Big Thanks + Looking to the Future

The Passive Solar Roller set up for a day of programming

By now, perhaps you’ve glimpsed Cochrane’s education greenhouse on wheels at the farmers’ market or en route to one of its programming venues. Maybe you’ve even been lucky enough to tour through it, find out why it’s called the Passive Solar Roller and how it models effective season extension. If not, not to worry! Cultivate Cochrane plans to bring it to future farmers’ markets, community events and, of course, to schools and service groups for months and years to come.

The list of local businesses and individuals who have contributed to the completion and success of the Passive Solar Roller continues to grow and we’d like to give them all a shout-out here. In addition to our initial grant from Canada Healthy Communities Initiative, construction by OnGrowing Works, and hauling services from Big Hill Towing, the following chipped in time and/or discounts: Big Hill Electrical, Living Soil Solutions, Pure Life Carbon, Riverbend Flooring, Mountain View Building Materials, Trimet Building Products, and Co-operators Insurance. Additional funding was provided by Cochrane Activettes and Cochrane Foundation.

We’d also like to acknowledge the Cosway family, West Coast Seeds, McKenzie Seeds, EcoFort Innovations, Ceres Greenhouse Solutions, Giselle Hardock and numerous other individuals. Though we’ve almost certainly missed a few here, we aim to recognize all contributors with signage on the exterior and interior of the greenhouse.

From left to right: U of C engineering students Michael, Logan, Daylan, Brayden and Cultivate Cochrane vice-president Carrie Corbin

This winter, while work was furiously progressing on our mobile greenhouse, a group of engineering students at the University of Calgary were busy modeling energy systems for our even grander vision of a community-scale greenhouse hub. Brayden, Logan, Daylan, and Michael, along with supervisor Dr. Simon Li, took on a portion of our hub design as their capstone project. Enthusiastic to be working on something that would contribute to food security and sustainability, the team put in long hours tackling heat loss calculations, solar angles, sizing of photovoltaics to meet electricity needs, and more. It was a win-win where the students practiced their skills on an impactful, real-world scenario and Cultivate Cochrane obtained valuable modeling to inform a large-scale passive solar greenhouse.

And so, we move forward with the vision of greater resiliency through growing more food in our challenging climate while connecting with place and each other. Cultivate Cochrane is actively welcoming new board members as well as volunteers to help with watering & plant care, grant writing, policy writing, and fundraising – so don’t be shy about reaching out if you’d like to be part of a great solutions-based local initiative.

We wish everyone a Happy Summer full of bountiful fresh food grown in all the Cochrane and area gardens, farms…and greenhouses!

The Passive Solar Roller…
is Cultivate Cochrane’s Mobile Education Greenhouse! We are thrilled to be able to bring the community opportunities for hands-on learning, skill-building and connection through food.  Here’s everything you need to know about the Passive Solar Roller!

How it all began…

In the winter of 2021, nearly one year into the Global COVID-19 Pandemic, an opportunity for funding flew across our radar - The Government of Canada’s Canada Healthy Communities Initiative was seeking to fund projects that responded to the needs that had arisen throughout the Pandemic, that helped create safe and vibrant public spaces.

We got brainstorming as a group and the idea of a mobile greenhouse came into view - as we explored this idea further, we started thinking about the many ways a mobile greenhouse would benefit our community, more specifically, who in the community would benefit. Our focus turned to children and youth, who have missed many opportunities for connecting meaningfully and safely with their peers throughout the pandemic. We felt they would greatly benefit from hands-on learning opportunities that taught them valuable skills, like gardening, while engaging with their peers.

As our first foray into the world of grants, we were beyond thrilled when we found out our application was successful in September of 2021! Since then we have been hard at work bringing this greenhouse to life, with the support of stellar community members right here in Cochrane! We quite literally could not have done this without the generosity of our community with their time, talents, resources and enthusiasm.

Why Passive Solar?

Growing food in southern Alberta is challenging due to our very short frost-free window, cold nights, and risk of snow, hail and high wind. We do, however, have abundant sunshine.

