Hi Steve, My husband and I are hoping to break ground on a greenhouse this summer. We have been researching greenhouses since 2007, trying to find the right strategy to use little to no energy for reasons similar to yours. -We are concerned about Peak Oil and "Peak Everything". I have read the 1978 Passive Solar Greenhouse book you mentioned and took a lot of inspiration from it but a word of caution; A lot has changed in the world of building science since the 70s when a lot of passive solar designs were developed. Insulating is really important but without proper air sealing, the insulation has limited effectiveness. Really watch your construction detailing. I highly recommend the green building blog: www.GreenBuildingAdvisor.com for more information. A few people have mentioned Subterranean Heating and Cooling Systems which is the strategy we are using in our design. Sunny John's website has a lot of information but his website is hard to navigate and he has not updated it in awhile. However, a professor at Virginia Tech headed a SHCS greenhouse project a few years ago and has lots of helpful data on his website: http://www.roperld.com/science/ymcasolargreenhouse.htm In short, the reason why a SHCS works so well is because it takes advantage of a phase change to store a ton of heat. Because greenhouses are hot humid enviornments when the sun is shining but cold when it is not, the SHCS works really well. You take the hot, humid air and send it underground through tubes. Underground there is a forced dew point and the water vapor condenses, giving up its heat to the soil heat bank (because of this, the potential for heat storage is enormous). The air comes out the other side, cooler and drier. At night, when it is cool, the fan comes on again and blows air warmed by the heat bank. The beauty of this is that you can actually bank heat from the summer and use it in the winter! The amount of electricity it takes to heat a 1200 square foot greenhouse is equal to the electricity it takes to run a large refrigerator. -It is just one slow-moving fan per 1200'. Here is an example of a backyard greenhouse using this system: http://www.roperld.com/science/SGHBackyardSHCS.htm However, maybe this system is not for you. I tend to agree that passive solar is tricky. But then again, it depends on what you are growing. Before we decided on the design we now have, we were going to go with an attached passive solar pit greenhouse. The Passive Solar Greenhouse book talks about the wisdom of this design. By lowering the floor of your greenhouse to a few feet below the frost line, you are taking advantage of the earth's heat to ensure stable temperatures. You also get more height to grow things like fruit trees with minimal air leakage from the walls since there is less proportion of walls to the pit. We still are using a lot of that kind of thinking but we are using much of the pit for our climate battery for the SHCS. Another option is Phase Change Materials. Water is a very cheap PCM but not that effective for greenhouses. The amount of water you would need to maintain temperatures of the greenhouse would almost entirely fill the greenhouse. Furthermore, you don't want to shade the water with plants in the remaining space you do have. (With a pit-style greenhouse, you don't need it because the earth is your thermal mass) PCMs are used all the time in data storage centers to absorb heat from the computers and then discharge it later but can also be used in greenhouses to maintain temperature extremes. This also helps keep stress of the building materials to a minimum. Rgees is a PCM company that is trying to create a new market for PCMs in greenhouses and they have a pretty helpful blog: http://greenhousefashions.blogspot.com/ When I wrote to them with questions they were very, very helpful. I plan on incorporating them into our greenhouse to further make it resilient should any of our other strategies fail. A final thought, have you read the Underground Solar Greenhouse book? He did some interest experiments with cold frame-like greenhouses where he trenched the aisle so that he could stand upright and be comfortable. What he stumbled upon while doing this is the added advantage of having a lower area for the cold air to sink and settle away from the plants where it could do harm. It would then get warmed by the earth, rise and other cold air would take its place, progressively making the temperatures warmer. In any case, there are lots of options for a resilient greenhouse. I look forward to hearing about your design as it evolves. Happy greenhouse designing!

