www.4greenhouses.com

I know it's probably a little early (and hopeful) to suggest thinking about spring before Christmas...and before the actual start of winter but I will anyway.  An earlier post on snow and winter garden work got me thinking about propagation.  Seed starting can begin in as little as a month for some locations, and while coming up with our organic package (shameless plug) I was able to compile some great information about when to start propagating different kinds of vegetables for early transport to the garden in the spring.

Any long-time organic gardener will tell you that a real organic garden takes careful planning, and some of that planning is done in the winter.  Starting seeds while there is still snow on the ground means you maximize your growing season and, with some vegetables,...

Although I think it goes a little rough on what it terms "garden center gardeners," this article on how the credit crunch is affecting gardeners has some great tips on how to stretch your garden dollars.

The financial crisis is pushing frugality, recycling, and organic culture into places that would have been difficult to infiltrate without this catalyst.  It's not really a silver lining to the storm clouds of the global financial meltdown, but maybe at least a bronze or copper lining? ;)

I saw this post on the gardenweb greenhouse forum.  This is just a small example of the kind of ingenuity that members of this hobby greenhouse possess.
I have a small plastic-covered hoophouse and keep it at 50° during the winter. This year I decided to try using some old Igloo coolers to start some seeds and am using a string of about 100 tiny Christmas lights for heat. I put the whole string in and the cooler temp was 120 degrees in an hour! (ambient temperature was about 55 degrees). I started pulling out lights to reduced the temperature and at 25 the temperature was about 80 degrees. I put the lights under the trays with a couple of pieces of wood to keep the trays above the lights. The cooler is large enough for three standard sized trays. If you need light inside, perhaps you could put the lights on top. Good luck...

Some hobby greenhouses, depending on location and desired use, will be OK with no additional equipment besides the structure itself. Many however, will need at least some additional equipment to help manage the internal environment and make it desirable to growing plants (or relaxing people). The most common addition to a backyard greenhouse will be a heater. We've already covered sizing a heater, and the most common heater for a small to medium sized hobby greenhouse is just a simple electric heater.

The next most important system in a greenhouse is ventilation and cooling. Proper ventilation is important because it helps cool your greenhouse by allowing fresh air in to replace hot, stagnant air. This can be accomplished passively (naturally) in most of our small hobby greenhouses since typically they are already equipped with either roof or sidewall vents. This, in addition to opening the door, may be enough for proper ventilation.

Slightly larger houses may...