Extreme Greenhouse Prototype

Earl Senchuk is a Marquette-area artist and inventor.

He’s partnered with John Hust of the Shelter Bay Tomato Company in Christmas on a new creation.

It’s the Yoopertopia Growing System, a greenhouse specially designed for gardening in extreme weather conditions like the U.P.’s.

Earl says the one-of-a-kind prototype allows people to grow produce in the dead of winter, though he’s not sure yet how far into the season growing will be possible.

We’ve done news stories about two of earl’s more recent inventions, Boomer Bloomer heated garden beds in early 2010 and a rip current sensor for the Marquette shoreline in early 2011.

Yoopertopia uses Earl’s Boomer Bloomers, but an extreme greenhouse needs to be sturdy.

John says the anemometer outside the greenhouse measured 56-mile-per-hour winds recently without any problems, and the five or six inches of snow the Munising area received last Friday slid off the roof without a scratch.

On a 29–degree morning outside, the soil inside the greenhouse was 75 degrees.

John says Yoopertopia should help his business by extending his tomato-growing season by two months in the fall and by another two months in the spring.

And if enough people are interested, Yoopertopia might be used to create new jobs.

Earl says the greenhouse and the Boomer Bloomers are very simple designs that can be manufactured anywhere.

If you’d like to see the 16–foot–by–20–foot greenhouse for yourself, Earl and John are hosting an open house from 10 to 5 this Saturday and Sunday on M–28 in Christmas.