A walipini style greenhouse is essentially a pit greenhouse, or a hole dug in the ground with glazing laid over it. The name “walipini” originated from a 2002 agricultural project where volunteers from the Benson Institute went to Bolivia with the goal of building low-cost pit greenhouses for local farmers to use year-round. The pit design was called a walipini which means “place of warmth” in the indigenous tongue (Schiller 162). Essentially, a walipini is a 6’-8’ hole dug in the ground that is covered with a single or double layer of polyethylene glazing.
Recently walipinis have gained popularity thanks to articles circulating on the internet proclaiming that it only takes a few hundred dollars to build an underground greenhouse. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of consideration of the serious modifications growers need to make a walipini function in North America.
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Videos
Articles
Walipini – The Underground Greenhouse
Walipini Construction
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Root cellars
A root cellar (American and Canadian English), fruit cellar (Mid-Western American English) or earth cellar (British English) is a structure, usually underground or partially underground, used for storage of vegetables, fruits, nuts, or other foods. Its name reflects the traditional focus on root crops stored in an underground cellar, which is still often true; but the scope is wider, as a wide variety of foods can be stored for weeks to months, depending on the crop and conditions, and the structure may not always be underground.
Root cellaring has been vitally important in various eras and places for winter food supply. Although present-day food distribution systems and refrigeration have rendered root cellars unnecessary for many people, they remain important for those who value self-sufficiency, whether by economic necessity or by choice and for personal satisfaction. Thus, they are popular among diverse audiences, including gardeners, organic farmers, DIY fans, homesteaders, anyone seeking some emergency preparedness (most extensively, preppers), subsistence farmers, and enthusiasts of local food, slow food, heirloom plants, and traditional culture.
Videos
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Root Cellar off grid food storage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndwHbfb2niE
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Root Cellar Build Start to Finish & Tour | Storing Food for 25 Years Off Grid, A Year’s Food for 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=JjFHFjJ2Hs0
Building a Homestead Root Cellar eBook
A step-by-step guide to building your own homestead root cellar.
If you are a DIY homesteader looking for a time-saving and practical solution to your food preservation needs, or if self-sufficiency is your goal, a homestead root cellar will help you get there!
Perhaps you grow more food than you can possibly preserve by canning, dehydrating, or freezing. Or maybe, like me, you don’t really like to spend your summer days over a hot pot of boiling water! Root cellaring is a traditional way of storing and preserving food through the winter that is safe, easy, and fun.
Looking for a food preservation solution for our off the grid homestead, we began building our homestead root cellar in the fall of 2015. By winter, we were successfully overwintering fruits and vegetables in the cellar. Since completing our homestead root cellar, we put up more food than ever – ferments, vegetables, apples, cheeses, cured meats – with less effort, time, and money.
As we built our own homestead root cellar, we documented each and every step, making note of what worked and what didn’t work, and assembling the step-by-step process into an easy to follow eBook that will help you build your own root cellar.
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Build an Underground Root Cellar to Store Your Garden Produce
Years ago, before fresh produce was available in supermarkets, root cellars were a useful way to store fruits and vegetables. If your garden was prolific this year, you might find that an underground root cellar is a great way to have fresh produce for weeks or months throughout the winter. This method is not particularly useful if you live in an area where winters are warm. But if you live in an area where the fall and winter are cold, a root cellar might work for you.
What fruits and vegetables should you store?
The University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture offers the following chart with storage information for specific produce:
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