Our New Biodome

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Our new Biodome is pretty much complete. In fact this week it was our main preoccupation.

The new Ridge Berry Farm Biodome

Late last week, we had already started and almost completed the framing. Were it not for Matt of Growing Spaces being on site, I think it would have been nearly impossible to complete the structure so quickly...if at all.

By the second day of operations, our frame was up. The latter part of the process was rather precarious.

A precarious operation: finishing off the framing

We were then ready to attach the paneling. These are made of a poly-carbonate sandwich with an exterior UV protective coating. These panels prove to be not only light, but very strong.

Installing the final panels

This work was no less tricky than the framing and this part was greatly hampered by rain. Once the panels are wet, it is actually impossible to get a solid footing on the dome. Not only did we face quite a bit of rain, but the weather was very humid so the condensation on the dome every morning took quite a bit of time to burn off.

The weather did not exactly cooperate

In any event, by the morning of the third day, the paneling was pretty much complete.

The morning of Day 3 and the dome is taking shape

Because of the rain, we tackled a few projects in parallel. One of these was the construction of the water tank. The water tank is used as a large thermal mass. Once complete, it is roughly 4 feet high and 11 feet in diameter, holding some 3000 gallons of water.

The construction of the tank consists of four galvanized steel sheets. These were first bolted together in two sections.

Preparing the water tank walls

This steel surface was prepped and then painted matte black to absorb solar energy. The entire thing was then shaped once inside the dome.

Finishing the tank assembly in the dome

The tank is lined with a large rectangular rubber bladder. Once fitted, the top edges of the tank are capped to hold the bladder in place.

We then installed a small solar-powered submersible pump and filled the tank with our well water.

The solar powered submersible water pump

Another parallel activity was the installation of reflector panels inside the dome. These cover two fifths of the dome and are installed on the north side. They act as solar reflectors in the winter time and help to warm the water. They are simply stapled to the wooden structure and then taped together.

The reflecting panels are also insulating. With the very humid weather faced during installation (Humidex corrected temperatures reaching 40 degrees C), working inside the dome proved almost unbearable.

Installing reflector panels

In order to provide some cooling to the dome, two upper panels are hinged and fitted with passive actuators. The actuators are pistons filled with wax. When the temperature goes up, the wax melts and expands and the pistons force the hinged panels open.

Installing the actuators on the upper panels

The dome is also fitted with four solar powered fans. These are mounted directly into the lower panels of the dome.

Solar powered fan assembly

These fans are all fitted with passively activated louvers, using the same concept as the upper panel actuators.

Installing the fan assembly louvers

By the morning of the fourth day, it was regrettably time for Matt to return to Colorado. He did finish off a few other details but left us with a few items to finish off. Things we simply could not complete because of the rain. In particular, this includes the outside taping and capping of the gaps between the panels.

Even though Matt had completed some of the more difficult sections, it is now up to us to climb the outside of the dome and finish it off (frankly something we're not very keen to do).

In the end, it is still quite a magnificent structure. Once finished we then need to move to the next stage: the interior aquaponic system design.

Quite a magnificent structure

Although much of our time was dedicated to the dome, the crops did not wait for us and the harvest of Blackberries continues to be bountiful. As a result Chef has been making some superb pies (served with Chantilly cream, they are decadent).

Chef's Blackberry pie

The vegetable garden is also producing well. The heirloom canning tomatoes are so prolific we have started to sell them (we can't possibly process them all).

To finish this week, I leave you with our latest gardening success. The  Charentais melon (a heirloom French cantaloupe). We had our eyes on these for a while...just waiting for the first to ripen. Of course the day I was ready to pick, some large rodent (most likely rabbit) beat us to it, reminding us that the melon was very ready indeed. His portion was not so large so we saved the remainder of the melon for ourselves. This with our local Pingue Prosciutto proved delectable.

Our first Charentais melon