Passive solar greenhouse design harvests the sunshine and provides an elegant solution to the challenges, buffering temperature swings in an extremely energy-efficient manner.  Passive solar is a way of designing a greenhouse so that its heat regulation is largely done using the free and perpetual energy of the sun. 

Passive solar greenhouses offer major advantages over conventional “glasshouse” designs which overheat easily in the summer only to lose all that heat rapidly once the sun goes down. They also require expensive and energy-intensive supplemental heat to maintain growing temperatures in the shoulder and winter seasons.

Because it is achieved simply through smart design and choice of materials, a passive solar building will continue to function no matter the price or availability of conventional energy sources. It allows us to feed ourselves locally and sustainably beyond our very short growing season.

Why Mobile? 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the challenges faced by children and youth in our community, and wanted to use our greenhouse and gardening knowledge and skills to serve them.  However, greenhouses typically stay in one location – great for anyone who has reliable and affordable access to transportation, but not for the child and youth population we are aiming to serve.

Our mobile greenhouse concept was created by this desire to go directly to children and youth groups, to serve them where they are at.

Our Design:

Built on a flatbed trailer, the greenhouse can be brought right to the public, thus increasing accessibility. Multiple people can enter at a time, and a heat-activated venting system ensures fresh airflow for both people and plants.

The south side uses polycarbonate glazing, a material ideally suited to greenhouse growing, in combination with glass windows which allow a clear view to the plants inside. 

The remainder of the structure, including the floor, is well-insulated to retain heat overnight and on cooler days.

High thermal mass materials such as water or concrete are typically used to moderate heat in a passive solar greenhouse, but for this mobile application, phase change material was chosen as a lightweight substitute that serves a similar function. 

A “climate battery” complements passive solar design by transferring hot air from the peak of the greenhouse to the cooler soil and back out again. A small model of this system is included in the mobile greenhouse for demonstration and educational purposes (short video description here). A rainwater capture, storage, and gravity-feed system is also modelled.

Overall, the structure and the chosen materials serve to demonstrate the principles of passive solar greenhouse function while being durable, road-worthy, and conducive to programming.

The builders…

We needed a builder that was local, skilled, and able to work closely with us on a tight budget. We also hoped they’d share some of Cultivate Cochrane’s values and be excited about bringing a mobile education greenhouse to life. OnGrowing Works fit the bill on all accounts.

Matt Ashton, project manager with OnGrowing Works, describes why they were keen to work with us on this mobile greenhouse: “The idea of sustainability, passive solar design, and food generation all resonate with our company goals and vision. We’re excited to play a role in this project by providing construction support and look forward to seeing the impact the Passive Solar Roller will have on our children, youth and family programs in the area.”

Along with their own labour and materials acquisition, OnGrowing Works was able to draw on relationships with suppliers and tradespeople to help keep our project on budget.

Many Thanks!

The Passive Solar Roller would not exist if it weren’t for our amazing partners and sponsors:

funding

Canada Healthy Communities Initiative

Cochrane Foundation

Cochrane Activettes

Cochrane Environmental Action Committee

builder

OnGrowing Works Ltd

transport

Big Hill Towing

other contributions

Big Hill Electrical

Riverbend Interiors

Living Soil Solutions

Pure Life Carbon

Mountain View Building Materials

Trimet Building Products

Co-operators Cochrane

Where to find the Solar Roller:

Keep an eye out for the Passive Solar Roller around town! It’ll be bouncing around between programming locations and public events until we put it “to bed” for the winter.

Mobile Greenhouse Bridges Generations

The Greenhouse Launch & Community Growing Fair last month was a wildly successful event, kicking off spring and Cultivate Cochrane’s education greenhouse on wheels. Community members flocked to get a peek inside the Passive Solar Roller, learn from presenters, engage with local groups and businesses, and even participate in a plein air art workshop. It’s evident that Cochranites are eager to be part of a more resilient community and way of life!

