I do it because I get unusual plants/exotic colors only catalog seeds can give me. I do it because I like doing it. Yes, you can get earlier bloom with some plants. With others (like cosmos and zinnia) I find they do best planted directly outside. You learn from experience. Lately (after doing it for 30 years) it's become a bit of a chore so I stopped doing seeds that need to be started before March 1st and buy those plants in the nursery. I use an 8 tray light setup with two shop lights next to each other on each level, each light with one ordinary 40 watt tube and one full spectrum tube. Keep a list of when each plant needs to be started (by weeks before last frost), keep the lights no more than an inch from the plants, and always have a fan or slightly open window in the plant room to prevent fungus. Try to water from the bottom and without soaking the top of the soil. Have as much fun with this and go nuts obsessing over whatever you feel comfortable with. Rewmember, it's for pleasure!

Hi John, I'd like to help. I'm looking at my manual and my HFGH 10x12, but I'm confused. We had no trouble at all assembling these parts. We just laid out the steel base (parts 43, 44) and built our wooden foundation to match the size of the base, and then the parts 1 through 6 fit perfectly on top of the steel base. I agree with jbest123, I would not modify anything at this point...that should not be necessary at all, and maybe we can figure out what is going on! When you say, "Front and rear joined up nice but the sides are off almost 1"...can you clarify this? (The sides are off 1" from what?) When you say, "I removed the 3 bolts from the centers of #'s 3 and 4 to install the #7 corner posts" I'm confused too. Each #7 corner post is held in place with two hold down connectors and two bolts, not three, as you can see in this photo of an interior corner. (In this photo I'd already put some insulation inside the hollow base.) Here's an outside base corner, if it helps: The part in the manual saying the diagonal should be 15'10" (page 5) is referring to the size of the excavated hole in the ground, not the structure itself. In my opinion (based on posts from others here) it's best to ignore that and just build your foundation to the size of the parts in your kit. Standing by to help...

I don't have a gh but do have a hoop house on my raised bed. I have lots of things going in there that I planted in early March. Even with the wild winter weather we have been experiencing (I live in SE MI also) everything looks happy and healthy. I will list what I have off the top of my head but I am sure I will miss some...various leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, swiss chard, radishes, beets, carrots, potatoes, garlic, shallots, mache...well probably lots more since it is pretty packed. It measures 4'x10' in size. Oh yeah the peas are starting to pop up today. Kim

Yes science is science, but nobody has yet to explain any science of how anything about my original statements in this thread were incorrect (that's the problem). The reason, their simply not!!! You can twist my statements into anything, but I will always go back to my original statements. If my original statements were comprehended (without trying to turn them into something their not), I would be happy to learn how (if they were) wrong. But the problem is the statements simply are not being addressed as they were stated. Therefore saying something is wrong without even understanding what you are calling wrong, dosen't make any sense. That's why I needed to state them over and over so many times, to clarify the exact meaning of the statements first (because they just weren't understood correctly). Then I asked specific questions, that if answered would explain how my statements were incorrect. Those questions were never answered in any way, shape, or form (correctly/sufficiently or not) with all this so called science that there's supposed to be (that way I could learn if I was wrong). So all that has happened is climes that I'm wrong about everything, talk about all this science being science. Yet absolutely no science showing just how my statements were incorrect. Just claims of it being so, and trying to bully me into having a different opinion because that's what somebody else's opinion is. I'm all for an intelligent conversation, but to do that you simply need to understand my statement/questions correctly in the first place. Otherwise nothing said makes any sense, then how could it be an intelligent conversation? All I can do is my part and try to explain myself as best I can, even if that means trying over and over. But the other person simply needs to meet me half way and try to comprehend what I'm saying in order to be able to intelligently continue the conversation (if they actually want a intelligent conversation). Especially if their saying my statements are wrong, they simply need to understand them first. Otherwise intelligently explaining how/why their wrong is imposable.