Before anybody thinks I am doing anything illegal.
My wife and I grow ~20 different types of heirloom tomato's and another 10 or so non traditional peppers. ~20 or so rarer rose variates and some non traditional hybrids. We are getting a demand for seedlings outside the house so scaling up is kind of important.
We are debating a greenhouse for starting our cuttings and seeds, or a warming mat grow light setup in the garage. We need about 32-40sqf to get things going here in SoCal but expandable in the future to maybe 60-80 sqf.
Any input for the gardeners here.
Sure "tomatos and peppers" wink wink say no more eh? 
I would think a greenhouse would require far less energy than an indoor grow room and make the green house cheaper in the long run.
expandability means NOT in the garage. Your cars are way to nice to leave outside.
If you get a greenhouse, don't skimp. We have one at school, and on two separate occasions (not in the same year) we have lost several thousand dollars worth of plants. The first die off was because we didn't have any warning system to let us know when there was a failure on the fan/vent system....it got too hot inside and cooked all the orchids to death. The second die off was because we didn't spring for an automated watering system.....one sprained knee making it hard to get out to the greenhouse, a week and a half without water, and we had a similar amount of damage.
We're now trying to recover from the second loss.
I am going to build a watering system into it for sure. More then likely gravity feed with soaker tubes and choke.
Venting should not be to much a issue here in California as it will just be open all the time.
Greenhouse it is
I bet you make some badass salsa.
Lancer007 wrote: Sure "tomatos and peppers" wink wink say no more eh?
Does the name Kyllo ring a bell?
I'm changing my vote to "garage"......weary can post some great video of the DEA guys busting down the door to find heirloom tomatoes.
In reply to slantvaliant:
Just because you can beat the rap, doesn't mean you can beat the ride. 
Don't construe that to mean I agree with the dea there, that was a bull crap fishing expedition.
JoeyM wrote: I'm changing my vote to "garage"......weary can post some great video of the DEA guys busting down the door to find heirloom tomatoes.
Don't start, my wife has this Macadamia nut tree that looks like a 15 foot tall pot plant. We got asked about it so much I hacked it out of the ground.
We have mutant tomato's out here. This is one plant that I just let go wild.
I've looked into grow lamps and what I get from everyone in gardening is not to skimp. Good LED grow lamps are very pricey. Cheap ones don't put off enough light and don't last. The nice ones even alow you to repair components instead of pitching them.
I know one guy who uses a 400 watt metal halide light or something like that and doesn't get sun burn on the leaves when he finally plants outside.
My college roommate, I discovered after he moved out, made good use of the storage area under the basement stairs as a greenhouse. He had a pretty extensive lighting and watering system in there. 
irish44j wrote: My college roommate, I discovered after he moved out, made good use of the storage area under the basement stairs as a greenhouse. He had a pretty extensive lighting and watering system in there.
I used to do plant genetics, 15 years ago, in a past life so I can setup a grow room like nobodies business. Of course all I ever grew was tobacco and corn/rice.
wearymicrobe wrote: I used to do plant genetics, 15 years ago, in a past life so I can setup a grow room like nobodies business. Of course all I ever grew was tobacco and corn/rice.
Check your PMs
Would the greenhouse be designed around the plant or would it be a general purpose house? Is this for production purposes? How big, how healthy, how fast sort of thing? Profit or hobby? Are the finished plants being transferred in what they were grown in? Etc. Need more info.
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