Garden All Year Long with a Walipini

garden all year long with a Walipini by Margaret DeStefano

Glass greenhouses can be pretty expensive to build and difficult to maintain throughout the winter. Even here on the Central Coast. If you have the time and space (and older kids willing to do a little hard work) a walipini is an economical and effective alternative to a glass greenhouse. Walipini is a word for “place of warmth” in the language of indigenous peoples of the Andes mountains, and it can really live up to it's name. It’s essentially an underground greenhouse that gets its heat naturally from geothermal regulation (the temperature of the earth) and thermal mass collection (the sun heating the earthen walls). If you think it's an option there is plenty of information online to help set it up.

q Diagram of early "sun-pit" concept