Photo: James Rojas (WBZ)
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A first of its kind greenhouse in East Boston celebrated its grand opening Wednesday.
Guests including Mayor MIchelle Wu and Boston elementary school students attended the opening of the new greenhouse at 6 Chelsea Terr., which is a project of the nonprofit educational urban farm Eastie Farm. Founded in 2016, Eastie Farm focuses on feasible climate action and providing the East Boston community with greater control over its food supply.
What makes this greenhouse unique is its ability to use geothermal energy to keep things warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
"The heat energy that’s below us, below our feet, if you go below the frost line, the earth maintains a very constant, nice temperature," said Eastie Farm Director Kannan Thiruvengadam. "We get that temperature up here in the greenhouse."
The greenhouse is also carbon negative, meaning it absorbs more carbon than it releases into the atmosphere.
"Surely there are many geothermal projects around the region, but none of it is a greenhouse," Thiruvengadam said. "We don’t know of any, so we think this may be the first in the region."
Eastie Farm also offers educational programs for kids, such as the Junior Farmers program, which is how the idea for the greenhouse came about.
"I did a nature program and a junior farming program at my school with Eastie Farm, and we came here and it was really empty, and so we talked about doing a greenhouse," 11-year-old Yara Munif told WBZ NewsRadio.
The greenhouse began construction in Fall 2021 and was completed in October 2022.
WBZ's James Rojas (@JamesRojasNews) reports.
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