SMART GREENHOUSE

     This little beauty, is it a cold-frame, a hot-frame, or just a greenhouse ... a subterranean greenhouse?
     I, for one, do not like working on my hands and knees for hours, nor do I like reaching uncomfortably to the middle of a raised bed while tottering on the edge.  Well, jeez, I'm getting old and cranky.
     So I decided to build a covered greenhouse that solves all the problems I could think of easily and cheaply ... well, kind'a cheaply.  It's a cold frame because the earth remains about 52 degrees and there is a lot of earth under this little shelter.   It is a hot frame because you could fill the bottom of the trench with green cow manure if you don't mind walking in it a bit.   Cows don't mind.   It's a greenhouse because, well, it's a little house for raising green stuff that you can set out when the soil gets warm enough, or in which you can keep the veggies you like best of all.
     It's subterranean -- largely.  It looks like this:

     That's the barebones gist of it.  You can see that because so few materials are required that a person could buy a slightly better grade of materials.
     Should I point out that this is a simplified drawing?  You should elevate the sides a bit more than I have drawn here so plants can get taller if you wish to keep plants inside.  And you'd want the sides to be supported on a plank of treated lumber instead of directly on the insulation ... unless, of course, you are actually planning on building-in problems.  The point of this essay is to rough out an idea for you.
     No kneeling or uncomfortable bending over or balancing precariously upon a wooden or stone wall.  Leave that for the kids.  Here's how it looks in a cut-away.

     That's the basic package.  Easier than removing all the dirt.  One need only dig a trench then remove a foot of soil all around the trench, replacing that absent foot (or eight inches) with the best topsoil you can find (I import mine from hidden forests deep in the Ohio Valley (don't I wish!)).
     Because I live in a narrow Montana valley, on the south side of the Clark Fork River, it is cooler and the days are shorter than across the valley, so it is a good idea to WARM UP THE SOIL.  Yep.  Warm it up!  To that end I have decided to add a subterranean heating element.  I thought water would be the way to go, at first, but that meant plumbing and antifreeze and emergency venting of steam.  It struck me then that the smoke itself (hot gases) might do the job just as well and at a very much lower level of tech.  So this elegant solution came to me.

     To be honest, I haven't built this yet.  It's my springtime project (if I live to see the spring.)  So in fact it is a theoretical model.
     You are wise.  I'd value your opinion.  I might even take your advice ... or maybe not ... I'm not only old and cranky, my wife says I'm stubborn, too.

NIGHTSNOW

It snowed on my imagination during the night;
about two inches – it stuck --
the light, afterthought snow that accumulates slowly,
falling from an uncommitted sky,
unconsciously, like eyes dampening with old sorrow,
or the very fine mist that nevertheless soaks you through.
I turned my head and glimpsed without seeing
being falsely reassured by the white outside.
Snow, I feel, brings purification by cold,
bears in its arms icy distilled water which splashes
the sleeping seed into gasping wakefulness
and starts all the flourish of spring.
When I looked carefully the paths were still black
the earth grudging only patches to my sight
through snow no longer white, but dirty
and decaying; the little green exhausted,
convalescing in winter's debris.
My nightsnow disappeared with a pop
like those dreams.