Thomas Massie Profile picture
U.S. Representative for KY4, Engineer, Farmer, Inventor. Appalachian American. MIT SB93 SM96 #sassywithmassie #politicalsciencedenier pronoun: Pappaw

Mar 11, 2022, 5 tweets

Ever heard of a #walipini ? It’s basically a subterranean greenhouse. I built one several years ago so I could grow a few vegetables in the winter. Here’s a video of it! #offthegrid @freethepeople

Some of the food that I’ve grown in it:

A panoramic, with plants growing. Squash isn’t the best thing to grow in here. Tomatoes do OK, but they prefer more sun and there’s not much of it in the winter. Peas, carrots, cabbage, and salad greens do great!

If you build a walipini, include an automated vent that opens when it gets too hot inside. I learned the hard way when all of my plants got cooked on a very sunny day. I found a random surplus window and added a heat activated actuating cylinder you can buy on the internet.

This is why a #walipini can be useful in climates where we have four seasons. But the days are short and you still have to pull the snow off the roof if those plants are going to receive light. The plants in the last picture are actually some salad greens that “went to seed.”

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