing me to start plants outside earlier. Has anyone tried this, or thought of this? I'll try digging out a spot and uploading pictures next time it warms up for a few days.
Cheers

i tried something similar to that but i failed at digging the hole deep enough.

theoretically it works, it would need ventilation though, and i recommend a pick Axe for pesky roots and rocks

Yeah. I always used to dig pointless holes as a kid, lmfao. I dug a hole that was 6 feet by 6 feet, and like 18 feet deep.

TheFinkler said:

Yeah. I always used to dig pointless holes as a kid, lmfao. I dug a hole that was 6 feet by 6 feet, and like 18 feet deep.

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that doesn't sound fun at all.

My friends and I were strange kids...

me and my pals once done a similarthing to that. we dug down about 6x6 x 4 w and used grave yard panels to box it out with a roof and soil on top. we dug it at the side of his shed and had a trap door from the floor of it to get down into it. it was a pukka!! we used to chong it out proper with joints lol. down side tho was wen it rained. apart from that it was great fun. so yea the answer to that is, it can be done, just abit of hard graft.

Nice. Yeah, when I was like 13 or so my friend and I wanted to just dig a a hole as deep as we could. At first we realized that the hole can only be dug as deep as the shovel, unless you make it big enough to easily stand in and swing the shovel around. It was in a forest near a section of abandoned train tracks, with a pile of those wooden 4 by 4 railroad ties. We used those ties for the frame, and for the roof of the hole. It was intense, I'm going to ask my friend if he still has pictures of it, haha.

sounds like you have an idea
i would use bent rebar for the greenhouse, and incorporate grass clippings to be mixed with compost for more heat.
one downfall is for maximum heat you would want to turn your hot compost mix over quite frequently (twice a week) and heavy pots full of soil could compact your compost too much and slow heat exchange.
i once used a 10" deep bed of grass clippings covered by a mini 2'x2' greenhouse to clone outside in dixie cups full of No4 sunshine mix.
surprisingly enough, we got 60% success!

all in all you have a good idea but i would try and elevate the pots above the compost so it dosent pack too hard, and so you dont cook any plants accidentally. (i burned my hand in composting hay )

good luck!

Yeah, I live in Canada, and I'm just so anxious, trying to think of ways to start my outdoor grow earlier. I'm just looking for a cheap way to extend my guerrilla growing season.

When I was a kid we dug a deep hole in the ground in the middle of our front yard. My younger brother and his friend helped too, and boy did we dig that hole deep. We dug so far down that we couldn't see the bottom and had to climb a rope ladder down to dig. Taking turns, my brother, his friend and myself dug nonstop in search of evil Chinese people. One night after a hard day of digging, my brother and I became bored with our hole and decided to cover it up to make room for a space to play touch football. We kicked the rope ladder in and covered the top of our hole with plywood. It was a fun time in my childhood, but the funeral for my brothers friend was pretty sad. He must have ran off not long after we stopped digging and got kidnapped or something. We were kinda mad when we found out he took our shovel tho.

its called a "Hot House" and they are used in cold places like Alaska so that people can garden through the winter

Yeah, the idea was kinda inspired by this book. http://www.undergroundhousing.com/greenhouse_book.html

It works first recorded in use during the middle ages AFAIK, I was going to do it, but researching my area showed I can grow year round.

Actually i live in the northeast US and was considering the exact same thing. However i got shot down due to the lack of stability in saturated soil, the amount of attention a small greenhouse in the woods would get from air/ground, and the general difficulty of the project itself. Please post some pictures!!

TheFinkler said:

Yeah, the idea was kinda inspired by this book. http://www.undergroundhousing.com/greenhouse_book.html

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that is a realy good and intresting bit off info there mate. thanks for that. when u get it going dont forget to share ur progress with us. perk

Yolkamotive said:

Actually i live in the northeast US and was considering the exact same thing. However i got shot down due to the lack of stability in saturated soil, the amount of attention a small greenhouse in the woods would get from air/ground, and the general difficulty of the project itself. Please post some pictures!!

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i think that wouldnt get much attention at all to be honest. i think that would blend in quite well inbetween the trees.. i love the idea and like the whole concept of it all is great.

perkie said:

i think that wouldnt get much attention at all to be honest. i think that would blend in quite well inbetween the trees.. i love the idea and like the whole concept of it all is great.

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Thank you! its just well a 5 by 5 by 6ft deep hole would be quite a project haha. Plus i dont know what i would do with all the dirt!

it will be hard work.. huh! i remember the hole we dug!! hehehe. there was a few of us to so defo at least 4 off ya to make it abit easy. with the dirt tho, i would just spread it about over the woods.

How much roughly do u think it would all cost?