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Lets say you have a garden 15 by 20 and you decide to build a wood A frame greenhouse over it! The greenhouse will just have its plastic over it 2 months before the last frost. In pa. here I would start it in the middle of march. I would start my cold crops first then in april I would put less cold weather crops like peas spinach. In may I would put in tomatoes and peppers but leave the plastic on till june then take half the covers off. I would also start climbing bean on the north wall with chicken wire over the whole A frame wall!

Has anyone tried this! I have a areas I am thinking of doing that with this year. Everything would be planted right in the ground or in raised beds inside the greenhouse. In the fall around October I could extend the season 2 months by putting a plastic covering back on! The shell of the greenhouse would be all that is up all summer!

Interesting idea. My wife has given me permission to use the space she now uses for herbs and other plants as a greenhouse area. It is three raised bed gardens 4'X8' with total area of about 10'X20', perfect for an 8'X16' greenhouse. My plan is to have a concrete floor, electricity, heat and water so the plants rather than being planted in the ground would be container grown.

I will have to look into a removable or sliding roof so it would be sort of like your plan. It may take me a while to get this done, so I hope yours goes up this year and you can report back.

Things grow better in the ground and a few do grow fine in containers. It ashame to waste the good ground you have now by covering it with concrete. I put chicken wire all over the outside of the greenhouse and have all kinds of vine crops like runner beans! I also plan to have about 100 gallons of water in the new one to keep the chill off in april!

I set up a 9' x 20' high tunnel each March and keep it up until sometime in June. It goes over 2 garden beds which have an excavated path between them. The tunnel is about 5' tall, using 15' pvc pipes, 1/2" set over rebar driven in the ground. Corner stakes hold baling twine running crosswise over the top of construction grade plastic film. A framed door and window provide ventilation and access.

It is in a very protected area of my backyard but gets plenty of sun. Nearby is my 9' x 20' greenhouse. Only in the last two winters have I pulled the benches out and grown anything in the ground in there. It has a natural gas furnace but that's the only automation. Both of these structures have been used for almost 20 years ... altho' the tunnel is disassembled for 9 months of each year.

The tunnel has collapsed a couple times after heavy March snowfall. Luckily, there wasn't much going on it. I've never tried to keep it up all winter.

The last 2 years, I've set up another tunnel in much the same way but attached to a shed. It is in the neighbor's yard and I pass through the fence to enter the shed. It sits over 2 framed beds and is 8' x 12', counting the shed. The pvc hoops are 20' long, 3/4" pipe. The plastic film is pulled off in mid-May.

This year, the neighbor says he does not want to use his small garden so I've said that we can plant it as a flower garden.

Steve