The short answer to this question is that a Chinese greenhouse is a passive solar greenhouse designed to allow us to grow warm-weather vegetables during the off-season using only solar energy.

The longer answer is that a Chinese greenhouse is a passive solar greenhouse designed much like a passive solar home in ways that allow it to capture as much of the low-angled winter sun as possible. The long axis of the greenhouse runs east and west, also like a passive solar home. Moreover, there’s no glass or plastic on the north-facing roof, which would lose an enormous amount of heat during cold winter days and nights.

Chinese greenhouses are also pretty airtight and very well insulated – again like passive solar homes -- so that the solar heat they gain during the day isn’t lost at night. Like a well-designed passive solar home, these greenhouses are built with an abundance of thermal mass—solid material like adobe or concrete – that absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night, helping to maintain suitable temperatures even on the coldest of winter Nights.

Well-built Chinese greenhouses are also typically earth-sheltered, tucked into a hillside or bermed. This helps maintain warmer temperatures in the winter and cooler temperatures in the summer.

They are the only affordable way to grow warm-weather vegetables in colder climates. They are more expensive to build but a whole lot less expensive to operate than a conventional greenhouse, which is one of the most energy-inefficient structures humans have ever devised.

Here’s a chart that will help you understand the key differences:

The Chinese started building these greenhouses in the 1980s and have recently greatly expanded their greenhouse operations because of early successes.

Chinese greenhouses are more difficult and more costly to build than conventional greenhouses, but they are a whole different breed of animal. They are insulated and airtight, contain thermal mass to regulate heat, designed to capture the low-angled winter sun for heat, earth-sheltered, and more. All this means you are building a much better structure, one that’s much more conducive to growing through the dead of winter using only solar energy, so it will be more challenging to build and more costly than a conventional greenhouse.

Amazingly well…The Chinese have had great success. I am still learning how to grow in mine, control moisture levels, maintain cooler temperatures in the summer, and control insects, but I have had great success so far. I have been able to harvest tomatoes and peppers as late as February. I harvest leafy greens and herbs all year round. I am even starting to grow root vegetables over the winter, like beets.

In my new book, cleverly titled The Chinese Greenhouse (that took some thinking), I explain how to design and build one of these unique structures, including what materials you can use and how you can do so affordably. The last chapter is a photographic documentary of the construction of my greenhouse to help readers understand the process.

In the book, I also describe ways to store surplus heat generated on cold but sunny winter days and make it available at night. Furthermore, I explore ways growers like you can store surplus summer heat for use many months later in the dead of winter. (These are called short-term and long-term heat banking, respectively.)