A recent update from the person who received the yucca is that it is green and doing well. The transplanted cholla are doing well, of course, but it will be a while before I know if any sacaton survived. We have been making progress but not as quickly as we hoped. (No surprise there! ;-) ) We have the foundation blocks for the outside beds in place up to ground level and filled with dirt. Pavers have been placed, but not yet leveled, between the existing shed and the north edge of the foundation. We have the water and electrical stubbed in. We have the SHCS tubes in place for the outside beds of the east greenhouse and hope to start filling that section soon with the removed dirt. We have removed all planned use of poured concrete from our plans and have made this planned structure possible to remove easily while still unlikely to be blown away. (Mostly due to bolting the foundation via J-bolts to rebar under bond beam cement blocks.) DH will be checking to see what type of permits/inspections we will need for electrical, water, and structures. I suspect that it will be just water and electric. We won't fill in any more until we find out. It is getting hot already so we will be putting in the outside structure and shade cloth before the central shed and greenhouses. That way we can work in the shade. :-)

Hi again,,,well, We decided to buy a different greenhouse instead of messing with the hfgh,,,I decided it was not going to be big enough. We purchased a 17 x 32 gothic style greenhouse from Griffins. I have had 2 of their models in the past when I had a greenhouse business. I had the 17x48, 2 of them. I don't need one that big, so I went with the smaller one this time. I am going to sell plants on the weekends. I have thousands of seeds started right now in the basement under growlights.

I have decided that I will make the 10x12 work for me; I will reinforce the heck out of it. I am going to be growing trees, I will need the height. ACK, I went by my Local HF Store today, "Just to Check", I should have my Money by Tuesday... They have the 6x8 in stock $399!, but have never had the 10x12 in stock, Granted when I gave the part number to a stock clerk, and told him that it is listed on Harborfreightusa.com, he said that it is a new item and should be stocking it soon... SOON, how soon, my 20% off coupon, expires on the 18th (Does that mean I can use it on the 18th, or that the last day I can use it, is the 17th) Sigh. I am only about 130 Miles from there Camarillo Warehouse, I wonder if I can do a will-call, and use my 20% off retail store coupon... Leme see, 260 miles round trip call it 9 gallons of gas, at 2.60 a gallon, call it $24 bucks for gas, and 3.5 hours of Driving, one hour for The hassle at will call. Oh, I can not forget the Stop at Canters Deli for lunch for me and my helper, so add another hour, and another $40. Oh wait, I cannot use my car (3 door Saturn, I do not think the big metal framed box will fit in it, so I have to take my wifes truck, Yeah my wife has the truck, what can I say, she is a Red Neck Woman, I think Gretchen wrote that song for her, but my wife is better looking.) Ok where was I, oh yeah Driving the Truck, well I can still average 75 MPH, but the mileage is gonna suck, so that would be $40 bucks in gas SO $40 for Gas, $40 for Lunch, and 4 and a half, ok call it 5 hours of my time... Hmm, well there are about 9 HF Stores, (other than my local store), that are 30-75 miles away, I guess I am gonna have to break down and do that old fashioned thing and let my fingers do the walking. I hope they have it for the same price as the Mail order site. Yeah, I found out on this site somewhere that the www.harborfreight.com site is for mail order/web order prices only, and the www.harborfreightusa.com sight is for retail stores, but it only shows stock items (Not what is in stock, but what they can stock), and they do not show the prices. So does anyone live out here in Southern California, and want a free meal at Canters, and Corned beef and cabbage (my wife makes a Wicked corned beef, she slow cooks it all day), oh yeah and lots of Guinness. (Most of the Guinness will be after it is built. I will be taking lots of Pictures, and using the extra reinforcing mentioned elsewhere on this site. I will also be sinking the Frame (But on wooden supports. I will be sealing the open edges of the Panels with 100 Mile an hour tape (Also know as aluminum tape I think), and then running thin weather-stripping along the inside edges of the panels. I will buy a couple packages of Extra Spring Clips from Charlies, and probably screw in the panels on the roof, since they will not be easy to remove for the summer months. I will probably add extra Triangle corner reinforcing, Guy wires with those funny twisty things and some nice big anchors into the ground. I have a 220 GFI for my Hot Tub near where I will be building it, but I probably should not tap into that for the greenhouse. I do have a couple of Blank spots in my fuse box (Why do they still call them fuse boxes... oh yeah I think they are called breaker boxes now), it was easy for the Guys to run the Power to the Hot Tub (About 15 minutes), but then thats what these guys do for a Living. I probably will not need power to the greenhouse, till Fall anyhow, I will be removing panels and using shade cloth for cooling in the summer. One corner of the greenhouse will be just past one of my Spare Sprinkler heads, so I can tap into that for water, and if I install timers inside the greenhouse, I can have different watering schedules for the watering and the Misting... I assume that is what I should do. One other thing I will be doing is running an extension from the clothes dryer vent to the greenhouse to have the clothes dryer exhaust into the greenhouse... Free Heat and moisture. (Most of our clothes washing happens late at night anyhow. I figure I will till up the ground where the greenhouse is going (Should make leveling it easier), and then I will be flooring it will all the shingles that blew off my roof over new years weekend. Ok, what I am I missing, ahh yes, orientation, if I remember correctly this greenhouse is 10 feet wide, and 12 feet deep. The greenhouse will be about 8 feet south of my garage (I already can see that gap is gonna become a place where you toss all the crap for the back yard, but it would make a good place to park my Garden Tractor). The winds here come out of the South, Southwest, I was thinking of Orienting the Greenhouse so that the door is facing west, I figure that would be better than south, and having the door on the east or north side would be awkward. Does this orientation sound ok? Or should I really put the door on the North side? Now a question for those who have built a 10x12,It is hard to tell from the Instructions, but it looks that the secondary brace for the vents is a separate piece of metal, so would it be possible for me to put all for vents on one side (In this case the North Side), of the roof? I do not think that having those vents facing south and opening up into a 40 MPH wind would be too healthy for the vents or the greenhouse (I am imagining a balloon being rapidly inflated), plus the wind blowing across the vents on the North Side would provide a Nice Low Pressure area, increasing the effectiveness of vents on that side. Am I missing anything (other than the greenhouse kit?) any suggestions, corrections, or Ideas. Sorry about writing books, hopefully most of you find it entertaining, rather than annoying

