Canada and other countries with climate zone 3, 4 or 5 can grow locally the majority of the fruits needed for their population – all delicious and organic, says engineer Dan Bostan, founder and president of the Montreal-based Human Wisdom specialized in sustainable solutions.
Countries with temperate climate zone 6 or 7 could also grow persimmons, pomegranates, lemons and mandarins… and those with warmer-temperate climate zone 8 or 9 could grow mangoes, avocados, pineapples and bananas, adds Bostan.
His first statement is based on actual experimental results, the second one on extrapolation... In the last several years, Bostan has built and tested six different models of unheated greenhouses of various sizes, construction solutions and thermal performance. Three years ago, he put together everything he learned in prior years and built an experimental model of an unheated greenhouse that can enhance the local climate zone by 4 zones, and he called it the Plus4Zones greenhouse.
"Our experimental greenhouse," says Bostan, "is located about 100 km from Quebec City in climate zone 4 and it creates an indoor environment equivalent to climate zone 8." Inside, he planted fruit trees and grapevines that could not normally survive or produce fruits in the local cold climate, such as cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, figs and table grapes, creating what he likes to call an indoor orchard, and they all gave delicious fruits.
"It is hard to describe the joy of growing, harvesting and eating fruits from your own fruit trees and knowing they are 100% organic," says Dan Bostan.
Growing fruit trees in a greenhouse, explains Bostan, has several advantages over growing them in the field and makes it easier to grow 100% organic fruits. He searched and analyzed various organic growing methods that people are using in different parts of the world and found one that is also self-sustainable – he implemented it and has been applying it on his fruit trees in the last few years with excellent results.
Among the features of the Plus4Zones greenhouse, Bostan enumerates: "It is a rather simple solution and affordable to build and operate, it facilitates a high productivity allowing us to grow at the same time fruit trees and also a good deal of vegetables, and is also quite nice looking, as it does not totally resemble a typical greenhouse."
Dan Bostan is launching an invitation to a sustainable project worldwide called Fruits without Borders.
Encouraged by the fruitful results of his experimental greenhouse through two particularly cold winters in Quebec in 2017-18 and 2018-19, Bostan plans to build an improved prototype that can then be produced in any size desired – from a mini-indoor orchard in someone’s backyard to a large size commercial greenhouse. He also intends to focus on testing different solutions to maximize the fruit productivity of the indoor orchard.
Bostan will share the results of his work and offer assistance to everyone interested in building an indoor orchard either of their own or in their community, starting a lucrative business as an organic fruit grower, or becoming a local manufacturer of ecological greenhouses. But he feels much more could be done to help people enjoy locally grown delicious and organic fruits as soon as possible.
After seeing the multiple benefits of growing fruit trees in an unheated indoor orchard, Dan Bostan is launching an invitation to a sustainable project worldwide called Fruits without Borders. “This is a synergic and interactive project meant to encourage and support growing locally a much larger variety of tasty and healthy fruits beyond the limitations of the regional climate. And we can achieve that by sharing and applying everything that we know right now in this domain, and by improving it further through our joint efforts”.
More information about the Plus4Zones greenhouse and the Fruits without Borders project can be found on these YouTube video presentations:
For more information:
Human Wisdom
Dan Bostan
[email protected]
humanwisdom.ca