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 to find out why it’s called the Passive Solar Roller and how it models effective season extension.
If not, don't 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 that 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 in this month's column. 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 the Cochrane Activettes and the 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.
Looking to the Future
This past winter, while work was furiously progressing on our mobile greenhouse, a group of engineering students at the University of Calgary were busy modelling 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 project, where the students practiced their skills on an impactful, real-world scenario, and Cultivate Cochrane obtained valuable modelling 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 each other. Cultivate Cochrane is actively welcoming new board members as well as volunteers to help with watering and 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!
Jackie Skrypnek is a director with Cultivate Cochrane. More information and updates at cultivatecochrane.com