Now that our greenhouse is out and about in town accompanied by our talented program coordinator, one of the groups taking advantage of it is Seniors for Kids. Celebrating their 25th year in our community, this volunteer group pairs seniors with children from elementary to high school who don’t have a grandparent in the area. They aim for pairings that last two years so the kids have a feeling of consistency and a richer bond can develop. It’s a way of building intergenerational relationships that boost self-esteem, skills and understanding – the benefits run both ways! Most Seniors for Kids programs happen at schools within the Cochrane area and that’s where the Passive Solar Roller will meet them, providing a great way for these senior-youth connections to flourish. 

Cultivate Cochrane board member Carrie Corbin discusses the Passive Solar Roller with members of Seniors for Kids

Seniors for Kids program coordinator Lynn Noble feels the mobile greenhouse will facilitate the passing on of knowledge from their volunteers, many of whom garden and/or live rurally, to a generation that mostly hasn’t grown up on farms. “Seniors can share their wisdom…and it’s important for kids to learn how to grow food; to know that you don’t just go to the grocery store for it.” 

Being equipped to feed ourselves in our climate means building our skills and knowledge, but also our community connections. Both of those can happen when the older and more experienced among us meet the up-and-coming generation, and what better place to do it than around a little greenhouse full of soil, veggies, herbs and flowers! 

If you see the Passive Solar Roller parked outside St. Tim’s, Elizabeth Barrett, or Fireside schools in the coming weeks, there’s a good chance it’s there to help this intergenerational sharing happen. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child…but it also takes a village to make that village resilient and connected. We can thank Seniors for Kids for doing their part and we look forward to many more fruitful partnerships across the age spectrum!

Greenhouse Launch & Community Growing Fair

We revealed the Passive Solar Roller to the community at this event that included tours of the greenhouse, kids activities, planting giveaways, and booths with many of our partners and related community groups. There were vendors and presentations related to gardening and food resiliency, a community seed exchange, and a plein air art workshop for all ages.

Ready to Launch!

We can officially say that Cochrane’s education greenhouse on wheels, the “Passive Solar Roller”, is nearly ready for lift-off…well okay, roll-out! The team at OnGrowing Works put in their time, expertise, and a good share of calling on local suppliers and sub-trades for contributions to the build. Within a couple of days, our Cultivate Cochrane crew can apply a few finishing touches and we’ll have it ready to show off to the public at our Greenhouse Launch & Community Growing Fair event this Saturday!

Some of the tomato seedlings (among other things!) we have started for the mobile greenhouse

Along with an official unveiling of the Passive Solar Roller, the event will include kids’ activities, planting giveaways, presentations, and a whole bunch of community booths and vendors to help kick off the gardening season and this greenhouse project. The Cochrane Horticultural Society will have a “bring what you can, take what you need” seed exchange table. And the artist working on a mural for the greenhouse’s north wall will even be on site running a free art workshop for all ages at 12:00. All in all, a celebration you won’t want to miss! 

The Boys & Girls Club of Cochrane & Area (BGC) has generously donated their space for this event and they’ll also be the first group in town to participate in our greenhouse programming the following week. The BGC provides invaluable services to Cochrane’s children and youth through out-of-school care and transportation, day camps, and the facilitation of safe, regulated day homes within the community. They also serve teens including strong advocacy for the 2+LGBTQ community and drop-in programs aimed at empowerment. Each year the BGC positively impacts well over a thousand local children, youth, and families!

We hope to amplify that impact even further with the Passive Solar Roller as a hands-on educational tool. With the BGC already being such a hub for youth in Cochrane, it makes a great place to station the greenhouse for a week and bring some fun food literacy to the mix. As Hazel Carter, BGC coordinator, puts it: “We’re always keen to make connections within the community. With this connection children will learn about sustainability, where food comes from and how the plants and animals are interconnected. I love the interactive approach of the program and know the children at BGC are going to have fun finding out about the natural world around them.”

