Mine in the greenhouse are doing just fine no signs of stretching. My greenhouse doesn't get full sun until about midday so I was a bit worried but they seem to be just fine

Dawn is spot on about the overheating. Mine was starting to do that because my fan wouldnt keep up with exhausting the heat. I threw a 10x12 white frost cloth on the roof of the southside and it help keep the house about 15-20 cooler than normal. Seems to be allowing plenty of light too.

so do i measure the width and length of whole roof to order shadecloth or just the south side? where do you get a min max thermometer ? i have managed to get the soil.jeff has sanitized containers and filled with soil for me so am making progress.it is small just 8x12 feet but can barely do inground gardening any more so very excited.

Lowe's has min/max thermometer. Be sure to look for the ones that go to 0 F and not just to 32 F.

Leava,

How much shadecloth you need and want is up to you. You may want to try using your greenhouse without a shadecloth, or with a temporary covering like a flat bedsheet or tarp for a while so you can learn how much your greenhouse does/does not heat up and what you want to do about it. I didn't have shadecloth on my greenhouse the first year, and that enabled me to see exactly how quickly it both heated up and cooled down under various conditions. It was a great way to learn.

My greenhouse faces south, with the long walls being the north and south walls and the short walls being the east and west walls. I have shade cloth that runs from the ground on the south side all the way up and over the top and down to the ground on the north side. That was the way I chose to shade my greenhouse. The east and west ends are not shaded. Different people chose to shade their greenhouses different ways (or, sometimes, not at all). Different methods can be used. Some use shadecloth only during the hottest part of the time frame in which they are using their greenhouse. I leave my shadecloth on year-round, having learned long ago that even in January or February, my greenhouse can reach 145 degrees by 10 a.m. with the doors and vents closed. Normally, the first thing I do each morning when I leave the house is to go open the greenhouse doors. Depending on the forecast, I may open the vents then, or wait and open them later. The decision about when to close vents and doors remains flexible as it depends on that day's weather and on the forecast for the coming night. If a very cold night threatens, I close it earlier in the day in order to deliberately let heat build up inside of it so that it will stay warmer at night. I don't heat mine, but have a space heater and extension cord sitting ready in the garage so I could heat it on a very cold night if I felt like I needed to.

In our generally hot climate, a greenhouse can get unbearably hot in summer. I normally only use mine from roughly November through April, and often in March and April, I not only have both doors and all 4 vents open on sunny days, but have a large fan running as well. The reason I suggested a Min-Max thermometer is because that's the best way to learn how much the greenhouse heats up and how much it cools down. Otherwise, you're just guessing.

If you intend to grow plants in it throughout the growing season, including all summer long, you will need shadecloth and some sort of cooling system----many options exist from greenhouse fans to evaporative coolers to misting systems to some combination of the above. You also will need to remain very alert for the presence of common greenhouse pests like white flies and spider mites.

Robert (who posts here as Busy1 and now, I think, as NewBusy1) gave me a great suggestion when I was planning my greenhouse. He suggested I have window screening over my vents and screened doors in order to exclude pests from the greenhouse as much as possible while still allowing for good airflow. I cannot even begin to tell you what a helpful suggestion that was. Without screening, your greenhouse can become a haven for mosquitoes, flies, bees, wasps, moths and other flying insects.

Your greenhouse looks so nice and I know you're going to love it. There is a learning curve with a greenhouse, and everyone's situation is different. Some greenhouses are in full sun, some are in partial shade, some face south for maximum light in winter, and some cannot face the best direction because of the layout of the area in which they are being placed. You just work with whatever your situation happens to be. I have found that part of the fun of having a greenhouse has been learning how to use it to its maximum potential for me, in my specific location, with the conditions I have. I've done a lot of experimentation and some things I thought would be wonderful just really weren't, and other things I thought wouldn't be all that great did, in the long run, turn out to be a great thing. Embrace the experience and enjoy the journey.

Dawn

thank you so much !!! this input is so helpful.we got the greenhouse in September.my goal was to grow greens through the winter.so i armed myself with Eliot Coleman's book on growing in minimal or no heat greenhouses in Maine i think it is.nicely ordered packets of cold weather greens from Johnnys.they even have a little snowflake next to the greens to help you :) then i hit my busy season as soap seller.and of course the holidays.and the two ice storms.we are surrounded by trees so that was quite the event.no electric for 12 days etc plus cleanup for weeks.so hey i am ahead for next winter lol.i am glad to have the heads up on how it is in greenhouse during our heat.i will move my containers outside then.am getting all the containers waist high.and my in ground garden i am changing too.i have raised beds surrounded by cinder block from when i had a paycheck.....going to bit by bit raise sections 2 bricks high and fill with the best soil i can make and buy.so i will have a hybrid system.over the summer i will get the greenhouse outfitted inside for growing in this fall and winter.jeff will do the drip irrigation where i need it.

I have read all of Eliot Coleman's book and love them all. I've read his wife's book too and am a big fan of hers as well. They are such leaders in the organic gardening world, and not just in their home state, and I appreciate so much all the knowledge that have shared with the rest of us through their books, magazine articles and speaking engagements. Having said that, there are differences in their climate and ours---some of those differences work to their advantage and some likely work more to our advantage. For example, note the name of one of his books on winter growing is actually called "The Winter Harvest Handbook" because in their climate all or almost all the growing takes place in the autumn and then the plants kind of just sit there in a holding pattern but they harvest those plants for most or all of the winter. With our very different weather we can get some growth in winter that they don't get, but then we also have to deal with greenhouses heating up a lot more on hot, sunny winter days.

I worked in my greenhouse for a while yesterday, but it was so cold and wet outdoors that mostly I sat and sowed seeds in flats here inside the house.

I find having a greenhouse very useful, and mostly use mine either for overwintering plants in containers that are marginally hardy here (or not hardy at all if left outdoors) and for raising flats of seedlings in spring once they outgrow the indoor light shelves. Some winters I grow greens in tubs all winter and a couple of times I grew tomatoes and peppers in containers all winter, but I wasn't happy with them. The tomatoes and peppers grow incredibly slowly in the winter even though the greenhouse is very warm most days----it is the weaker light and the fact that there's fewer hours per day of light. The tomatoes and peppers grown all winter produce smaller fruit very slowly with only so-so flavor, so ultimately I decided it wasn't even worth bothering with them in winter. Greens do fine in the winter though.

I have a couple of brugmansias in large pots that overwinter in the greenhouse and they usually cycle in and out of bloom most of the autumn and part of the winter, or at least until they freeze on a night when the temperatures drop below freezing in the greenhouse. This year they didn't freeze until sometime in February and were in full bloom when they froze. I hated that we lost the flowers, but it was only one or two cold nights that got them and now the plants are leafing out again (all the plants I had in the greenhouse all winter are outdoors now). This was the longest they have stayed in bloom in the greenhouse. Usually they freeze back in December when we drop into the mid-teens or upper 20s, which just didn't happen this past December.

When you grow overwintering greens in the greenhouse, remember that spring weather will signal the overwintered crops to bolt, so start seeds for a spring crop to replace them when they bolt. Between warm winter days and increasing daylength, overwintered crops can bolt very early here.

Dawn

Glad you got your greenhouse. I think it looks great. I have a greenhouse on my wish list, still hoping. Enjoy!!!

yes do not give up.i am 61 :) i have wanted one for so many years.i have neuropathy and fibromyalgia.no organic food in our town.my husband has health challenges as well.i just wanted healthy organic greens and veggies but the in ground gardening was next to impossible for me.he took the money from his IRA.if we are saving money for our old age LOL we are getting there.....so we decided to invest in our health :)