As you get into this project and are watching the obligatory hundreds of do-it-yourself internet videos, you’ll see a lot of people filling up raised beds inside the wood frame before the greenhouse is done. You might think, as I did, ‘That’s a good idea. This way I don’t have to lug soil through the door.” Which is true and originally that was my plan. Then a friend mentioned some local gardeners who use pots exclusively in their greenhouses. I learned they grow as much food or more as they would in raised beds and pots give them considerable flexibility.
Before you put in raised beds, or a potting bench, a rocket stove, or other hard-to-move things, consider planting pots to see if the configuration you have in mind works for the plants you want to grow. Finishing the project late in the growing season, I held off on putting in raised beds. Raised a few peas and beans as an experiment (they shoot up quickly) along with some donated plants instead. They grew towards the end of the greenhouse they were closest to. In the middle of the greenhouse they went more or less straight up and did better on one side than the other. That side is where the raised bed went in.
*Update: First week of November peas and beans in greenhouse are still green. Their cohort outside has died back.