Maureen Topp and Hazel Carter of the BGC

Come see for yourselves what all the buzz is about this Saturday, April 23rd from 11:00-2:00 at The Boys & Girls Club. Bring kids if you have them, seeds if you have them, a little cash, and your curiosity. Opportunities to connect as a community have been few and far between for the last couple of years, plus it’s certainly not every day a town rolls an innovative greenhouse out onto the streets. See you there!

Food Skills for Young Folk

Construction of The Passive Solar Roller – Cultivate Cochrane’s mobile education greenhouse – has been chugging along and we’re now entering the homestretch of the process. Once the polycarbonate and windows go in, it will indeed look like a tiny house for growing food!  This little unit will be ready to hit the roads in a very short while so we’re busy working on interior details from the best way to secure shelving during transport to finessing the air circulation and watering systems, and the fun stuff like choosing which food varieties we should plant. 

The Passive Solar Roller in progress, March 11th

And, of course, we’re firming up plans so this project lives up to its name – education greenhouse. The Family Resource Network (FRN) is one of the local groups that was quick to jump on board when we floated the idea of bringing hands-on food growing programming to Cochrane children and youth. The FRN provides free programs ranging from parenting skills, to grandparent bonding time, to interactive activities suited to each stage of childhood development from birth to 6 years old. Essentially they’re there to help Cochrane families, both the children and the parents, thrive!

Partnering with the FRN, Passive Solar Roller programming will give young children and their parents opportunities to get their hands dirty and make early connections between food and nutrition, as well as some basics on growing and preparing food. There will be a focus on sensory and tactile experiences where children can explore textures, smells, tastes and colours all while connecting with their peers in a safe, welcoming environment.

Amanda Mouland, family support worker at the FRN, says, “I think that the Passive Solar Roller will benefit children and families in Cochrane by teaching them about gardening, produce, encouraging healthy eating habits and providing a way for families in Cochrane to connect.” 

That’s definitely the idea! We hope to plant the seeds for a new generation of young folk who are connected to where their food comes from, have the skills to grow it, and are equipped to make healthy choices. All while experiencing the mental health benefits of gardening and spending time together.

Also: Mark your calendars because we have an exciting event coming up on April 23rd: An official launch of our mobile greenhouse along with a community growing fair - just in time for gardening season! Watch our website and social media for more details.

Our Greenhouse Hitches a Lift

Construction of the Passive Solar Roller - Cochrane’s education greenhouse on wheels - is officially underway! OnGrowing Works has been busy building the structure on top of our flatbed trailer and, despite supply chain challenges, all the necessary materials are being lined up. Programming plans, which will initially target Cochrane’s children and youth, are likewise taking shape. All of this is powered by volunteer time along with a Canada Healthy Communities Initiative grant.

Justin Jantzi and Dyon Neuman of OnGrowing Works framing the greenhouse roof

But once we have our well-built, mobile food-growing unit ready to roll, how on earth do we plan to haul those thousands of pounds around town? The whole point of having it on wheels is to increase access by showing up where people need it - the Family Resource Network one week, BGC the next, the farmers market the next, and so on. This is where Big Hill Towing comes in with their incredibly generous offer of a truck and driver to move us to and fro safely. 

This year, Big Hill Towing celebrates their 45th year as a locally-owned business and has an almost unheard of track record: they’ve answered their phone twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week without a single disruption in service for every one of those years! When Cultivate Cochrane approached the community to request help transporting the Passive Solar Roller, Big Hill Towing was immediately and enthusiastically on board. For owner Jackie Richards, a project that focuses on the future of our kids, our community and our world really resonates. She sees our programming as an important way to lift kids’ spirits after the hardships they’ve endured throughout the pandemic, and she equally welcomes the opportunity to contribute to environmental solutions that help offset the diesel footprint inherent in a towing business. 

Photo courtesy of Big Hill Towing

“It is a great honour and privilege for us to have been asked to participate in this very important project. It is a very small way for us to give back to the community that has supported us with such loyalty for 45 years”, says Jackie. It’s an honour for Cultivate Cochrane as well. A towing company and a group using food-growing to create a more resilient and connected community may seem like an unlikely pair, but it takes a village to raise a greenhouse and dedicated, community-minded businesses are definitely part of that. 

