There's a unique sight just outside of Alliance in Nebraska's panhandle, besides Carhenge. It's a year-round greenhouse that uses just a trace of energy even in the cold of winter and heat of summer. It's a geothermal greenhouse and draws heating and cooling from the earth.
Russ Finch, a former mail carrier and farmer, designed the greenhouse, which he calls the Greenhouse in the Snow. The original, which he built more than 20 years ago, is connected to his home.
You don’t often see orange trees in Nebraska, but Finch says growing citrus was a way of showing that his geothermal greenhouse could work.
“Any type of plant we saw we would put it in and see what it could do. We didn’t baby anything,” Finch said. “We just put it in and if it died it died, but almost everything really grows well. We can grow practically any tropical plant.”
