A Growing Dome® from the outside. Note: All photos in this piece courtesy of growingspaces.com, and are used by permission.

If you are struggling with the short growing season and the challenging gardening conditions we have in Pagosa Country, but still wish to have fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers all year 'round, a Growing Dome® is one way to accomplish this goal. You've likely seen one in the area, as there are currently dozens of these geodesic domes in and around Pagosa, including the one used at the Rito Blanco Nursery. If you've never had the pleasure of being inside one during the cold winter months let me warn you right now, once you've had local, freshly picked lettuce, tomatoes and flowers in January, you'll be hooked, and a dome will shoot up towards the top of your wish list.

I visited the Growing Spaces shop and demonstration dome to find out why the owners claim these structures are better than standard greenhouses. Self-proclaimed "mad scientist" and co-owner Udgar Parsons took me on a quick tour of the shop to show me the efficacy of his solar heating system, and was particularly proud of the solar-powered batteries that were able to run his forklift for short tasks. "This is the only solar-powered forklift in existence!" he beamed.

We settled down in one of his office rooms, and I asked Udgar to tell the story of how Growing Spaces came into being.

Udgar and Puja Parsons

"I was born in England, and was a dentist in the U.K. for fifteen years, and then became a part-time dentist and a part-time farmer. I've always been interested in growing things and being connected to the Earth. When I came to America, I discovered that the climate was so different over here [in Colorado]. We'd lived on the west coast of Scotland, very mild, always lots of rain and moisture and warmth. And over here you've got intense sun, freezing nights in the winter, you've got drying winds—it's so challenging to try and grow things.”

"But then I got connected with John Denver's Windstar Foundation in Snowmass," he continued, "and there they had a huge 50-foot diameter geodesic dome called a Biodome. It was cold and gray and miserable outside, but going into this space it was like a jungle—it was like going from Alaska to Florida in one step. They were looking for someone to work with the BioDomes to be shop manager, and I applied and got the job. I worked with the BioDomes for six years, and then they ran out of the money to pay people, so I got laid off.”

"But I was so fired up with this idea of being able to grow food year 'round with no electricity. So I started up a company called Bio-Spaces with a couple other guys from Windstar and we started to make domes available. But they were so expensive. The cheapest dome we figured out how to do was about $15,000. And I said, 'I've got to make an affordable dome,' and figured out I could make a fifteen-foot dome that had all the features for $2,000. And they said, 'No, that's too cheap.' So I said, 'Guys, I'll see you later.'”

Although the materials may have been not up his friends' standards, his first design worked beautifully and fed three families. But nonetheless, Udgar began to refine his designs and materials. People kept asking him to build bigger domes, which he resisted doing, but always relented in the end.
"So that's what I've been doing for the last fifteen years—upleveling the product, refining it, getting more and more exposure. We have domes in thirty-three states and five countries—soon to be six as we are just about ready to ship one out to Sweden."

He and his wife Puja moved from Aspen to Pagosa in 1995. "We were asked to build a dome in Pagosa. We'd been trying to buy a place in Aspen but the billionaires are driving out the millionaires," he said with a laugh. There was a five-acre piece of land next door to the people who wanted the dome built, and the next thing they knew they'd swapped a dome for the down payment on the land, and left Aspen for good.

I asked Udgar to explain how the Growing Domes® work.

Illustration of the components in a Growing Dome® Click to Enlarge

"Basically, regular greenhouses get hot in the day, and at night they lose all the heat and they freeze. And then in the summer they overheat. So what we're trying to do with the Growing Dome is, in the winter we're trying to capture the heat of the sun during the day and store it inside the dome and slow down the heat loss at night.

"We store the heat in the water tank and in the soil. We have a piece of sheet metal on the water tank which is painted a dark color and the sun shines on it all day long as it tracks across the sky and the tank absorbs the heat, releasing it back into the dome. We are circulating the hot air as it's created by the sun shining into the dome and blowing that air through the soil in tubes, so it is actually heating the soil and storing that heat in the soil.”

"What happens, the reason plants stop growing, is the soil temperature drops too low. In terms of keeping the heat in at night, we use double or triple glazing [on the panes], we have north wall insulation, we have insulation inside the foundation wall, and we also have an insulating skirt that prevents frost from coming in under the wall and freezing the soil. That's the main way the dome is able to grow all winter. But also, the combination of the water tank and the reflective insulation on the north wall, with the high summer sun—that tank sits in the shade so the water stays cool and it keeps the dome cool. Most greenhouses get far too hot in the summer, but in that dome you can grow all summer as well as all winter. So when your tomato plants are just starting to produce fruit in September outside, boom!— the first frost and they're gone, but in the dome we can start tomatoes early in March and be harvesting them in June, July—all the way through December.”

"Also, in terms of preventing overheating, we have automatic windows that open and close by using a wax that contracts and expands according to the temperature. It's all solar powered, so it's free. The bigger domes have solar powered cooling fans, so the hotter the sun shines the more the fan works."
The most popular models are the 18, 22 and 26-foot domes. A 22' Growing Dome® with twin glazing is $6450.00, and triple wall is $7950.00. The kit includes the solar heating system, the water tank, automatic windows, north wall insulation, and the door, and is pre-cut and pre-drilled and ready to bolt together. When I asked if it was hard to assemble the kits, he told me you have to have practical skills such as being able to use a wrench and a drill. "But we can also install them for people," Udgar added.

A gardener's winter dream: inside a Growing Dome®

Although he mentioned typical sizes, I asked if there were size limits.
"For a while, the biggest dome we created has been a 42' diameter model. Now a community group wants me to build a bigger one, so I'm building a 53’ one and that's where I'll draw the line. People use them for other things, like a place to put their hot tub or a space to do exercise, massage—many different uses over and above a greenhouse. But because of my love of plants and the Earth I definitely emphasize them as a greenhouse, not a recreational space."

Before we went outside for a tour, I asked Udgar what else he'd like people to know.

"The word is out that these things are expensive. What I want to tell people is, it's not an expense, it's an investment. It's an investment in your own health as well as a place where you can go and enjoy it year in, year out. This is a long-term structure. It's not a little hoop thing that blows away or collapses with the first snow. If you calculate the amount of produce you can grow, and the value of organic produce, if you optimize production, it would pay for itself in five years, and then pay for itself four times over in its lifetime. I've done research on cost comparison with other greenhouses, and good quality ones are actually more expensive than mine, and they do not have the same features, and they will not grow year 'round."

Inside the demonstration dome, the temperature was quite comfortable, and it was exciting to see how much could be grown in a 22-foot model. Fish were living happily in the water tank, and pansies smiled back from their spot near the north wall. Before I left, Udgar filled a bag full of fresh organic greens for me to take home. On a cold February afternoon, I'd say this is perhaps the best sales tool of all.

Since I spoke with Udgar in 2005, they have some exciting news to report: The Toyota Vehicle Manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky will be using a 51-foot Growing Dome® to grow produce for the company's cafeteria. According to the Growing Spaces website, Chuck Martin, the engineer in charge of the Toyota project, chose the Growing Dome® because of "its natural energy efficient shape and its demonstration of low-impact technology and passive solar design."

To learn more, please visit the Growing Spaces website at growingspaces.com. They also offer a promotional CD free for the asking. You can take a tour of a demonstration dome, but call ahead to schedule an appointment: 970-731-2120 or toll-free, 800-753-9333.

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