To have a high rate of success with seed propagation, it's a good idea to use heating mats so you can maintain a constant temperature. I use heating mats with a thermostat for all of my seeds, and generally maintain a temperature of about 80F. The seeds go in a propagation tray with a dome to keep in heat and moisture. With this setup, you can propagate seeds at any time of the year without the expense of keeping the whole greenhouse heated.

Hi all. I'm a newbie here having just discovered this forum last week. (About one month after I had purchased and put together a 10x12 HFGH). I don't worry too much about stability since I mounted the GH on treated 4x4's each of which have two 36" rebars going through them and into the ground; however, we had a sudden storm yesterday with 40 to 50 mph gusts which successfully resulted in ten panels seperating themselves from the GH walls and ceiling. I managed to retrieve them all, (I think) but now must engineer a solution which will prevent the panels from flying off in the first place. Any suggestions? Are sheet metal screws adequate for winds of from 40 to 50 mph? Tape? A different kind of clip? I would really appreciate some help here. Thanks, halinva

Hi Mark, congratulations! The vents on my 10x12 are my least favorite part of the greenhouse. I do have them all working, but they seem quite flimsy and the fit is rather fussy. They are noisy in wind. I do have a larger gap on the corner of the vent closest to the overlap of the roof crown pieces (parts 10 and 11) as you mentioned, although it seems to open and close OK. I am impressed you built it by yourself. It would have been very, very difficult for me to get this up without the good help of my husband. Those of you who go it alone get a tip of the hat from me. I ended up following oraylawsons idea about using an adhesive to attach the bottom door rail frame to the base frame. That worked out well. Boy, I totally missed this tip! Wish I had thought of that, I really don't like how loosely the bottom door frame slides and moves on the base frame. Our greenhouse is hot too. With the doors open and all vents open, my greenhouse is at least 120 lately (that's as high as my cheap thermometer goes, I suspect it's higher.) Ventilation and cooling are next on the list of challenges. I will keep my fingers crossed for you on the high winds issue (and crossed for us too.) With all the good modifications given on this site, I'm pretty confident things will go well. One of my concerns is what will happen when we get a big gust of wind when I have the doors and vents open for cooling. I can batten down the house and secure the doors for oncoming storms, but our random sudden wind gusts here are kind of uncharted territory. I hope you will keep us posted on how things go for you! Sheri

That is a nice link you posted there. I am sory but I do belive the webpage title greenhouse.gov actually means "green"-house as in energy efficent not Greenhouse for storing/growing plants. The only place I read where they say not to insulate the floor was if I was trying to cool the house. As I said earlier I am using this greenhouse for winter protection. The R values that they use in Austraila are measured differently then here. I can only imagin that R 1.5 would be close to the same as our R 13 for exterior walls and R 30 is normal for cielings here but they call it R 2. Below is from the Department of Energy link..... Insulation Priorities It is most important to: Insulate your attic to the recommended level, including the attic door, or hatch cover. Provide the recommended level of insulation under floors above unheated spaces, around walls in a heated basement or unventilated crawl space, and on the edges of slabs-on-grade. Use the recommended levels of insulation for exterior walls for new house construction. When remodeling or re-siding your house, consider using the levels recommended for new construction in your existing walls. Next Section - How Does Insulation Work for You? Here is a link that might be useful: Department of Energy