The 10x12 HFGH is not a very sturdy structure if you leave it like it comes to you. Some people prefer to pay a huge price and have all the designing already done for them. For a lot of people the HFGH would not be the right choice. If you are one who can figure out things or look at what others have done and follow some simple instructions then you can have a quality GH for a lot less money. people who pay $3000.00 or more think that they have a superior GH but after the modifications the HFGH is probably better than most of the expensive ones. This past spring we had a storm that blew over big trees and my daughter had a big overstuffed wicker chair on her front porch, the wind blew it over a waist high railing and it went about 50 feet through the air and hit their car. It did $2500.00 damage to the car. My cheap old HFGH had NO damage to it Put the Conner braces on it install the braces on the base it is all outlined in previous posts People can turn their nose up at my HFGH if they want but it will grow my flowers just as good as their overpriced GH will Whether you should buy one or pay the high price all depends on your ability to build things, but don't think that just because you paid a high price that it will be easy to assemble because all kits are a PITA !! I have never bought any thing in kit form regardless of price that I did not wind up modifying it in some way I'm sure that if I bought one of those high dollar greenhouse's I would make some modifications to it.

I like your 50/50 mix idea of Old+New TT, so I think I will do that too for the benefits of both and spread it out. I have 'too much water' problem on some of my 'tainers (according to what others have said in my thread about that). The plant in the ET with the carved lid is doing the best.. I guess because the unusual rains we have had in our area cannot penetrate en-masse into the ET to screw up the moisture balance. I may go ahead and do carved lids for all my ET's next year in case we have an unusual volume of rain again. You just have to take extra special care when you plant your Tomatoes into the small holes of the lid. It'll be a challenge for the 30-ga ETs with two plants per 'tainer. The mulch on top of the lid has not moved at all, so my earlier worries of that blowing off were unwarranted. It 'sticks' to the lid just fine and is keeping the ETs cool. If the fertilizer is 'spent' then as you say I shouldn't have any problem re-using the 'tainer medium next year. Do you think the purists will say much about that? I might need to build two more ETs just for an example and make up fresh mix anyway next year because I want to try alot of different varieties. I'm looking to try Goosecreek and stupice, but have yet to find anyone with seeds of those 2. All in all these ETs are fun and can't thank you enough for the guide\videos you put out there for everyone.

Well, LG has actually updated the suspension on their newest top loaders. They support brakets are metal and four additional shock absorbers were added to the tub. Not trying to make you buy an LG but "just sayin'". I posted a picture of the new sytem here - reply number three. http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?50290 Samsung will be releasing new top loaders with a didicated Waterproof cycle. But I don't know when they will hit the market. These units were just shown at CES a couple of days ago. Between the Whirlpool vs Maytag - Eco Boost vs. Water Save Spray Rinse - Drum Light button vs. not available - nothing vs. Power Wash cycle - Perm Press/Casual vs. not available (maybe the Towels/Colors cycle) - Towels cycle vs. Towels/Colors cycle - two-digit display vs. four-digit display That's about what I can see from looking at the control panel. The Maytag also comes with a longer warranty on the motor and tub (although most washers with this type of motor have the same warranty these days, so it's nothing exceptional in my opinion...). The Whirlpool has the same motor, by the way. Between the two, I'd probably... go... for... the Maytag. Alex

In response to rmol64, and anyone else who may be interested, we ended up purchasing the Whirlpool 9600 Steam Washer and Dryer pair. Here was the thought process: 1. After shopping around, and talking with a few friends, I decided to stick go with the FL Washer. The benefits seem great, and will definately be heads-and-shoulders better than our 20-year-old-Kenmores. I think the "smell" issue can be dealt with effectively by keeping the door open, and cleaning as directed by all the mfgrs. Also, I convinced myself that the FL washers would fit fine in our "pass through" laundry room. 2. Based upon recommendations from friends, on-line reviews, and opinions on this forum and others, I narrowed the choice down to Whirlpool, LG, and Bosch. I was disappointed that there was no clear "leader" in the quality/reliability perspective department. There are plenty of people who have these brands and love them, and there are plenty of horror stories from owners and service people for these brands too. 3. We ended up choosing the Whirlpool 9600's over the others for a couple of reasons... The Bosch units had less capacity. Both salesman we spoke to said that the LGs are somewhat less stable in some homes, particularly on the 2nd floor (or higher), which is a concern to me, since I don't think our house construction is super great. I was able to see a live demo of Whirlpool, and they were very quite and stable. Supposedly, the Whirlpool suspension is better than the LG, from what the salespeople told us. Lastly, I know that Whirlpool has good support in our area, and I'm not sure about LG. I've heard so much about problems with LG's service and support, I didn't want to have to worry about it, since service calls seem to be a way of life anymore with these sorts of appliances. 4. Even though we like the storage and positioning aspects of the pedistals, we decided to not get them. This was because several people were in agreement that the pedistals can tend to make the units a bit more unstable, noisy, and virbrate the house. I'd hate to spend the extra $$$ only to find out that our laundry room floor acts like a drum tuned to just the right resonnant frequency of the washer/dryer and have dancing appliances in my house! That would just be my luck! We did decide to get the extended warranty, which is something I almost never get. It just seems that washer/drier problems will crop up, so what the heck. So that's the story of what we decided. We havn't received the units yet, because our laundry room needs to be repaired before the appliances can get installed. :-)