A Christmas Wish
“It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us-the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage-may-eventually be gathered together in heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss-except the inventor of the telephone.” Mark Twain.
Of course, there is a high probability many of you are reading this on a telephone right this moment. It’s crazy how much that invention has changed our lives. I used to fight with my 3 siblings over the one rotary phone with a 6’ cord that hung on the wall next to the roll top desk between the kitchen and the dining room. Talk about no privacy, if you wanted to have a conversation with your friends you had to do so with all the comings and goings of the family, while mom cooked away in the kitchen, no doubt listening in between stirring the pot and checking the oven. The telephone has now all but replaced the family photo album, the computer desktop, the landline, the books we used to stockpile and read, the stereo, heck it even replaced the local record store as now you can get all your music on your phone. I didn’t actually come on here to rant about the telephone, but as the long time readers know I love Mark Twain and that christmas wish, has probably “rung” more true (no pun intended) through the past century then the author even intended.
I did come to wish everyone a Happy Holiday season and to share a brief update on the Climate Battery Greenhouse project. Thanks to the “village” it’s becoming a reality, A generous donor even stepped up and gave to the project, and Joleen’s brother Eric and I spent a long and very cold weekend getting the pipe work done. While we still have a long ways to go, check out the gallery to see the project how the project got underway:
What is a climate battery?
I only briefly touched on the concept of what is a climate battery, so I thought I would take a moment to explain the goals with this concept and what we are hoping to achieve. Often called ‘Poor Mans Geothermal’ the climate battery concept takes advantage of the relatively stable soil temperatures underneath the greenhouse. As you can see in the gallery, we found 51 degree soil temps at 3’ down in late December while the air temperatures were consistently in the high 20’s to low 30’s. While 51 degrees isn’t exactly balmy, that 20 degree temperature difference might be all that is needed to keep the greenhouse frost free as we recirculate the air from the greenhouse through the system of subterranean pipes and manifolds that we have buried. One of the coolest things I found in this research is that there is a 3 month lag between average air temperatures at the surface and down into the soil profile. So that the temperatures we are seeing in December are reflective of the temperatures we saw in September. Using this heat exchange to warm the greenhouse should allow us to keep the greenhouse frost free on all but the coldest of winter nights. As we move into spring and the temperatures in the soil cool, the days grow longer and the greenhouse begins to get perhaps too much solar heating, we can now cool the greenhouse with the same principle. During the warming of spring and into summer, the greenhouse can be cooled with the soil as a buffer. Since the plants I grow are mostly hardy and tough enough to stand our freezing temps, its actually the cooling feature that I am most hoping to achieve. Anyone who survived our 115 degree heat bubble a few years ago knows that the damage it did to plants and especially nurseries growing in pots. It’s economically and probably ethically unfeasible to cool a greenhouse through the summer here, using the traditional methods of evaporative cooling like swamp coolers that basically evaporate water to cool the air. Much too wasteful in the days of climate change, and the water crisis facing the drought stricken west especially. At the time of this writing the snow pack is pretty much non existent so thinking ahead to the impacts that will have on the summer’s irrigation situation throughout Oregon should have every grower thinking about conservation measures. Being able to take advantage of the cool air stored underground in the soil is a terrific way to cool the greenhouse, even if it only brings it down a few degrees it can potentially keep plants growing healthier and happier.
Narcissus cantabricus blooms in the weeks leading up to Christmas with no forcing! They make a perfect Christmas gift!
Just a reminder that our gift cards are available and make an awesome gift to the plant lover in your life throw one in a stocking! If you want to support the climate battery project, buy a gift card! It will help us get through these long winter months and come out ready for springs warmth! Click here to purchase:
With that, Warmest of Christmas wishes and holiday cheer for however you celebrate from Illahe Rare Plants, may the end of this year find you happiness and joy and may next year bring peace on earth!
Happy Holidays,
Mark