I've never found anyone in Tulsa who sells the uv treated stuff. I get mine from this site http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/accessory/plastic.shtml. I have one house going on its 4th summer and it still looks brand new.

I order mine from A M Leonard clearance page when no shipping applies

Once upon a time I did find 6 mm UV-treated greenhouse plastic in a local store, but only once, and never since then. If the plastic I have on my greenhouse ever wears out, I'll order it online from whoever has the best price at that time for the type that I want. Mine has been on my greenhouse simply forever (I guess 6, 7 or 8 years, as I've lost track) and is in great shape. It is covered with Aluminet 50% shade cloth which undoubtedly has helped prolong its life.

Thanks! I keep reading that proper greenhouse plastic is worth it (as opposed to cheaper construction grade plastic). Okiedawn isn't the first person who has told me it lasts very well. I guess I'll be ordering online.

While I have your attention, what do you do about greenhouse ventilation?

I have two doors, four vents, a very large fan (the kind made for barns and other big commercial buildings and you can roll it around on wheels) and a very large evaporative cooler (which can help put more humidity in the air if needed, though in my part of OK, we usually have adequate relative humidity during the months I'm using the greenhouse). Good air flow is important to help prevent disease, so a fan is something I consider essential, but often if the doors and vents are open, I do have plenty of air flow.

They do make special fans of different types for greenhouses that are nice but not essential as long as you do not use a misting system. An advantage to having a built-in fan is that it can run off a thermostat and come on and off as needed even when you aren't around. If I used a misting system within the greenhouse, I'd want to have a proper greenhouse fan meant to be used in a high-moisture applications. I don't grow anything in my greenhouse once we get really hot, which in my area normally is in late April or earliest May. My goal is to get all the plants out of the greenhouse before that sort of heat sets in. I usually don't have to run a fan all that much, but it is important to have it handy for use if needed. Generally if the weather is hot enough that I need to use the fan, I'm slapping the plants into the ground anyway just as fast as I can, and the greenhouse is emptying out quickly.

May I ask what color of greenhouse plastic and/or shade cloth does everyone prefer to use?

There is pretty much just one color plastic. Opaque but you may be able to find a clear with UV. I would suggest that. The opaque or even the Solexx covering that is white diffuses light better. I am actually using a white frost cloth as a shade cloth and it seems to be helping pretty good. Some use aluminet.

That begs the question, what size is yours Okiedawn?

I'm not sure what we are going to build. At first I was just thinking about a place to prepare seedlings for the vegetable garden and maybe to grow some cooler season crops like spinach.

But, now we are discussing an attempt at the local aquaponic strawberry market. This would require us to build bigger.

Well, I never can remember. I think it is 10' wide by 24' long. Or it is 12' wide by 20' long. I asked Tim just now and he votes for 10' x 24'. This is what happens when you get older....your skin gets wrinkled, your hair turns gray your joints ache, and you cannot remember anything. But, yes, I am sure it is 10' wide x 24' long, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Tomorrow we'll measure it to make sure, but I'm fairly confident that is its size. I'd be happy, happy, happy if it were 48' long.

Dawn, Sorry your greenhouse is shrinking. LOL

From Feb 2012--- "I have a 12' x 24' greenhouse that I am just starting to use. It has two doors I can open (with screens to keep the bugs out) and 4 large vents (with screens to keep the bugs out).

I thought I remembered that it was 12 feet wide, so I had to go look. LOL

I still have to go out and measure it to make sure my memory was correct in 2012. (Laughing at self here.)

As you might remember, the greenhouse kit we purchased was actually two 10' x 12' grow houses (no longer sold there so I can't go look up the size) from Gardener's Supply, joined together. So, our confusion stems from whether we put them together with the 10' representing the length or the width of each house, and Tim thinks I describe its size differently every time I say what size it is. I probably do. (Laughing again.) I'm not good at estimating or remembering numbers, and I also think I have the size of shade cloth I ordered swirling around in my brain further confusing the numbers.

The reason I currently think that the 10' is the width and the 12' the length of each house is because my potato beds are 12' long. How is this relevant? We tried to build raised beds that ran the length of the greenhouse inside the greenhouse so I could grow plants in there "in the ground" all winter long. We built two along the north wall. After discovering (before the beds were even completely filled and in use) that the cats thought we were building them a really nice cat box/porta-potty in the greenhouse, we ditched that idea quickly and repurposed the wood to build hardware-cloth lined potato beds that would exclude voles in the garden. I remember taking the lumber apart and dragging it down to the garden. I remember moving the amended soil, one wheelbarrow load at a time and discovering it was full of fire ants. I remember the cats being mad and sulking about it for a long time thereafter. They still love the greenhouse for warm kitty cat naps on a winter's day, but they go out into the yard now to use the bathroom since there is no nice raised bed of fluffy soil in the greenhouse any more. I'm pretty sure the two oldest potato beds are 12' long by 4' wide, so that would give us a greenhouse that was 24' long and 10' wide. Hopefully that is correct. If the two oldest wire-lined potato beds built from the repurposed greenhouse lumber are 10' long, I'll revise my answer.

This is all so much more complicated than it should be. I must have some form of numbers dyslexia because I never can correctly remember sizes and dimensions.

Regardless of all the above and no matter what size my greenhouse is, I need for it to be bigger. To make it bigger, we have to move it, but I'm toying with moving it elsewhere over the summer when it is not in use and making it bigger.

I've scored very high on IQ tests and my memory is not always spectacular. Being able to solve problems and be creative is waaay more important. You can always take notes or look up most things you can't remember! A greenhouse could always be measured if it was really important. I just saw a documentary on people with near perfect memories. They said it is rare for them to be above average intelligence. I think the reason you can't remember is something that can be a strength of intelligence--our brain likes to associate things, and the more similar they are, the more likely we are to draw an association. Just the general idea of your greenhouse size is good enough for me, thanks!