I am wanting a garden, but the wife / sons say the dogs can't go.  Fence is out, due to the dogs being diggers.

I asked a friend of mine on the local city council about a greenhouse.  He said that I might get taxed on the square footage as an "improvement", but I can contest this and win, if I can call it temporary.

I am not real fond of the tunnel style greenhouses, or the plastic sheeting ones. Again, see the dogs.   I am considering an aquaponics set up and I would (by my best estimate) need to go with something in the 12' X 15' or 12' x 20' size range.  (IBC type containers are +- 4' x 4' and I would need 4 or 5 for what I want to do)

I was considering using 4 "x 4" x 10"'s as framing, as I don't want it to blow over.  We get pretty good winds in my neighborhood from time to time.  But 4" x 4" doesn't exactly scream "temporary"

Any ideas?  Would 2" x 4"s as framing work?  

I don't have a lot of expendable income at the moment.  (Wife is unemployed while going back to school.) so I won't be able to buy all the materials at once.  This might be a spring garden for 2016 before greenhouse and aquaponics system are bought and set up.  

I understand the plastic issue but my pups have taught me a few things since I like tarps.



I bought some cattle panels, 16ft long at tractor supply on sale for I forget how much.  Maybe 20 bucks.  Anyway, now the pups are grownish, big body but tiny brain, so the cattle panel squares are small enough to keep their bodies out of the panel but the head fits through.  So I put cattle panels on the roof of the exercise pen/kennel and have to make sure to space it up enough their mouth can't get to it.



So anyway, depending on options the cattle panels or something else might work.  I use em a bit like a fence/enclosure and let the pups gaurd what is inside.  I did the arched cattle panel with a tarp for a roof and our 4 inches or so of ice/sleet collapsed that concept over the winter.  I had it kind of high and a brace would have worked.  The flatish tarps over the exercise pen took the weight and survived but I do have it braced because that is a fair bit of weight and the cattle panels make the kennel a bit stronger overall I guess.



So with all that said, go walk around lowes and home depot and look for ideas.  Tractor supply has some stuff on sale this weekend and the internet site shows it, mostly I was looking a the tarp/shelter/garage things.  I rent so all my stuff is temporary.  If I move a pickup load of topsoil will fill in all the holes the pups dug and a big bag of grass seed and a garden rake will fix all bare dirt.



The walking around home depot and lowes is to see stuff you did not know existed.  Using pipe and a tarp might work for some of what you are after.  Or maybe you want to mess with the metal roof panels or something.  



I find the 2x4 studs for home building about the best price for project stuff, but they are not treated and are not really for outside.  



Look at what folks use for sheds in your area, you are somewhat building a shed so that lets you see how they handle the wind.



The arched stuff lets the wind blow over it, sure it catches the wind somewhat but not like a big flat wall with a roof overhang to really help that wall catch the wind.



If you make it on a couple 6x6s or 8x8s or whatever so you can drag it around it is temporary.  If you sink the corners in the ground with concrete I could see losing the permanent argument.



Around here the sheds that get delivered and dropped in your yard are popular and they are on "runners" so they could be moved if needed and therefore are usually considered temporary.



With enough bracing you can build it from whatever.  Look at the sheds sized like you want and see how they did it for your area.  



I have had lots of folks laugh at the stuff I put up for the pups and the mower/junk area but after the pups roof survived the ice/sleet and the roof over the mower/junk just bent down and did not collapse everyone kind of shut up.  I heard about old sheds and stuff having the roof fall in.



Because of that I am back to building like I live a couple states north.

I've got a greenhouse-build thread out there in the archives:
http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=10&f=19&t=673123&page=1

Obviously I opted for plain old 2x4's.

That being said, I personally think of the greenhouse as a supplement to the "ground" gardens, not a replacement for them. Without massive inputs of energy either for heating or cooling, growing anything from seed to harvest inside a greenhouse is gonna be tough.  On a nice, 65F spring day, it'll easily get to 110F inside the greenhouse, and that's with a 24" ducted fan exhausting the air inside...depending on outside wind direction, etc.  Through April, we toggled between a kerosene heater in there at night and the fans during the day to try and keep the temp reasonable 24 hours - and that was just season-extender mode.

We're still learning (and my wife has 10 years+ commercial greenhouse experience), but greenhouse gardening and traditional outdoor gardening are two separate, completely different, but complimentary things.