Stay tuned for a public unveiling of the Passive Solar Roller in April - just in time to kick off the growing season!

OnGrowing Works Gets to Work

Funded by a Canada Healthy Communities Initiative grant, our Passive Solar Roller — Cochrane’s education greenhouse on wheels — is finally about to take shape! The design was dreamt up by a team of us at Cultivate Cochrane, but it’s the capable folks at OnGrowing Works who’ll be taking it from dream to reality.

OnGrowing Works is a locally-owned company that creates “Sustainable Living Spaces”, their work ranging from design to construction to landscaping. One of their core values is sustainability and it shows up in their projects through water conservation techniques, materials consideration, energy efficiency, integration of solar power, and more. In their words: “Wherever possible, our work supports the natural environment, creates engaging social spaces and enhances economic prosperity. We champion designs that create environmentally responsible structures and spaces from conception to completion, and that match and support local ecology.”

Cultivate Cochrane is so pleased to be working with OnGrowing Works for the construction of the Passive Solar Roller. With several meetings under our belts (and many more to come!), their commitment to communication, transparency, and the success of our project is clear. They have experience with greenhouses and even with passive solar design, but our lightweight, roadworthy, pencil-sketched, dormer-windowed greenhouse is a one-of-a-kind undertaking! With Covid circulating widely, supply chain challenges, and fluctuating material prices, it takes a special kind of flexibility and commitment to complete such a custom and unique build on a budget.

Matt from OnGrowing Works and Carrie from Cultivate Cochrane on the “blank slate” of our 18’ flatbed trailer!

Matt Ashton, project manager with OnGrowing Works, describes why they were keen to work with us on this mobile greenhouse: “The idea of sustainability, passive solar design, and food generation all resonate with our company goals and vision. We’re excited to play a role in this project by providing construction support and look forward to seeing the impact the Passive Solar Roller will have on our children, youth and family programs in the area.” 

We look forward to it, too! Between the pandemic and major weather events, the past years have highlighted the importance of learning to take care of some of our food needs locally. We think this hands-on education tool is timely indeed. By spring, you should see it traveling around town providing hands-on programming about food growing, nutrition and resiliency to youth and the public at large.

Keep your eyes on this site and our social media for the latest progress!

from seed to seed virtual film screening and Q&A

From Seed to Seed is an award-winning film about the challenges of being a food producer and the critical role farmers play in building environmental and community resiliency. Filmmaker Katharina Stieffenhofer joined our virtual Cochrane audience to answer questions about the documentary and about building better food systems. We partnered with local restaurant Fence & Post to offer locally-inspired special event menu items to complement the screening.

Backyard Greenhouse - Part 5: Performance Review

Welcome to a series of blogs about Cultivate Cochrane president Jackie Skrypnek’s backyard greenhouse building process. The intent is to share a realistic account of one couple’s experience to help inspire and inform other community members in their own season-extending, food-producing ventures.

A full summer has come and gone and it seems we’ve left fall behind us as well. It’s a good time to report back on how our little greenhouse performed in its first year!

When we put our fledgling tomatoes, peppers, and herbs in the ground in the spring it was hard to imagine the veritable jungle we’d end up with a couple of months down the road. The north wall of tomatoes was such a jungle in fact that I had to take the whole second tier (the pots on the shelf) out and house them elsewhere. The passive solar environment seemed to supercharge growth and we already had ripe tomatoes in June.

We enjoyed a long season of cucumbers, hot peppers, sweet peppers, tomatoes, basil and a few other herbs. The sheer bulk of plants didn’t leave much room for a person to sit, but at that time of year things were green and warm outside anyway so we weren’t particularly craving time in a greenhouse. The solar roof fans kicked in nicely when things heated up, and the lower heat-activated vents would slowly open, too. The elbow doesn’t push them wide open, though, so the amount of cool air that can enter is less than we had hoped. We simply opened the window and the door window most days and closed them at night - a fine solution as long as someone was around.

