Sorry this may ramble a bit, but so much is going through my little head right now, I'm just letting it out as I think of it. This is bringing up lots of memories of when my dad started out with a small lean-to on the side of the house to sell tomato plants 35 years ago. That business grew several times until we had a single 40 X 50 greenhouse that took up the entire back yard. We now have 5 acres and multiple greenhouses at another location that I have run since 1997 and now produce and sell over 100,000 plants per season. So this is coming from a grower/retailer perspective. Check that you can sell items that aren't grown in your greenhouse. I have to grow 75% of what I sell on site in my zoning. Buy a greenhouse with the appropriate snow load/wind rating for your area. It doesn't take much wet snow to collapse a poorly designed greenhouse. I have two from a Canadian company-Harnois (the third is from a company that I think and hope are now out of business-they were awful to deal with). They were easy to put up and have worked great for us. The last one I bought (30 x 48-which probably the minimum you should consider) was about $7,000 nearly 10 years ago. This price included one heater and three roll up motors and two layers of plastic. I had to build my own end walls to save a little money but you can buy an endwall package separately. You will need electricity for the roll up vents (side and peak) and for the ignition for gas heater(s). But that requirement would be less than for exhaust fans for a ghs with no vents. I wouldn't risk my plants in somebody else's greenhouse that couldn't keep them heated if needed. Nor would I trust my hard work to a greenhouse made from PVC. You need one large enough that people can walk around comfortably and accommodate each vendor. Hoop houses generally don't have a lot of head room along the sides unless you get a high tunnel. If you expect the business to grow get a greenhouse that may be a little larger/wider than you think you need. Otherwise you will be replacing the small one real soon-kind of a waste of money. We went from lots of small greenhouses to a couple larger greenhouses to the single large house and now several large greenhouses. Buy something that is intended to be a greenhouse-you don't want to be jerry rigging something that might not work as expected. There are plenty of professional greenhouse manufacturers (Nexus, Atlas, Jaderloon, Conley, Harnois,etc) out there that will help you. They also will have the proper materials to use and be able to provide you with some guidance. You'll be much happier and the product will probably last a lot longer. Check out Greenhouse auction This is a past auction that still has 450,000 square feet of greenhouse left from a bankrupt nursery. They will arrange shipping for a fee. My hoop houses (20 x 48 & 17 x 48) are open at one end where I can pull the plastic up or lower it to get air and cool off the house. The other end has a regular sized door. The larger one is made so I can pull up the sides about 2 feet off the ground using ropes. Even when fully open, they get 100F + by late May or about 20-30ºF warmer than outside. I use these to hold plants-no customers allowed. Trust me, nobody wants to stay in those conditions for very long-customers or vendors. I also would be leery of the pest issue. Even if everyone has 100% pest free plants (extremely unlikely IMHO) you will get pests. Who will be responsible, and what kind of controls will you use? Preventative or curative? An ornamental grower will have different requirements than an a veggie or herb grower. You may have to have separate greenhouses and spray equipment etc. This idea opens you up to additional liability. If somebody else's plants are lost in your facility you'd better have insurance! Of course you should have insurance if the public will be on your property anyway (a hidden cost and a selling point to potential vendors) $25,000 is not a lot of money. You will run into lots of unexpected costs. Will you have to make other improvements to accommodate the public and vendors-like bathroom facilities? How quickly do you expect to get a return on your money? The people who you should listen to as far as the type of structure are the people who would be using it. What are their needs and concerns? Taking the plastic off in the winter raises a few comments/questions. I assume that you would recover in the late winter/early spring. I don't know about your area but in mine that time of the year is the worst time to try to stretch a huge piece of plastic because most days are breezy. It takes only the slightest breeze to fill a greenhouse cover like a giant sail. You have to do the job when there is no breeze otherwise, you will be miserable trying. It is also a job for several people. The larger the greenhouse the harder it is to cover. Although easier to cover a small greenhouse heats up extremely quickly and has other disadvantages as well. $10 a day is a lot to pay for a vendor-farmers markets in our area cost $50 for the whole season (May thru November, one day per week). Maybe you should charge for the whole season instead of by the day. Or do both but give a discount if they pay for the whole season up front. That gives them an additional incentive to show up everyday. You have to convince your vendors that you have something to offer for their money. And it needs to be something they can't do on their own and will make them money. Find out what they expect and need and then offer that to them. What would the advantage be to have their plants in your greenhouse if they have their own already. Is this advantage worth them paying a little extra money to you? Who will take care of promoting the market? Pay for advertising? Hope this helps!

7000ft, I am totally convinced you ought to write a book. Your family sounds very interesting and it sounds like you all work as a cooperative of sorts. How much of your food do you produce? The tomatoes that I grow are primarily for sauce, so I use Roma-type tomatoes. They are odd-looking, being long and quite large. The variety I grew this year was Super San Marzano. I've tried some others, but this one is the best. The sauce-type tomatoes are awesome for making sauce. They are very meaty with minimal juice and seeds. Making sauce is a breeze because you can skip the steps for squeezing the juice and seeds out. According to the catalogs, some varieties have pectin in them that helps to thicken the sauce. We ended up with 25 jars of sauce in the freezer. That is a record for us, so we are pleased! That's 25 dinners during ski season that I don't have to cook. :) I also grow a cherry tomato and some sandwich-type tomatoes. I've had good luck with Early Wonder, which is early yet tasty. (way better than early girl!) Inside the GH we enjoy our first tomatoes in mid-July. Without the GH we are lucky to get any red tomatoes at all. I'm sure it's the same for you. My gardening efforts are pretty much solo, but my husband was instrumental in building the GH and in helping look after things as needed. He is an expert at raising seedlings because I tend to travel a lot in the spring. He also built a root cellar and he is fully on board with our quest to grow as much food as possible. It's a bit of an oddball pursuit, so I'm happy that he's into it!

Nora, There was a wholesale perennial operation near me until recently. Couple of winters ago they had 24 houses collapse under the weight of the snow. They liquidated in June, mostly due to poor management practices. For the money the best poly house I know of is called "StormKing" and there used to be a dealer in Red Bank NJ who sold them called XS Smith. You could drive a tank over them and they will not collapse. I have a friend who has a 22 acre nursery in central MD. The container portion is entirely irrigated by well. He is really sweating during droughts. You must also have quality water, what is pH, what is iron content? In my state we are required to recapture runoff irrigation, how about you? Can tractor-trailer get in, turn around and get out of your place? These questions may not seem important to you now but they will be. "We had originally been thinking of growing orchids" I am glad that you canned that idea. Unlike years ago, every big box and grocery store sells orchids. Same thing with poinsettias. One thing that you have going for you is that NJ is a heavily populated state. Northern NJ is close to market. Best of luck to you, Sam

While Fusion mentioned the one source, you can find many commercial seed cos, listing greenhouse types. I've grown TRUST for many years now after a Canadian researcher and consultant stated that 90% of Canadian greenhouse growers grow that variety. If you look at johnnys seed catalog they will list a number of GH compatable varieties. Other european sources are more noted for best GH performers. You might want to check out COBRA and BUFFALO varieties as popular GH choices. I've also had very good success with BIG BEEF in my GH growing experiences that span 9 months of the year. It has excellent disease resistance and is well accepted as a flavorful variety. To answer the other part of your question about taste- Some of the most flavorful tomatoes are grown hydroponically. If you can get a good healthy plant to produce fruit and allow fruit to ripen on the vine then you should have excellent flavor. Accomplishing that goal may be a chalenge in the middle of winter.