Dawg....I paid the first HM for approx. 12 hours of work @$12 an hour(of which only about 7 hours was spent on the GH foundation, the other hours he spent putting up molding inside and other misc jobs because when he came back the second time...it was very windy). The second set of guys promised to finish it for $200. 2 of them spent about 6 hours and never came back...and he has NEVER come asking for any $$$ Plus he left his ladder here...bonus for me I say...OF COURSE, I'll give it back to him if he returns...but I sure wont be paying him for a job that someone else did. The neighbor has not charged me anything...and I have baked him cookies...and have offered to take he and his wife out to a nice dinner of their choice and time. I've debated about offering him $$$ I suspect he would not accept it...but I'm not sure how to approach it...Any thoughts on that notion? I still really appreciate your very generous offer...I just knew my DH would have done a double back flip if I had actually accepted your offer....Just think of what he would have thought!!! Having had some OTHER MAN...travel from SOME OTHER STATE...not to mention (from his perspective) a TOTAL STRANGER....(of course having interactions with you here as well as via email...I know that you are no STRANGER than me :) ....ha ha.....The divorce would have definitely cost me much more!!!!! But you are a doll for even considering such a proposal

Fuzzy, it may be time for you to do a "desired lifestyle & available time to enjoy it" check. You built a GH for pleasure. Please don't tell us it was to feed your family, because the simple truth is that building and operating a small home GH is far more expensive than simply buying fresh veggies and if you are into all natural, there are plenty of shops around these days to accomodate you. In fact, you could shop exclusively at Whole Foods and still not spend what it costs to build and operate a small home GH. Ergo: you built it to ENJOY it and unless you are independently wealthy, the TIME available to you to ENJOY it is when you are NOT working to earn the $ it will cost to operate it. So don't get so wrapped up in gadgets that you end up spending as much if not more TIME messing with the mechanicals than you do puttering with plants. Perhaps it's my age, but the older one gets, the more one appreciates TIME- The Great Thief.

Oops - Got ahead of myself there! Right now, I'm using it to overwinter marginals/tropicals. Three Plumerias; Several Cordyline fruticosa (Ti plants - the pretty deep burgundy ones); a small Bearss Lime; Couple of Pineapples; and assorted potted house-plants that I stick around the yard during the warm season (palm trees, spider plants, Dracaena, etc.). I've started some cherry tomato seedlings indoors - Tiny Tim and Micro-Tom - that I'll move out there - once they get bigger. No clue what's gonna happen with them (this is my first attempt at "experimentation" w/my new GH so I have no great expectations for the toms!) And, come springtime, I'll probably add a heating mat and try to start some seedlings in there (If I can find any space, that is! It's pretty jam-packed in there!). -Nancy

I built this greehouse specificially for starting bedding plants. I don't start heating it until the first week in Feb. At the time I didn't think a ground heat sink would have that much effect so I didn't do it. If I had it to do over again I would put the lip of the 2x4 base to the inside and put some foam board into a trench and up to the redwood around the base on the outside. The insulation on the north side just goes to the bottom of the redwood. The trays didn't melt uniformly along the whole shelf. It was just the 2 trays or so in the corners on the top shelf where the light would get concentrated. None of the seeds in those trays germinated however. Low angle sun reflecting from the top combined with the corner reflection against the dark plastic of the trays made for some real hot spots. I you look at my weather station at http://wx.uvci.com I have a temp sensor in a tray of soil on the soil heating germination mat. When the soil is dry and a bright sunny day the temp will get up to 130 easily. Another change I would make is to have the potting bench in the end just sit on supports rather than build it in. That way it could be easily taken out when not in use. It would make getting to the last two feed of shelf much easier. It also gets a lot of water on it when watering which has caused the composit material it is made from to expand. I will probably replace it next year and when I do It will not be built in permanently like it is now.