greenhouse newbie

hey y'all
i had an early christmas gift exchange with my grandparents,who will not be in town for Christmas, who, for both my christmas present and birthday present, gave me a greenhouse. until i get it, all my tender plants and new starts have been in my room or the garage. i am entirely new to the greenhouse thing an dwould love any info that y'all could give me. the actual greenhouse should be arriving via tractor trailer in 3-5 weeks

How lucky for you diehard.........this is an unending wish of mine to have one. Your local county ext. office will probably have much free information for you and the growers on this forum are always so helpful. I have a dear friend with three of them and it is so nice to go over on a cold, wintry day and visit with her in the tropical one. They have a wood-burning stove set up in each one. Happy growing to you in your new present.
Sharon

thanks a lot! asi am new to these and only 16, it most likely won't have enough room for a stove and plants as well as me! either way, its a greenhouse, and i'm happy w/ w/e!

You've got really nice grandparents! That's an awesome gift!

Do you know what brand the greenhouse is? Or the size?

The thing I would figure out first is how you're going to heat and cool it--you'll want a heater to keep things warm overnight, but I imagine in your zone you'll have some nice warmer sunny days and it'll get way too hot in there for the plants so you'll need to have some way of cooling during the day. I have a fairly small greenhouse (5'x9') and I have a small electric powered greenhouse heater, and for ventilation I can get away with just opening the greenhouse doors when I'm on my way to work in the morning. Of course if I were to go out of town then I'm not sure what I'd do!

wel it will go in most-of-the-day direct sunlight. it has automatic vents to open when it gets too hot. in winter, a real cod day will probably be in the mid to upper 40's. usually the 50's is the norm for january with warm spells now and then. lows go into the mid 20's at the coldest usually.... but i can go lower rarely. i think my greenhouse will be 4x6. enough room for me and some pants... thats all i need. would a small space heater be good?

This is the heater that I have, I would think this (or something similar) would work fine for you too. http://www.charleysgreenhouse.com/index.cfm?page=_productdetails&productid=4045&cid1=201&cid2=264&cid3=-99 When you say "space heater" if you're meaning one that's designed for indoor use I would not use that in a greenhouse, indoor space heaters are not designed to be used where there might be water/moisture around, and I'm also not sure if they're designed to deal with the temperature fluctuations you'll see outdoors. So no matter what heater you get, make sure it's been designed to be OK for outdoor use.

we have used it outside before, and it did fine afterwards. another issue.... we are probably only 25-30feet above sealevel ( i live on the coast) and we are very low land ( hence our nicnake the Low Country). we back up to wetlands/swmap that is usually wet(meaning there is standing water) at least half the year. when we get hurricanes and tropical stroms, (i know our nighbors yards flood simply from strong thunderstorms), i am cetain that we will get flooding. i am worried about erosion. should i make a cement foundation that is elevated a bit or what should i do?

Indoor heaters shouldn't be used outdoors--maybe you used one before and got lucky, but there's always more risk of electrocuting yourself, etc when you use indoor electrical items outdoors. It's really more about safety than anything else why you should make sure you have one that's rated for outdoors.

If you think there might be flooding then raising the greenhouse up a bit would be a good idea, I don't know whether you'd run into erosion problems or not, but even if you don't, it wouldn't be good to have standing water in the greenhouse (especially if you're using that indoor electrical heater!). You'll also want to make sure your greenhouse is bolted down to some sort of foundation just to prevent it from blowing around in the wind. Is yours a Harbor Freight? I don't have one, but I've seen posts from others that if you live in an area where wind is a problem there are some recommended modifications to make it stand up better to wind (there are threads about HarborFreight here and also on GardenWeb if that is the one you have)

ok... well it is sort of in a protected area, but that place could theoretically act as a wind tunnel too if the wind blows just right, which it usually blows in the complete opposite direction, which is good.