Greenhouse Delivered

My greenhouse was delivered yesterday.  Now I'm madly reading about what I need to do to get it up and running.  Anything you know would be welcome in my comments, so don't be shy.  Here's what it looks like from the outside:

You can see George on the right side of the picture.  So far, he wants no part of it.  He'll get just about that close, but if I open the door . . . he takes off running.  Silly guy.  He'll get used to it.  We're going to put some pavers around the outside.  It rains a lot in the winter, and I'll have a big mud hole next to the door without them.  Part of the reason for its placement is that I don't have to step far off the concrete to get to it.

This is what it looks like as you walk through the door:

Wasn't my husband sweet to install a plumbing fixture right there?  You can see that there's a window at the opposite end.  Overhead, there are two vents that open automatically if it gets too warm.

And they work too!  Today, late in the day the sun finally came out (as it should in August!!), and when I looked out, sure enough, they had opened.  Very cool.  Literally.

When you stand at the window end and look back toward the door, it looks like this:

There's a potting tray off to the right.

I can remove the slats so that I can set tall plants on the ground and they can grow up through the cross beams, and I can hang plants from the upper cross beams too.  Right now, it's about time to retire my hanging petunia baskets for the year, and so I'm going to try to keep them going through the winter in here.  Also, I'm going to get a couple of basil plants and a cherry tomato to start with.  I doubt I can mess those up too badly.  And then I'm going to do some reading.  I'm reading The Greenhouse Gardner's Companion (Revised Edition) and The Winter Harvest Handbook which has information about unheated greenhouses.  We live at 1,400 feet and so we'll have to heat some in the winter.  Most of the time our weather is fairly mild in the winter (although it rains constantly); but sometimes, we do get ice and snow.  And then . . . oh my.

So that's where I am with the greenhouse.  I'm very excited to have this new hobby to tend to in the winter.  It'll be a way for me to get outside into some bright light, as the greenhouse seems all aglow even in cloudy weather.  It'll be a warm, nice place to be on a rainy day, tending my vegetables. 

I'm also going to put one orchid in there to start.  I might like to try my hand at growing orchids.  My mother loved orchids.  One of the reasons I wanted the greenhouse was to have some sort of memorial to her.  I'm going to call it "The Clarice Nelson Memorial Greenhouse."  My mother died in 1997.  She was my best friend, and I still miss her.  Her grave is in San Diego, and so I never get to visit her at all.  This will help me feel closer to her.

Please tell me all you know about greenhouse gardening.  I'm a rank beginner.