In article ,
Winston wrote:

I want to grow veggies in hydroponic shelf beds
in a greenhouse, year round in my mild northern
California climate. I'm thinking tomatoes,
peppers, squash perhaps. The few tomatoes I
produced in buckets were excellent and I want
MORE!

I can devote say 10' x 12' with the majority of
the slanted roof facing South.
I want to spend less than $1500 and I would
like to be finished within 5 months or so.

I'm wondering if I can just weld up a frame from
say, 1-1/2" square tube, send out sections for
powder coating and use recycled armored
glass panes to form walls and ceiling?


You're describing a conservatory. Nice enough if you can afford it, I guess.
If steel and powdercoating is cheap enough and you can get sufficent glass
free, perhaps it would be, though you'll need a lot more steel to hold up
glass than for twinwall polycarbonate rigid glazing, or rolled plastic
greenhouse cover. On the plus side, you're describing small, so it won't
be that hard to make it strong enough.

Remember that greenhouses need adequate ventilation, or things cook in
warm (or even cold but sunny) weather. I don't know if you have anything
useful in the way of agricultural extension with all the CA budget crises,
but if you do, find your local extension agent and see what they have
for info.

Or look here...(but it's from an eastern state with real winters)

http://www.nraes.org/nra_order.taf?_...37#description

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