Greenhouses in Southern California?

I just purchased my first 'patio greenhouse' -- heavy plastic over metal poles, 3' x 5' with a zipped door -- and just started some pansies and salad greens from seed. So here's my question -- what 'issues' do I need to worry about as a SoCal gardener? Obviously I'm not concerned about frost, and hopefully the Santa Ana's are gone for a while. Should I keep the humidity high? Get a thermometer to make sure the temperature inside stays constant? I'm just not sure.

What else do we SoCal gardeners do with greenhouses? I have lousy luck with Hostas (which I love) so I was thinking about starting some in the greenhouse.

Thanks for your ideas!
Stephanie

I'm farther north than you, but I expect that getting too hot on sunny days will be something you need to watch out for--on rainy days there's no problem but I know throughout much of the winter if it's a sunny day I have to be careful that my GH doesn't get too hot during the day. I'm not sure you really even need the GH for your pansies and salad greens--they are cool season plants and since you don't get frost I don't think they'll need the night-time protection and in the daytime I think it will get too hot for them in there.

Weavergal 50 - I live in Riverside and had one of those greenhouses for a while. I used it to start seeds and cuttings. I found it cooked the plants if it had direct sunlight. Good luck!

PCDS--
Oh no! It's on the west side of the house and I placed it to get plenty of sun. Maybe if I keep the door open I'll be safe.

It would help if you could vent it in some way, Weavergal - I would definitely watch it during the day and keep the door open wide. Can you prop a corner up during the day so you get a cross breeze?

We have a HarborFreight g/h and put an automatic vent window on it in case I'm slow getting the door open in the morning. When the temp rises, the window opens like magic. We get freaky temperature drops in the winter and I got tired of losing my plumeria!

I have the same HF greenhouse that Kathleen has and I'm using mine for a few certain plants that like temps above 50 and I use it only in winter. I can sow just about everything outside without starting things in a greenhouse and my greenhouse is shaded overhead by a Brazilian pepper.......also has shade cloth on it and will be planting a large cassia on the west side....there's no way I could keep things in there with it being exposed to the full sun, even in winter we get too many sunny days that would cook things......I have it only because of the unusual freezes we had a couple of winters ago and wanting to protect certain tropical in case it should happen again.....

Hmmmm.... will shade cloth keep down the heat as well? It can get VERY hot on that side of the house, although I can probably get a breeze going by propping up the door at the right angle. KaperC and wcgypsy -- do you have heat problems even in the wintertime? I'm a bit cooler than you but it definitely gets above 70 in that corner which means even higher in the GH.
Thanks for the info!

Oh yes, we can have warm days in the winter. Here it is November and today was over 90 at my place, yet it's getting too cool to leave the small plumeria trees out at night. We've only been here 4 years though, and wcgypsy (who lives quite near) has been here much longer. I have a thermometer in my g/h and it easily gets over 100 degrees if I don't open the door and windows; when I do, the temp drops dramatically.

I grew up north of you, weavergal, and I remember 80 degree Christmases! lol