Greenhouse mid-summer, in full "jungle" mode

Cayenne peppers on the left, sweet red peppers mid-frame

Small yellow peppers in foreground, while still green

Cucumber climbing on the left and grapevine climbing up the right side of window

Cucumber plant - when it was nice and healthy

About mid-summer, I found myself battling aphids on the sweet peppers and a few adjacent plants with a homemade soap spray - to very limited success. Eventually I pulled the plug and just cut those plants out so the little green pests wouldn’t spread further. In the enclosed space of a greenhouse where an infestation can take over, it’s a challenge to handle it effectively while also following organic principles for the health of your food and soil. Something to investigate for next year!

For the most part, we happily went about our summer thrilled with our harvest, opening the greenhouse up on hot days and closing it tightly for the night to keep it nice and toasty. But while we fixated on making sure our plants didn’t get cold, a different, more deadly problem crept up on us. Mold and mildew began to afflict the cucumbers, followed by some herbs, and eventually to a smaller extent the tomatoes. The cucumbers succumbed totally and had to be removed (but not before we’d eaten heaps of them fresh and made pickles and relish for the winter). We had been too fastidious about heat retention at the expense of ventilation and the resulting humidity brought our plants ill-health. Likely we were keeping the soil too moist as well. Lesson learned!

Although I intended on keeping track of exactly how much produce we got out of less than 100 square feet, the summer got so busy that plan fell by the wayside. Suffice it to say, though, we haven’t had to go a day without a tomato since June, the freezer holds several batches of pesto, and we have enough homemade hot sauce to last the year, among other harvests. Plus, more recently, we’ve enjoyed a bit of chard and kale transplanted to the greenhouse from the garden outside.

Cucumbers and sweet peppers gone; kale and chard move in

Tomatoes are still thriving on November 2nd

What we really wanted to know (and you likely do, too!) is how long can this passive solar greenhouse go before it freezes inside. Well, we cheated a tiny bit and added a small amount of heat for the two nights in October that dipped to about -20ºC figuring that if we got the plants past that little cold spell they may still have several weeks to thrive. And that was in fact the case…until last night. Without further supplemental heat, things hadn’t frosted and what we didn’t lose to mildew (tomatoes, parsley, lemon balm, rosemary, hot peppers, kale, chard, nasturtiums) was still green and healthy up until about a day ago. How far into the colder months we can go depends, of course, on how cold it dips outside, but also very much on how sunny it is. With its steep south face, the greenhouse has no trouble warming up when the sun shines, even if it’s bitter cold outside, but without daytime sun, it’s just not able to recharge with heat in order to fend off frost overnight. That’s exactly what happened yesterday; the interior was holding at just above 0ºC after a cold night, but it was an entirely cloudy day so it barely inched up a degree before nightfall. That wasn’t enough to get it through last night’s -17ºC. Today the sun is beating in and it’s easily 22ºC in the greenhouse…but it’s too late; anything frost-tender is finished.

A final harvest of tender plants on November 7th

One thing is for sure, this is the perfect time of year to enjoy the greenhouse as a sitting space. It’s less crowded with plants and the temperature tends to be pleasantly warm while providing shelter from the often biting winds.

So, we have some kinks to work out, but I’d say we’re exceedingly glad to have created this structure that is extending our growing season significantly while being a pleasure to spend time in. We have a long winter ahead of us - the perfect time to contemplate what worked well and what didn’t. Some things we’ll do differently next year:

• Plan for a single tier of tomatoes trained vertically to the ceiling

• Allow more ventilation, even at the expense of some heat loss

• Keep the soil less moist (water less - phew!)

• Consider making room for a crop of cool-weather greens to be seeded in late summer (by fall, the light is insufficient for them to get a good start)

• Investigate mildew-resistant plant varieties

• Consider adding a thermal blanket to retain more heat on colder nights

While we’re sitting in front of the wood stove working out next summer’s greenhouse plan, we hope you’re in a cozy space of your own dreaming of ways you might produce just a little more of your own sustenance in a way that suits you!