After looking up Alvin Ailey, I really appreciate your kind words, dcarch and everyone. Now, on to Daughter-san. Her year has been consumed with the college application process and with finishing high school. Getting into college is not what it was when I was a kid; it is much harder and more stressful today. Kids seem much better prepared, admissions are more competitive, and college costs are an order of magnitude higher. It is easy for kids and their parents to get sucked into the vortex of expectations, ambition and status. We got pulled partway into that mess, but thanks mostly to Daughter-san's level head, we got through it. She will be attending the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. It is a smallish liberal arts honors college of 700 students, with their own building, faculty, advisors, and dorm, in the midst of a 30,000 student university. I think she'll have the best of both worlds - a small school with personal attention, and a big school with a diverse student body and endless things to do. She'll be about two hours from home, which seems to me like a nice distance, and will allow her to come home when she wants to, to have her little brother visit, but keep mom and dad mostly out of her hair. The university has a biology program, which is her science interest, and also a full fine arts program (BFA, MFA, design, etc) which is her non-science interest. There is talk of a double major. Finally, Eugene is one of the most livable towns in Oregon, where a bicycle is accepted and adequate transportation. Naturally, I look forward to fitting out her bike for college duty; any excuse to wrench on bicycles is welcome. Because we'll pay in-state tuition, and she's getting some scholarships by reason of being a National Merit Scholar finalist, the cost is manageable and we'll be able to send her to study abroad as much as she'd like. I've suggested that she brush up on her French! Daughter-san had an interesting high school "career" which is how the kids refer to it. She started as a shy, introverted kid who was very much a study nerd. During high school she did a lot of drawing and photography, had a two-month solo exhibition, took most of her friends' senior portraits, and ended up being voted "best photographer" by her class. Her favorite model was her brother, who was even willing to dress in drag and bite .38SPL cartridges for her senior photography project, which was a photographic interpretation of Truman Capote's "Other Voices Other Rooms". (Unfortunately for him, that project is being kept by the photography teacher as an example for future classes.) She did some interesting things, like embroidering photographic prints. She also got involved in Speech & Debate, went to tournaments, became one of the team's officers and placed second in State in her event. In senior year she started doing theatre and made a whole new set of friends among the "drama kids". During the summers she worked as a cook and later assistant supervisor in the Berkeley camp in Yosemite, which involved responsibility, a lot of hard work - cooking 8 hours in a commercial kitchen during 100 degree heat waves - and, I'm told, some vigorous partying on days off. So Daughter-san is leaving high school as a much more outgoing, confident, social person than she entered. Her high school GPA is perhaps not, err, quite as good as it could have been had she remained less social, but it is pretty good, enough to get her into a good range of colleges. By the time she graduated from high school, she was Miss Popularity, with a whirlwind of parties and outings during the last month. She told me that, while fun, being so social was exhausting and she had started to turn down most invitations. Which was a relief to me, since I would like her to be a serious student in college in addition to having fun. She's back at camp cooking for half of this summer - a different Berkeley camp, after the Yosemite camp was burned to the ground last summer. She'll fly back to Oregon for college orientation in the middle of the summer, then will have the last month of summer free to relax and play with her brother before heading off to college. So there we are, all caught up. SWMBO and I are kid-free for a few weeks and even after DS gets back from his trip, life should be less hectic and I might even be able to do some cooking. Not that we've been starving, but the cooking here hasn't been interesting - just utility cooking. Hoping to change that this summer. Here is a link that might be useful: an online portfolio

Son had a large wedding and reception but because it was in the afternoon, no dancing. But if we did have a song it would be Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me." His small high school graduating class sang that to the parents then they gave the mom's a rose. Talk about crying! DIL knows what a close knit family we are and she loves how close I am to my son's. Now that she's a mother of a son she really understands the special bond between son and mother which is not like the old saying goes, "A son is a son until he takes a wife, a daugther is a daughter for the rest of her life." Heck, I still get onto my children! I'll always remember Barbara Bush speaking about Jr., "Just because he's the President doesn't mean he can put his feet on my coffee table!" lol

Sofl- here ya go ! https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003ZZQLYG/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527633632&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=come+into+the+garden+sign&dpPl=1&dpID=51hG-9bFMxL&ref=plSrch It's metal and has looked brand new for 3 plus years. Glad you like it !!! moses , you are always so kind ! Gardening is my only hobby and I'm super fortunate that my husband works all day 5 days a week and my daughter naps 3 hours a day so I have extra time ! I'm trying to get it all into maintenance mode so her and I can do some fun things more often. Do you believe it's almost time for early preschool ? So I need to spend more quality time with her and less "games " out of digging holes ! Lol also even though I'm in my early thirties I have been gardening since I was 19 in my tiny house shared with my now husband. Boy the mistakes I made! And money wasted .. but I do think the Lord has blessed me with the love of gardens and all the learning that comes with it ! Ps Moses.. I ordered those amazing pruners you spoke of (okatsune ?) and they are incredible!! Are you liking yours ? i have seen his clematis in nursery and they are nice! I don't have any yet as I prefer the type 3 viticellas that take over the world . I'm sure I'll add some soon on smaller obelisk though ! Thank you ray gun !! I hope to see photos of your garden soon!!