Well, in our ongoing attempt to "officially" become homesteaders, I borrowed a greenhouse book from the library. Unlike most of the other books I have checked out, this one is VERY dry, but it did open my eyes to some possibilities I hadn't considered.

First off, we're going to have a dual venting system that will exhaust the hot air from the greenhouse into the house (it's going to be attached) and supplement our heating in the winter. Since we're converting to wood heat before winter hits, this means less wood I have to hack up for the ol' pile. It also gives us extra use of the "passive solar" opportunities. The second set of vents will vent to the outside over the summer, when we don't need the surplus heat indoors. It will also help the indoor air quality a great deal.

Second, we have to rebuild a retaining wall at the south side of our property. After evaluating the options, I decided a cinderblock wall would be better than a wall made of landscape timbers, and by adding a side wall to it, we could make a pit greenhouse on an otherwise unusable slope. A little more creative construction could potentially give us a storm shelter without a whole lot of extra excavation work. This would add, by my estimation, 250-300 square feet of greenhouse space that utilizes ground for insulation and adds useful growing space to an otherwise useless part of the lot. Me likes. Me likes a lot.

I'm also considering using garage door tracks for my supports on the greenhouse. Advantages would be that it is inexpensive and I could rig up a very simple and efficient motorized vent system on the track, disadvantages would be the conductive properties of the metal...we're weighing whether that will be a significant enough factor for concern or not (anyone with experience in this area can feel free to weigh in).