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Back on topic, a good greenhouse can extend the growing season by more than 30 days at either end of the normal season. In some locations, this is the difference between having a growing season and not having a growing season. A good greenhouse can provide passive solar gain if it's attached to the south side of a house. Getting greenhouses built after the nuclear exchange is a bit of a trick, though. Still, necessity is the mother of invention and improvisation. A half-baked greenhouse is far superior to no greenhouse.

New England of 2000 has many such half-baked greenhouses. In southern Vermont, the Black Watch started as a survivalist group that ended up taking over the two southernmost counties. Pre-war, they did their homework on down-and-dirty greenhouses, which can be constructed from scraps and salvage. Unlike SAMAD, where most of the agricultural labor works on small intensive outdoor garden plots and the resource in shortest supply is water, in New England the scarcest resources are good soil for growing crops and days of the growing season. Greenhouses get around this problem by extending the growing season and by offering either intensive soil beds or hydroponics beds. One reason why the Blood Cross, a super-sized marauder band called a horde, is such a problem is that they have a tendency to raze everything in their path. Without the greenhouses (or their houses), the 30% of New England’s population still alive can’t make it another year.