Guess it all depends on the climate in your area and the temperament of your horses. Then do the best with what you have close by to keep costs down while making a safe and decent looking building. If you have the space and are building/modifying you can add a paddock area outside the stall (attached) so the horses can go outside also (sand is a good option for footing)which will make apple picking easier and work wonders in preventing the atmosphere for developing bad habits. Our horses have this and would rather stay outside than under roof. We feed inside for obvious reasons, but they spend 90% of their time outside regardless of the weather. Keep in mind that they are not kittens or parakeets and you aren't doing them any favors by shutting them off from the elements. A horse isn't going to freeze to death because it has a concrete block wall and a concrete floor or is in an unheated building. Electric fenceing is your best friend (just make sure you have a good/safe charger (don't overlook the solars). If a horse is cribbing or chewing the top of a divider, a strand of electric will work wonders. If your dirt floor doesn't drain the way you think it should and you can't afford to raise the whole thing etc, etc, dig a ditch and lay some flex pipe in some gravel, cover it and be happy. You can extend the ditch a few meters away from the building and end the pipe in a sump that you've dug, filled with rocks/gravel and covered in extreme conditions. And don't forget toys be it a ball hanging from the ceiling or a basketball on the floor (could mean the difference in a happy horse with a clear head or a wood chewing weaver/pacer). Don't overlook the importance of your compfort and convenience either (physical, mental, and financial) horses tend to loose their glamour and end up neglected with habits that make them all but worthless when the owner spends more time cleaning than enjoying and eats macoroni and cheese with a backache. My 2 cents. Enjoy, Dave

After trying to grow several hundred one-gallon lavender plants under a "portable garage", I do have at least one experience with them. Although we average only about 6 inches of snow at any one time, the metal poles cannot support the extra weight. The snow definitely did not slide off my structure, even with an emergency propane heater underneath. ( the cross supports on these structures are insufficient to hold any extra weight.) If you are planning to replace the opaque white/green plastic cover with clear for a greenhouse, it may be a challenge to attach the clear plastic. The plastic attachment hardware will be considerably more expensive than the structure itself. Hopefully this will save you the $199 initial expense of trying to use a portable garage for a greenhouse....

It's a big adventure, especially to one who does not have any gardening experience to help guide your desires, tempered by your knowledge and abilities. It's all best gained by doing it firsthand. The first steps are always just a big pile of questions and mysterious natural and technical processes. The best hobbies are those that seem outwardly simple, but have layers of complexity one can grow into. Gardening fits this premise very well. Perhaps ask your neighbor what their thoughts are. Sounds like your retiree friend may be providing a lot of the sweat equity, at the least their broader experience, unless you are out there shoulder to shoulder, sharing the work load and learning as you go. If their plot is small now, are they willing and up to the task of attending to a large space devoted to a multitude of "new" plants they are not currently growing? Does this person have any gh experience? Actually, the large greenhouse you're dreaming of could keep three or more people busy. Especially with such "exotic" plants (for a gh) as you're contemplating. For your circumstances, I'd also suggest starting smaller. By all means choose a high roof, it does help stabilize temps a bit. Try all sorts of things, but keep it simple, too. Later on, the first gh could become a tropical space, a potting/starting area, or devoted to some more specific use while you add a larger greenhouse that utilizes what you learned in that first, smaller space. If I were a bug, I'd head straight to that shady area in your pic. Lots of shade, good understory (small plants to cling to and breed in) and plenty of moisture. Bug heaven! Your gh choice probably has plenty of gaps, but a sealed up gh is just heaven for molds and fungus to invade. That'll be harder to control than anything if not dealt with by proper moisture control. For bugs, you'd need to screen all openings and plug the gaps, which decreases air transfer a bit as well. So, it's all a trade-off of one thing for another. Fortunately, if you can afford it, the liberal application of money can address most of the issues, lol! Seriously, many problems can also be dealt with by addressing them early and it doesn't always take a ton of money if you're willing to be creative, fabricate and scrounge a bit. I made a temperature controlled air exchanger from a couple cheap box fans, an old aquarium thermometer, a relay and a model train transformer! Looks odd, but works great! You will probably see bugs no matter what. I usually don't have a large problem with bugs, but more than once, an infestation required I sacrifice the plant or plants, as all the bugs were on them en masse and it was easier to just remove the entire plant very carefully and more or less be done with it. I have a few uninvited dinner guests this season, but so far, it's pretty minor. Keeping mulch in place and picking off the dead leaves and keeping it clean helps greatly. The larger or more gh's you have, though, the greater the area to patrol, clean and treat for problems. But, presumably, the larger space would let you have room to grow things yet get around them from all sides. Still, it can become a chore, even a job, if you over-plan and bite off more than you and your helper can tackle. One week unattended, you can find disease, bugs, dried out plants, overgrowth with plants flopping over, equipment problems, you name it, any or all suddenly taking over. It's not like model ship building, where you can park it for weeks or months. Once committed, you are in for the long haul. Sometimes I think I should be committed! ;) I also wonder about debris from all those trees falling on the gh. An arched roof is strong, but a heavy branch could penetrate or even something minor like bird droppings might become a nuisance if those trees were also nesting sites. Better to move the gh more into the yard and add cooling and shade cloths. The money you save on the purchase of a smaller gh can be put into the utility bill. Generally, a gh will amplify certain things and temper others. Overcrowding, lack of air movement or heat and moisture control can run rampant in a gh, yet be milder in their effects outdoors. On the other hand, nasty weather, cold snaps, rainy drenches or dry spells are more easily dealt with, and the heat problem can be conquered. You can control the bugs for the most part. Manual pollination of flowers is fun when there's only one or three a day, but I don't think I'd relish having surrogate sex with an entire tree full of blossoms! Somethings like peppers, tomatoes or even squashes it's faily easy, but for cucumbers, it can become an exercise in futility. God made bees for a reason, after all! I'd love to have a 700+ square foot gh. That's about 7 times the space I have now. I have 6 seasons experience to help tell me what's required, but I'm really just a newbie myself, still experiencing new things every season. I imagine you could start with a space that large, but not try to fill it all right away and sort of grow into it season by season. Every yard, every situation is different. You won't really know what you need till you get one up and start growing your own stuff. Don't overload and take it into the "job" category, and it should be a ton of fun and healthful foods for you and your friend! -Ed

Hey Kent, it's good to hear from you and to know that you're still looking in here from time to time. I think that in un-snowy VA you could space the frames farther than the two feet that I used -- maybe as much as four feet apart would work. Be sure to send us some pictures when you make yours. Glenda - Now that I think of it, there is a way to cut the half-lap joints that is easier than the one I mentioned, and I don't know why I didn't think of it for mine. (1) You still make your first cut 1 3/4" deep and about 3 1/2" from the end, assuming your 4 x 4 measures 3 1/2". (2) Then you rotate the 4 x 4 a quarter turn and, setting the saw to full depth, saw in from the end along the 1 3/4 " deep line until you get to your first cut. (3) Now flip the 4 x 4 a half turn and make the same cut on the opposite side of cut (2). Finish up with a hand saw to take out the wood that the circular saw couldn't reach. Hmmmm, looks complicated in print like that, but it is faster, especially if you have a reciprocating saw to use instead of the handsaw. It was pretty silly for me to not do it that way. ThinMan