Nestled against the northwest hills of Vinton, Calif. was a man’s dream to do the unthinkable — to grow citrus and tropical fruit in the harsh environment of the Sierra Valley. But how?
Greg Tolotti, a mechanical engineer by trade, was the owner of this 80-acre ranch. It’s not exactly known when Tolotti decided to take on this dream, but it was sometime in the early 1990s. His property had good sun exposure on a slight sideslope that faced east and south. With this thought, Tolotti began his project — building an underground greenhouse that would use the earth’s insulation to grow citrus and tropical fruit.
Tolotti’s project was masterfully completed. He beautifully designed a 30-foot by 100-foot greenhouse positioned seven feet below ground with a 10-foot cantilever roof that opens with one hand lever offsetting the weight of the roof with ten 15-gallon pots on cables as counter weights. He built 40-inch raised beds around the perimeter walls to increase insulation, and plumbed the greenhouse with automated irrigation. Sadly, Tolotti’s dream never came true — he was unable to grow citrus. But sometimes, one person’s failed dream becomes another’s success story.
I found out about the greenhouse about 10 years ago when some friends who were thinking about buying it asked me to look at it. That sale never materialized, but in 2010 one of my interns, Tammara Hartmann, told me that she and her boyfriend had bought the property and asked if I would be interested in putting the underground greenhouse into operation. I thought, “Wow, what a great challenge to learn how to grow year-round in one of the harshest environments in California.” I jumped at the opportunity.
The first step was to see what I was getting myself into. The greenhouse had been abandoned for years, and rumor had it that a cow had fallen through the roof one winter and had lived in there eating all the weeds, but I didn’t see any signs of that. What was there was a lot of dog manure because it had been used as a doghouse in the winter, as well as the dry remains of scorpions, lizards, and plenty of black widows. Because it had sat vacant for all those years, the soil was dehydrated. Our first approach was to clean the place up and get moisture into the soil. We took a soil sample and it was pretty depleted of all nutrients. Along with my apprentice Ryan Keisling, I spent a week just opening the soil and spending hours drenching it with water. From there we added about 8 yards of composted horse manure, old straw and manures from a ranch in Loyalton, and a couple of yards of organic compost that we imported from Full Circle Compost in Carson City.
The greenhouse took off. The insulation of the earth kept the low temperatures at about 26 degrees all winter long, while in summer we added shade cloth to keep the daytime highs at about 100. In February 2011, we seeded spinach, kale, sweet peas, carrots, greens, and Swiss chard on half of it, and cabbage and broccoli on the other half. In June we rotated in more than 400 tomato plants, beans, and peppers. The “Bunker,” as we call it, has been growing ever since. We planted perennial sorrel, sage, thyme, oregano, and parsley the first year and let them flower to bring in the ladybugs, and they did. For 2012, we left about 30 percent of the herbs in the raised beds, and filled the rest with strawberries that are now starting to produce. We will continue cool season crops throughout the year since they seem to be the most productive. It’s definitely a learning curve trying to grow down under. There is plenty more to learn.
~ Gary Romano is the owner of Sierra Valley Farms, located in Beckwourth, Calif. Comment on this story below.
