My Solar Pit Greenhouse Failure | Construction and DIY projects | Forums

I have always been a fan of Mike Ohler, who isn't? He wrote The 50 Dollar and Up Underground House Book.

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He also authored The Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse.

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The last book was part of my motivation to try my hand at building my own Pit Greenhouse. I had researched all over the internet for info and found a video on youtube of a interview with Mike Ohler in his greenhouse, I was pretty stoked to see that.

So after seeing the video, I figured I could handle this.

I had a young man whom I consider a son bring down his tractor to do a little digging.

I was going to modify my design a little and  build a simple A-frame over a 4 foot pit with glass on my southern side. I figured I could walk down into it and start my seedlings and such in there, not really try to grow year round at this point. I had seen a example of this design elsewhere.

 So we proceeded to dig and things were going well until we ran into a little issue. Water.

I thought where we were digging was high enough up from the water table that we would be fine, looks like I was wrong. We ended up digging a four foot wading pool. Never one to get discouraged I decided to utilize my new found source of water and build me a couple of mini wells (I will post more on these later)

So over the next few weeks I got busy with some other projects when the young man  who owned the tractor called me up and said hey, want to see what I have been doing? Sure I replied and hopped in my car and drove over to his house.

I was shocked and amazed when I got out of my car.

His garden area right in front of his greenhouse.

He had salvaged a bulkhead door for entry.

and he had cut all the cedar off his 3 acre property and with a weeks hard work and some plastic sheeting, he made himself a solar pit greenhouse. He said my project had motivated him to try it, I guess it wasn't a failure after all.

I need to find some higher land darn it!