Greenhouse Tipi Friends
Last summer, as I was working in my garden next to my 19.5' Reese Tipi, I was wondering how I was going to keep all these beautiful tomatoes from freezing in the fall. As I leaned back on my tipi to sip some from my diet coke, an idea began to formulate in my head - why not turn my tipi into a greenhouse? I started thinking of the advantages of this structure and how well they applied to the needs of a greenhouse. I was hooked but still not motivated enough to set aside my myriad of projects and make the GreenHouse tipi a priority.
A few weeks later the phone rang. Dion Puzon Jr. of Organic Producer Magazine http://www.organicproducermag.com had been thinking about the feasibility of a tipi greenhouse and wanted to know my thoughts. Well, I’m not sure Dion knew what he was getting to – since that time, Dion and I have spent countless hours on the telephone exchanging ideas and swapping lies.
After that first motivational call from Dion, I got into high gear and decided to build a few GreenHouse Tipis and have a few Colorado based produce farmers test them for me. I selected three Colorado locations with distinctly different climates, Rocky Ford, at 4135 ft., Colorado Springs at 6035 ft. and Alamosa at 7545 ft. and started searching for farmers that would be interested. In addition, Dion Jr. and Sr. will test a GreenHouse Tipi at their farm in Lone Rock, Wisconsin.
Dion contacted his network of organic producers and put me in touch with Steve Cole and Audrey Liu in Alamosa, CO and I contacted a farmer who I had purchased melons from the previous season in Rocky Ford, CO. Here in Colorado Springs, the testing would be conducted by me and Helen Campbell, a certified “Master Gardner” who sews and paints tipis for me when she’s not working in her garden (or watching mine while I’m on the road doing tipi setups for clients).
Alamosa, CO: Steve and Audrey are experienced organic growers who run a small organic produce and herb operation that uses one conventional greenhouse and now two GreenHouse Tipis. At over 7500 feet, Steve and Audrey will be testing the cold windy weather performance of two GreenHouse Tipis – a 17.5 ft. one with an organic hotbed and a 19.5 ft. one as a cold frame. You can read more about Steve and Audrey on the web at http://www.alamosanews.com/main.php?story_id=9236&page=32
Rocky Ford, CO: Greg Smith and his son, Mason, are a father-and-son team who farm primarily conventionally grown melons, squash, sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and many other produce items. They market their goods at their own produce store called Smith Corner on Hwy 50 near downtown Rocky Ford. Just a few miles north of the Comanche National Grassland, Rocky Ford is in the heart of traditional “Tipi Country” and a great place to test the GreenHouse Tipi structure in the same high winds that its forerunners had to endure. It’s also home to some of the best melons in the world. Greg and Mason will be testing two GreenHouse Tipis next to their conventional greenhouse and provide a valuable comparison to the Alamosa tipis. The lower 4000+ elevation at Rocky Ford provides a much milder climate for us to test the GreenHouse Tipi in and lets us get an earlier start in our cold frame tipi. Greg and Mason will also be testing one of our exclusive portable greenhouse furnaces to heat one of their GreenHouse Tipis. Mason will be tracking the effort and expense involved in their GreenHouse Tipi project as part of his FFA (Future Farmers of America) project.
Colorado Springs, CO: Here in Colorado Springs, Helen and I will be testing two GreenHouse tipis, one at my home and one at Helen’s. These two GreenHouse tipis will be tested in the typical suburban garden environment and will be used more as garden greenhouses than as production greenhouses.
I will be removing the traditional cover from my 19.5 ft. tipi and replacing it with a GreenHouse Tipi cover, liner and heatcap. I’m leaving my custom redwood deck in place and using planter boxes that I can move onto my porch in the summer and seeding flats for items that I’ll want to transplant into my gardens when the weather gets nice. Since I have a hard time making it through a winter without sneaking out to my tipi to read a book or play a game of scrabble with a friend, I’m going to leave most of my tipi furniture in my GreenHouse Tipi and use it as my winter garden escape. I will be heating my Greenhouse tipi with one of our exclusive portable greenhouse furnaces.
Helen Campbell will be testing a smaller 15.75’ garden sized GreenHouse Tipi as an organic hotbed. Hellen plans on cool weather crops such as lettuce, carrots, chard and peas for the early spring and will add her tomato, squash, and peppers as the weather becomes milder. She’ll probably press the limits of her “Master Gardner” skills and test her garden greenhouse at the risk of loosing a few seedlings, just to see how far we can push the performance of her smaller GreenHouse Tipi.
Lone Rock, WI: Dion Puzon Sr. and Jr. will be monitoring the testing in Lone Rock. Watch for them to test the INOV8 F125 Waste Oil multi-fuel Furnace in conjunction with their GreenHouse Tipi. I’m sure that the “Dion Team” will have a few innovative surprises to add to the mix. Expect computer monitored temperatures, alternate energy ideas and low-impact, environmentally sound practices to be applied to the Greenhouse Tipi concept.