Buyer beware...numerous issues although small, add up...cedar is not totally western red but Alaskan mixed in (difference in character of wood)...Had to sand quite a bit of surfaces which should have been smooth, window sills , i.e....their knife blades for planing material must have had knicks in them...exterior walls are of tongue and groove cedar yet the planter boxes were cedar boards butted together, huh? had to line boxes so soil wouldn't seep through cracks...ordered knee braces for overhang at door which are 1/2" out of square...door hardware is kind of funky...and on and on...maybe a QC problem... Although once complete and alterations I made it's good enough...even after the many, many hours I spent remedying issues it looks good...BTW...I have been a master carpenter for 40 years and counting...I know wood and what I am doing

Ambitious indeed. You will have an interesting jungle when the squash start growing :-) I have grown under lights before, but never had much success until this year. I have created a couple of YouTube videos chronicling my work. Have a look if you have a mind to... Here is a link that might be useful: Garth's YouTube channel

I need advice from you experienced gardeners. We are almost finished building an 8'x12' attached glass greenhouse. I'm mainly interested in growing all kinds of salad greens through the winter. The greenhouse is built on an 18" existing foundation, so I'm thinking of having a 2' wide raised bed around three sides that comes up to where the glass starts and this is where I would grow the greens. My knees are giving me problems, so I thought that height would be easier than having the planting beds low on the floor. Then in about February, we will add one or two levels of wire shelves above the raised beds to start seedlings. On the back wall, I would love to grow sweet peas (flowers, not veggies) on a trellis. Has anybody grown these successfully in a greenhouse? I also want to try starting some tomatoes and cukes now to keep as long as possible into the winter. There's a heat run coming from the house, so I'm hoping I can create a little microclimate along that side of the back wall for those warmer season veggies. So does this sound like a good plan, or are there major flaws in my reasoning? I've done a lot of reading about greenhouses, but I'd love to hear about some real life experiences. Thanks! MJ

Hi, I don't have experience with removable roofs but I have some other ideas . . . Have you heard of using phase change materials to control temperature extremes? Here is a blog about it: http://greenhousefashions.blogspot.com/ The blog is written by some people at a company that sells phase change materials for other more conventional applications and the blog is meant to show that PCMs can work great in greenhouses too. We are building our greenhouse now and considered installing PCMs but decided to wait to see how our greenhouse functioned without them first which will help us in estimating how much PCM material we need. Another reason why we did not go with PCMs immediately is because we are building a Subterranean Heating and Cooling Storage system into our greenhouse which is a phase change system. It is possible we'll have all the heating and cooling we need from the SHCS. For more information about SHCS see this blog: http://www.roperld.com/science/ymcasolargreenhouse.htm Have you looked at "Pit" greenhouse designs? That could really help maintain temperatures passively: http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Sheltered-Solar-Greenhouse-Book/dp/0960446400 Here is another great book. In it, it talks about a variety of passive solar designs that work well. The best combination of strategies seems to be an attached passive solar pit greenhouse: http://www.amazon.com/Solar-Greenhouse-Book-James-McCullagh/dp/0878572228/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385082426&sr=1-7&keywords=passive+solar+greenhouse One thing that I wonder is if you should glaze the roof at all or at least do it minimally. We opted to go with really tall south-facing windows, a few skylights and tons of insulation. This should help with too much solar heat gain in the summer (along with the SHCS) while allowing more solar heat gain in the winter when we need it. For a short article from a green building site that is focused on energy efficiency see: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/energy-solutions/sunspaces-solar-heat-and-place-grow-plants In case you don't already know about this, check out this site that has tons of peoples' experiments with all kinds of solar greenhouses: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Sunspace/sunspaces.htm Best of luck! Looking forward to hearing what you end up designing. Where are you located?