The “lemons” poking out of the sand along Nebraska Highway 87 aren’t the only ones growing north of the Panhandle town of Alliance.

Just four miles from Carhenge – Nebraska’s famous collection of old cars meant to emulate England’s Stonehenge – real lemons hang from branches huddled among other fruit trees, flowers and berry bushes in the greenhouse behind Russ Finch’s home.The notion of citrus trees growing in Western Nebraska is surprising in this rugged region of cattle and wheat production. But Finch, a retired mail carrier, has turned his far-fetched farming idea into a cottage industry he calls Greenhouse in the Snow.

Finch wasn’t trying to invent a way to grow produce when, in 1979, he investigated using a geothermal system as the main source of heat for the A-frame house he shares with his wife, Darlene. There, during winter, brutal winds sweep across the open countryside blowing snow into giant heaps around his buildings. The sun and wind steal precious moisture from the ground the rest of the year. Finch knew that the ground stays a constant 52 degrees eight feet below the surface in Western Nebraska. So why not pass air through tubes buried that deep where it would be heated or cooled and then blown back into the structure.

The experiment worked and got Finch thinking: If he could heat and cool his house using the natural energy of the earth, why couldn’t he use the same technology to heat and cool a greenhouse? When he explained his idea to several university professors, they told him it wouldn’t work. Finch didn’t give up. “Don’t believe anyone who tells you something won’t work if no one has tried it before,” Finch said.

In the 1990s he built an 85-feet-long greenhouse behind his home and planted a variety of citrus trees and other plants. In time, he was growing oranges in the snow.

Today, in Finch’s greenhouse, oranges and lemons cling to trees next to leafy limbs heavy with a canopy of tangerines and limes, while roses, orchids, camellias and nine varieties of grapes fill the indoor understory. “Off of just two lemon trees, we pick more than 300 pounds of lemons each year,” Finch said. “Not bad considering it seems that winter sometimes seems to last up to six months.” The squash vines snaking through Finch’s greenhouse were not planted intentionally. Finch doesn’t have the heart to uproot them. “The seeds came in through a load of mulch,” he said. “We decided to just leave them and see what they do.”

Finch sells much of his produce locally through farmers’ markets and health food stores. His grand experiment has morphed into a “monster” as he describes it.

“It’s just about out of control,” the 89-year-old said of his hobby-turned-livelihood.

 

Interest in Finch’s project took off a decade ago when Alliance’s Chamber of Commerce began promoting it. A feature in the January/February 2009 issue of Nebraska Life helped, too, according to Finch. Now, Finch and his business partner, Allen Bright, receive inquiries from around the world. Finch leads visitors through his greenhouse on up to five tours a day. Components for the structures are shipped to almost every corner of the U.S. and from Northern Saskatchewan to Georgia, Bright said. Plus, dealers are now selling the greenhouses in Canada and Europe.

Other geothermal designs differ from Finch’s in how they use “earth’s battery,” incurring great expense to drive tubes straight into the ground, usually funded by grants. Finch’s use of a single horizontal trench is less expensive, so much so that they make financial sense for gardeners even when considering the cost of shipping greenhouses to the other side of the world. Some customers have flown into Alliance, rented a truck and driven their new greenhouse home.

Germany is the farthest that Finch has sold one. There are more than 50 in Nebraska, including one six miles away at Alliance High School. Others are in Hastings, Kearney, Neligh, Nebraska City, Imperial and Omaha. The greenhouses are fairly easy to assemble by anyone who has some basic construction knowledge and access to a backhoe and skid loader. Start to finish two people can complete one of the greenhouses in a month or less.

Bright became involved 10 years ago when Finch came to him looking for steel to rebuild a greenhouse. The former rancher and feedlot owner who now owns and operates Antioch Machine in Alliance, was soon fabricating parts for Finch’s greenhouse company. Now Bright handles much of the production side of the business.

At his shop on Second Street in Alliance, Bright builds the components for the greenhouse frames using computerized equipment such as a robotic welder that can weld the steel frames four times faster than doing it by hand. Finch said that the machine is a necessity since highly skilled welders in the Alliance area already have good jobs.

What really sets these greenhouses apart from others is the method by which the temperature is controlled. Instead of using fossil fuels, these are heated using the same method Finch devised to heat and cool his home. Heating Finch’s greenhouse costs less than $1 per day.

The hothouses are all 17 feet wide, but the lengths range from 54 to 150 feet, with the optimum length being 102 feet. The north wall is metal siding with urethane foam on the inside, and the south side is covered with flexible polycarbonate panels that allow sunshine in. The panels are thin but hail resistant and capable of withstanding winds of up to 115 mph.

They will also stand up to flying gravel trucks. Ryan Lorenzen, a customer of Finch’s from the eastern Nebraska community of Wakefield, built one of the greenhouses with his family in 2019. In May 2020, a gravel truck careened off Nebraska Highway 35 and landed on it.

“The truck was in the air when it hit the greenhouse,” said Lorenzen, who witnessed the accident. Although he had to make repairs, Lorenzen was impressed and pleased that most of it remained intact.

 

Finch and Bright have sold more than 300 greenhouses. They attribute their popularity to the growing desire of people to know where their food is coming from and how it is produced. “Most city folks would like to grow their own food, but they can’t find chicken or bacon seeds,” Finch said with a laugh.

Contaminated grocery store produce has fueled a surge of orders in 2021 for Finch and Bright. People want to grow their own romaine lettuce. There is also interest from hemp and medical marijuana farmers. “We even heard from a fella in West Virginia who wanted to grow palm trees so he could make his own coconut flour tortillas,” Finch said. “You can grow about anything in the controlled environment of a greenhouse. You could even raise snakes since you never have frost inside.”

The greenhouses are living up to expectations. In Scottsbluff, the North Platte Natural Resource District grows bananas in its greenhouse along with passion fruit, papaya, pomegranate, oranges, kiwis, celery and coffee. The 138-foot-long structure includes a classroom and uses beneficial beetles and spiders to control other pests. Staff pollinate citrus trees by hand with cotton swabs in the educational facility that donates produce to food pantries and veterans’ homes. 

Back in Alliance, Bright and his wife, Lisa, are experimenting with artichokes that grow alongside tomatoes, peppers, asparagus and citrus. Broccoli and kale will be planted next, and corn is not outside the realm of possibility.

“Mangos, papaya, figs, grapes, whatever – we have people everywhere growing everything in our greenhouses all year long,” Finch said. Including oranges in the snow.