Help For Gardens Under Glass (or Plastic)
So, you want a greenhouse. Well, don’t expect to take a vacation anytime soon. Greenhouses demand daily attention.
Many years ago, I moved to SoHo in downtown Manhattan. Friends and I rented an 8,000 square foot loft on the top floor of a six-story light-manufacturing building. I was all set to garden!
That garden was all in containers on the roof. I also wanted to fulfill a dream I had for many years – to have a greenhouse. 
I built a 16 x 20 foot wood frame and plastic film structure over a skylight. In those days before Craig’s list, all you had to do to get just about anything was either go around on trash day, or ask people if they knew anyone who might be getting rid of, say, a spiral staircase. I found one and installed it under the skylight opening; and that’s how I would enter the greenhouse from below.
Having a greenhouse is a major undertaking. Besides the building, you need a lot of equipment – things I could not find in the garbage, or from friends of friends. 
Around the same time that I was expanding my passion into greenhouse plants, I found a new mail order company that had been founded by Charley Yaw, this week’s radio guest (right with his wife, Carol) for people like me: Charley’s Greenhouse and Garden supply. I got thermostats, misting devices, electric switches, vents and much more.
Today, Charley’s has a much bigger catalog and offers just about everything you need to build and maintain a greenhouse.
It was a lot of work to keep the greenhouse, but I did for ten years until I moved. Before I left, I put the word out that I had large outdoor containers, irrigation devices, planting medium, trees, perennials and shrubs. Every single thing was taken by local gardening groups like the Green Guerillas, and the Riker’s Island Prison horticultural rehabilitation project – even the greenhouse. I don’t know if I will ever have a greenhouse, again. I will have to be prepared to not take a vacation, but that’s OK – caring for the plants in a warm and humid environment in the dead of winter is pretty much like taking a trip to the tropics.
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