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In a small fishing village, a geothermal greenhouse is delivering fresh produce year-round to people who need it most.
On the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the small fishing community of Shelburne, volunteers are growing fresh vegetables in a new geothermal greenhouse. The day I visit, the six board members of the Community Garden and Food Share Association of Shelburne County (CGFS) are harvesting their first crop of lettuce to give away.
As they wash lettuce, Lucinda Montizambert recalls how the organization got started. “It was all about food insecurity. The conversation started around the pandemic when it became apparent that we live in somewhat of a food desert.” She’s met people in this rural area who walk two hours on a round trip to the grocery store. “Because of supply chains, prices started to skyrocket. The quality of food was an issue.”
Matt Roy is training the six CGFS board members to use an ingenious trellis system. Roy owns Coastal Grove Farm 45 kilometres from here where he operates two similar greenhouses. Each plant is pruned to a single leading stem that grows up a string to the ceiling and each string is attached to a small reel that rolls along a wire hanging from the ceiling. This allows the whole apparatus to be lowered for pollinating, pruning, and harvesting. Each plant grows up to nine metres (30 feet) long, producing fruit even into December.
Pointing to two wide, black tubes rising out of the ground, Roy explains how the geothermal greenhouse works: “These intake manifolds direct air through four-inch perforated pipes underneath the greenhouse. Six feet down, we're at a temperature of plus eight, which cools the air during the day. It takes eight to ten degrees out of the air before it comes back up. Then at night, if it drops below four, they warm up the air to about eight.”
The greenhouse design also takes full advantage of solar energy. “We don't have grow lights,” Roy says, “but the north wall being at a 10 degree angle allows the reflection of our low winter sun to hit both sides of the plant. We're able to get leafy greens to grow even in January.”
Penny Smith and Dale Richardson are spreading mulch and weeding rows of carrots, peas, beets, cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes. Smith is the warden (similar to a mayor) of the municipal government who serves as CGSF vice president. Richardson is a municipal councilor and co-founder with Smith. They remember a third co-founder, John Davis, who was passionate about finding solutions to food insecurity. Smith recalls, “He had so much energy, was so enthusiastic about it.” Three years ago, Davis secured a grant from the provincial Sustainable Communities Challenge Fund for the $142,000 required to build a greenhouse on land donated to the municipality next to the high school. Tragically, he died before he could see it completed, so the group named the greenhouse after him.
Another CGSF board member of CGSF, Jody Jensen, teaches an agriculture course at the high school. Since 2009, she and her colleagues have taught students how to grow vegetables in an ever expanding set of raised beds, now numbering 25.
“There was already infrastructure,” says Jensen about the initiative to start a food security organization. “My agriculture class cleans the beds. We plant what we can plant now [before school adjourns for the summer], teaching them as much as we can. Even if we make mistakes, just put some seeds in the ground, get your hands dirty, start with one plant, try something else.”
Treasurer-secretary Rhiannon Hinerman believes just as strongly in education and works on food insecurity awareness for the group. The mother of four recites a familiar adage — give someone a fish and they’ll eat for a day; teach someone to fish and they’ll eat for a lifetime. She hopes community members will be inspired by their work to grow food at home.
“There's also a strong sustainability aspect to growing locally,” says Montzambert, citing long shipping distances common with industrial agriculture. “If we can produce enough fresh, healthy produce and supplement what people get at the grocery store, we’re doing something good for the environment.”
Still, local distribution is important for a facility expected to produce 2,000 kilograms of food annually. “You can grow it,” Jensen says, “but you’ve got to get it where it’s going.”
‘The conversation started around the pandemic when it became apparent that we live in somewhat of a food desert,' says greenhouse volunteer Lucinda Montizambert. She’s met people in this rural area who walk two hours on a round trip to the grocery store. ‘Because of supply chains, prices started to skyrocket. The quality of food was an issue.'
The group’s food distribution committee is partnering with the local non-profit transit service to deliver to food banks and community organizations that serve seniors, youth, community members with special needs, and newcomers. They also hold food giveaways at community events.
President Connie Lamm, who also runs the local farmers market, says, “We have to cover our bills, so we have a table there, and so we don't compromise the farmers, we sell at a higher price.”
These hard-working volunteers will need continuous funding to keep this operation going, including grants for summer employees. Nevertheless, they hope their operation built around an energy-efficient geothermal greenhouse becomes an inspiration for others.
The Centre for Local Prosperity — a charity working to strengthen rural communities in Atlantic Canada — hopes to create a how-to guide based on the CGFS thermal greenhouse project.
“We're going to have to create a well-oiled machine,” Montizambert says. “Something that's consistent, reliable, and sustainable. We’d like to see this model grow across the province, an example to have other people come to look at. We don’t want to waste this opportunity.”
