Sunken greenhouse

[SarahParticipant]

We’ve almost completed our greenhouse, based partly on Victorian sunken greenhouses. It’s between 5 and 3ft down straight onto Gault Clay and is 40ft long. It faces due South with horticultural glass & woodframed but the north is completely blocked off and will have a bank of wildflowers. It will be heated passively by water barrels with a hot bed for early spring seedlings, and a rocket stove occasionally which is heating our hot tub primarily.

As a long-time permaculture horticulturalist, incorporating do-dig naturally, this is very exciting!

Preparing the floor has started with a thick layer of wood chip onto the solid clay and we’re putting the chickens in there for winter. They will turn over the chip, mixing it with the rich clay and in a few months the chip will be broken down with added chicken waste. We also mulch all our growing areas with partially rotted hay so will mix some of that in as it breaks down faster.

As our compost bins don’t have much in them, because we have very little organic waste, we plan to get horse manure from someone I know who has a huge & old pile.

However warm this will be for winter veg, it will get into 40s or 50s in the summer, even with a good through draught and vents open, & may need shading.

What edibles can we plan to grow in that high heat/humidity apart from fruit like lemons, grape, peaches, and toms of course!

We’re looking at perennials particularly, but leaving space for annuals, and we’re not looking at commercial levels.

The photo is looking East and that end is going up in the next few days.

[SarahParticipant]

Changed photo and this is looking West.

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[ChristineParticipant]

Wow I’m so jealous that looks like a lot of space or growing! I don’t have a greenhouse at the moment but hopefully next year…..
Did borrow space in a friends this summer and grew aubergines and chilli plants v well.
Also planning to get chickens this year so would be interested to now how many you have / how easy to keep etc. We have a suburban garden so smell/ noise is an issue as are the dreaded rats. Any advice?
Would also be interested in why a sunken greenhouse? I was thinking of a poly tunnel at the moment due to cost but would love to know why you went the greenhouse route

[charlesModerator]

Sarah that is an interesting creation.
I would not worry about it getting too hot in summer, since there is sun only 50% of the area, you have a door and roof vents.
My greenhouse reaches 40-45C and plants are fine.Light is more vital and I don’t recommend shading.
Not sure why you think it will be high humidity, I would grow anything that likes warmth, usual suspects from aubergines and melons to sweet potatoes and Malabar spinach. So much you can try.

[SarahParticipant]

Hi Christine, firstly the sunken greenhouse route because we’re on a hill, very exposed, with high winds and a poly tunnel wouldn’t last long. Sunken because the ground temperature is slightly higher and more stable two or three feet down and this allows us to grow more exotic fruit and veg, once I can decide what!

Our chickens are all rescues, from ex battery to rejects but I have pure bred bantams at home which is elsewhere. Noise isn’t a problem here but for you, don’t get a cockerel! My bantams produce small eggs, about half the size of a medium chicken egg. If you want all round laying then hybrids are usually better. Ex batts are very friendly and if handled from the start are amenable to being carried around. If you grow lots of brassicas they’ll love the leaves, and the cabbage white caterpillars! Bigger chickens love to scratch around so you would need to protect your beds – ours regularly turn up potatoes! We only protect young growth from them as it isn’t commercial so we don’t care if they’ve taken chunks out of leaves! The photo is one of my bantams – about the size of a wood pigeon, but tamer!

Charles – humidity concern is because the land is greensand over clay so we’ve intercepted the subsurface drainage (we didn’t know we were on clay as neighbours aren’t so appears that it’s just a lens and we hadn’t expected to reach a partial water table so high) . Although we’ve put in French drains on the up slopes some water is still seeping through.

Most greenhouses here only get half sun here though, at azimuth it won’t be hitting the back so that’s a heat loss zone which we’ve eliminated. Light loss is important but I think that we’ll have enough reflection from the white panels.

The attached drawing was the basis for our greenhouse. Our glass had to be far steeper because of the much lower sun path here in UK but this was designed for Bolivia.

Melons, hadn’t thought of them, thank you! We had planned sweet potatoes outside against a sun trap wall but I’ll see if there’s sufficient space, and depth inside. I’ll look for Malabar spinach. We have some of your books which are important for our research.

You’ll be diversifying into seeds next!

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[SarahParticipant]

Trying bantam pic again,

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[ChristineParticipant]

The hen is very lovely and I appreciate your advice on them. WE’re also only doing it for the family so I think I’d keep them as free range as possible and accept a little bed damage! Greenhouse looks super complicated and well beyond me so I’ll stick to the cold frame for now!

[PaulParticipant]

Hi Sarah that is one impressive greenhouse,I grew Malabar spinach this year in my polytunnel..What a plant, I planted 5 seedlings on a 5 cane wig-wam and away it went.It’s not a true spinach but it does taste similar only a bit fleshier it fed 4 families,I just trained it along the crop bars via twine.

You can get it from Bingenheimer (link provided) The postage is a bit pricey so make sure you order some more of their wonderful seeds..

I can personally recommend.

Florence fennel Perfektion they grew to 750g for me.
Carrots Robila excellent germination and flavour.
Melon Murmel gorgeous flavour.
Kohlrabi Superschmelz the only one I grow now,I grow them in the Autumn (planted late summer) they get pretty
big but never stringy..

https://seeds.bingenheimersaatgut.de/info/en/about-us/about-us.html

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