 Living in Minnesota and trying to grow greens year round, especially during the winter can be difficult to say the least. Haiti Clotter Tonight shows us how Bemidji is preparing to change that with the help of a new greenhouse. The Bemidji community food shelf has taken a new approach when it comes to food. This deep winter greenhouse will make it possible to produce food during winter. Which is something that growers have a really hard time doing unless they have like a hydroponics operation. So this is a different approach to that. It was unveiled during an open house at the Bemidji community food shelf. The greenhouse is the second structure of five that will be located throughout Minnesota. It's a collaboration with the University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships. The structure is built to try to capture as much solar energy as possible. A big glazing wall on the south side. The sunlight basically comes in through there. It heats up the space and heat rises to the top of the interior of the greenhouse. It gets taken in through a duct and goes down and then forced underneath and through the rock bed and that hot air basically puts its heat into the rocks. It's the brainchild of designer Dan Handing and he considers it his baby. One of the challenges he faced was figuring out the function of the heat storage aspect. We've got good amounts of insulation in the exterior walls and in the roof. And we've got a thermal mass essentially so we've got some place to store the heat that comes in here. The Bemidji community food shelf has its own farm and will use the facility to grow food and give it to customers at no cost. The greenhouse goes along with the food shelf's mission in providing food for people in need. Local food is a community experience where people come together, work together, builds a sense of community in a way that buying food at the grocery store never could. The hope is to also make the space available for local growers and for educational purposes in Bemidji, Haiti-Claude or Lakeland News. The other three deep winter greenhouses will be in Brainerd, Medellia and Lake City. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.