Hi, Taylor, I'm in Monmouth County, NJ, near the shore, so our winters are just a tad warmer, but we have very similar conditions. Congratulations on the greenhouse! I'm sure your head is swimming, but going over those threads was the best thing you could do. I learned a lot from the other folks here. I've had my 6x8 HFGH since November of 2005 and am still thrilled with it. I use it pretty much as you hope to do: greens, cherry tomatoes and herbs through the winter, Meyer lemon (the tree form is lovely, but I opted for the bush as space is so dear in such a small GH), propagation by seed and cuttings and overwintering tender perennials; many houseplants get rotated through there, too, for "R&R". It is a delightful place to spend time in the winter, even for people who are not gardeners ... by all means, try to leave room for a reasonably comfortable chair. As far as essentials go, you will need a fan to keep the air circulating. I highly recommend an automatic roof vent opener. You may also want a shade cloth; it can heat up a lot in there on a sunny day. I've been making do without, but have many tall oaks about and I've noticed that even the shade of the bare branches in early spring causes a slight temperature drop inside. Speaking of which, you'll need a thermometer; I'd recommend a wireless thermo/hygrometer (measures both temperature and humidity), so you can put the sensor in the greenhouse and have the readout inside your house. I found one for around $30, but if you want to spend more, you can find models that have alarms, will feed the data right into your computer, etc. For the uses you've outlined, you will want a heater. My first choice would have been a radiant oil-filled, but I settled for an available convection heater and have been very happy with it. I do like this better than the forced-air types, as I believe it provides a more even, gentle heat. A back-up heater is a good idea. Check out the little propane heaters. I've got a little Coleman catalytic model that will run on one 1-pound cylinder for up to 8 hours. You'll also want to have a back-up plan for what you'll do if a power outage should last a long time (do you have space to move your plants inside your home, basement, garage?) Heat sinks are a good idea; they really help moderate temperature swings. You've probably seen lots of ideas already. I like 1-gallon milk jugs, 2-liter soda bottles and 1-gallon Arizona iced tea jugs because I can tuck them in where I want them. You will want to insulate. While building, we put foam weather stripping tape around the edges of each panel; some people prefer to caulk them in place. I did caulk any gaps I found in the frame. We added foil-faced 1" foam board on the north wall and north 1/3 of the east and west walls, and a foil-faced heavy bubble-type insulation on the lower half of the north ceiling. Outside, we wrap the whole thing in a clear solar pool cover for the winter. Insulation/pest barrier for the floor. I recommend a pest barrier of hardware cloth around the perimeter of the foundation. We stapled this to the inside of the wood foundation and ran it about a foot or more inside, then covered with the flooring gravel. Feeling drafts that first winter, I later retrofitted more of that foil-faced bubble-type insulation in the same manner. Some people have dug out several inches inside, a bit like a tiny, shallow "cellar", insulated that, then refilled with the soil. In an area with very cold winters, or if you really want to save on heating costs, that's probably a good idea. I have no experience with misters (maybe in the future), so can't advise on that. Also haven't bothered with auxiliary lighting for winter. Herbs, greens and snow peas did fine; cherry tomato production fell sharply for a bit, but then began to pick up again sometime in February. Think about the temperatures you're going to try to maintain in there. You'll want appropriate germination temps, so will either need to have heat mats or germinate your seeds indoors. I keep my greenhouse at a minimum of about 50 degrees at night, which is too cool for most seeds. It's also a bit cool for the lemon, so I wrap a string of exterior grade Christmas lights around the pot; it seems to provide enough heat to keep the lemon happy, healthy and productive. While we're speaking of electricity ... of course you'll have all your electric on a circuit with a ground fault interrupter. I do not have a water line running out to my greenhouse ... really wish I did. You may want to consider that if you don't already have water handy. (Lugging gallons of water 75' to the greenhouse in February is a bear ... but worth it, definitely worth it!) And, voice of experience here, if you go out to your greenhouse on an icy cold, wet day ... maybe take your cell phone along, or at least don't close the door all the way ... it can kinda freeze up and be really, really difficult to open from the inside ... and if your family's like mine, they won't come out to get you 'cause they'll be thinking you're just having such a great time out there playing in the dirt and don't want to be disturbed. Oh, doors ... I noticed a draft around the door, too, so cut some extra solar pool cover material into three wide strips the length of the door plus several inches and hung those, overlapping, just inside the door. It really does help cut down that draft (it's awkward, though, so comes down as soon as possible as the weather warms). This is much longer than I'd intended it to be. Hope it is helpful to you; by no means expert advice, but it's working for me. Just take your time building your greenhouse. Assemble that base first and measure it, then assemble your foundation accordingly. Good luck; I'm sure you're going to enjoy your new greenhouse. Diane (wondering what I've forgotten to tell you)