Bones from a whale washed up in town? Relics of the agricultural past of the Capri farm land? Nay! This is the greenhouse of the Cité de l’agriculture, recovered in 2018, from the – bygone – era when the Cité grew vegetables hydroponically in Tarascon.
While production in heated greenhouses leads to costly energy consumption for market gardeners and for the planet, anticipating and extending growing seasons are marketing challenges for market gardeners (and for busy locavores waiting for the sunny vegetables).
To reconcile environmental and commercial issues, the Capri farm is implementing two low-tech production tools:
A cold greenhouse in the ground to anticipate and extend the growing seasons (early vegetables, winter crops) while continuing our ginger growing tests. The Cité de l’agriculture calls on a professional greenhouse installer to ensure the proper installation of this greenhouse in the immediate vicinity of the highway.
A bioclimatic greenhouse to save money by doing some of the sowing ourselves. While sharing space with a nurseryman looking for production space. Indeed, producing quality plants is time-consuming and technical: it’s a job in itself! This is why we want to test this greenhouse roommate model. The Cité de l’agriculture is supported in the design of this greenhouse by GERES.
But what is a bioclimatic greenhouse? How it works ?
Also called a passive solar greenhouse, it is a productive tool optimizing solar energy in order to heat without using fossil fuels.
The greenhouse is equipped with thermal masses (for example, dark-colored containers filled with water) accumulating solar energy throughout the day to be released in colder periods, at night or during cloudy periods. This operation is optimized by an insulating layer reducing thermal losses.
To know more: https://www.geres.eu/s-informer/guides-et-etudes/guide-de-conception-dune-serre-bioclimatique/