Water

The garden center has garden retention tanks that can hold up to 13 thousand gallons of water. The rain water that rolls off the roof is collected in the tanks. 1 inch of rain = 10,000 gallons of water! We use the collected water to water our plants in the greenhouse.  What doesn’t fit in the tank goes back into the water table. We also have a water retention pond that reduces the rate that rain water enters our local streams and rivers, preventing erosion and flooding.

Heating with our Wood Chip Burner

Our green house and garden center is heated by our friend "Chip".  Chip heats the water for our radiant floor heating system.  With the addition of “Chip,” our wood chip burner, we recycle waste wood into fuel to help heat our buildings. Chip burns at such a high heat that the ash and particulate matter is much less, so we have a clean, more efficient system. We accept trees and branches from tree surgeons and gather them when pruning our orchards to make our wood chips.

Geothermal Heating and Cooling System

Only a few feet below our feet the earth’s temperature stays at a fairly consistent 55 degrees. During the winter when the air is colder than 55 degrees, our system collects the Earth's natural heat through a series of pipes, called a loop, installed below the surface of the ground. Fluid circulates through the loop and carries the heat to the greenhouse. This process uses much less fuel to heat or cool the water since the temperature of the water is neither too hot nor too cold. Our gift shop is cooled in the summer months by the geothermal cooling.  The 55 degrees cools the air it is then distributed through our cloth ducts that hang on our ceiling of the gift shop.

Radiant Floor Heat

Our Garden Center uses the wood chip burner to heat the concrete floors. The radiant floor heat is a very efficient form of heat. By heating the concrete floor the heat is more evenly spread out and the floor holds the heat making it more efficient and requiring less fuel to maintain the heat in the building.

Solar

Our greenhouse has solar panels on the south facing roof on the north side of the building. The electricity produced by the panels produces enough electric to run the garden center. The solar sun rays that come into the  greenhouse  heat the concrete floor and the building in the winter months. They also provide the necessary light for the plants. While nice and toasty during the day from all the sunlight.

Our farm market uses a solar hot water heater on the roof of the Farm Market to heat all of the water used in the bakery, farm market and building!