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Jun 24, 2023

UW, Food For Thought build 2 new geodesic dome greenhouses in Casper

CASPER, Wyo. — Two retired Casper-area public school buildings were each joined with a new geodesic dome greenhouse in preparation for their upcoming reinventions. The greenhouses were built earlier

CASPER, Wyo. — Two retired Casper-area public school buildings were each joined with a new geodesic dome greenhouse in preparation for their upcoming reinventions.

The greenhouses were built earlier this month with designs and expert involvement by the University of Wyoming, with funding provided by the University of Wyoming’s Department of Agriculture Season Extension Grant that’s funded by the USDA.

Wyoming Food For Thought Project founder and executive director Jamie Purcell says this round of domes is from the end of the grant cycle and will help extend the short growing season in Wyoming’s climate.

The first dome was built at the former North Casper Elementary School, which Food For Thought plans on converting into its main hub and operations center.

The second dome was completed two days later at the former Willard Elementary School, which Purcell says is now owned by the Casper Housing Authority and will be part of its “edible schoolyard” that will help instruct people how to grow fresh food.

“It’s not a four-season greenhouse,” said Purcell, which would require auxiliary heat and other systems in this climate. Instead, she says it can extend the season and allow growers to continue through November and possibly into December.

“You have to be smart about the crops you’re growing; you can’t put hot-weather crops in them and grow in November,” she said. However, certain herbs that usually die off in the winter can actually go dormant inside the greenhouse and come back the following season.

“If you use these season extenders to kind of change the growing season, then the amount of labor you have to put into every single planting year changes, and that’s important for our food system, too.”

The domes take roughly eight hours of labor to install, but that doesn’t count the work done at a shop to prepare and cut the materials. That work was done by Jeff Edwards, a University of Wyoming Extension Educator specializing in pesticide education.

The building process was painstakingly documented by UW’s digital marketing specialist, Tanya Engel.

“Two weeks ago, I was at Jeff’s shop just outside Torrington, and he had a small workshop where all the pieces were built for the two geodesic domes,” said Tanya. “I documented all of that, and then I’m here this week documenting the build so when it’s done we can put together a user manual complete with photos showing how to build one of these.”

“The beautiful thing about the prefab process is he has been training other people on how to build these,” said Jamie, “and in fact, they have a gal trained on the reservation who now builds kits there and is placing geo domes all over the reservation.

“It’s a really exciting thing to see there.”

Features Editor More by Dan Cepeda