Hi Cannadoit, I donÂt know why but your response didnÂt show up for me till today (I've been checking). Anyway, no I am going to connect them length wise against the house to make a 12' long lean to GH. I have a very narrow side yard and can only accommodate about a ~4' width. So it seems like this would work? I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of this brand or know of another option that would be better? I am thinking I might have to make some modifications to it like the HFGH. Specifically I was wondering about the base. It comes with a metal base but I was thinking I should probably plan on attaching it to 4x4's staked to the ground?

Yes. they try to sell off these weak fibre pots as a way to go but I started noticing these moulds.. awful awful molds. It's same thing though that i had experienced with homemade newspaper or cardboard rolls. I guess its not very PC to say so. One could say it is not a good green practise. but on the other hand we would need chemicals to combat mould. that isnt terribly PC either. Interestingly though I have not had such problems with the pop up ones. I am very familiar with the burying the tomato plants up to the top so yes I've done it many many times over. I also have started new plants from cuttings. Last year I found myself too successful with more tomatoes than i could possibly plant outdoors. A little trick if you have access to sand.. Sprinkle sand on top of your germinating seeds. This helps discourage mold build up at the top of the soil. It also moderates water loss. It however is not effective if one is using any fiber type pots and mold is developing deep beneath the soil. I use this method as well when I do cuttings with any plants from boxwood to lavenders Also, if you have a circulating fan, use it. This builds stronger stems. I came upon this trick from another grower and find that it is true. It also reduce mold incidents.

I might add that this method of propagation can be used for many other shrubs as well, at this time of year. This is called using "hardwood" cuttings method or because it is done during the winter also called "dormant" cuttings. Because the BB used in the example was stored in a protected spot, it wasn't exactly dormant but I started other BB cuttings at the same time from dormant plants in my garden. The cuttings require no leaves, in fact most won't have any because of the time of year. But the cutting will usually begin to grow leaves and even flowers (like forsythia) before the cutting actually grows roots. The cuttings are taken from the last years growth of the shrub, about pencil thick. Some of the easier shrubs to propagate using this method are forsythia, willows, dogwoods, spireas, blue mist, BB's etc. There are other methods of propagation, used at other times of the year as well. Softwood or greenwood cuttings are used in spring or early summer using new growth from the tips of the shrub or growth that is just past new, that easily snaps off. In this case the cutting already has leaves but you just strip off the leaves at the bottom of the cutting which you dip in rooting hormone. The rest of the leaves remain although if they are large, you can cut them in half to reduce the amount of transpiration. You want some leaves left to provide photosynthesis. There seems to be a little confusion as to what method of propagation to use at which time of year and how it is done. It would be really helpful to get a couple books on propagation to research and understand the different methods and why they are used. Hope this information helps a little.

I have grown several heirloom tomato varieties in greenhouses, favorites being Cosmonot Volkov - an amazing Russian tomato, was easy to start early and keep late even in our northern climate (maine) and was an early and vigorous producer - One of the few places to get seeds is through Fedco. Grandma Mary's paste tomato Amish Paste Fedco had some other amazing paste tomatoes as well that grew amazingly in the greenhouse - friends of ours like to grow what they call "roma" tomatoes and we laugh at them, they are so small compared to our 10-12+ oz paste tomatoes, with it not being uncommon to get some almost weighing a pound! I sold tomatoes to local ladies by the 100# boxes just for making salsa and they just kept coming back for more!