I think eggplant could tolerate a few days, especially if its not a lot of consecutive days, of temps as high as 110-120 F as long as the plants have plenty of water. I know that there have been years when I did not use my lexan and brick smaller greenhouse during the summer, and just sealed it up, and weeds that started growing between the bricks managed to survive incredibly hot temps in there and seemed to even thrive. I'm sure it got up to probably 130 or hotter, and they lived. Of course, these were plants like Dock, Sweet Annie, Amaranth/Pigweed, and Sow Thistles. Maybe someone from Arizona or Texas will give you their 2 cents worth. Personally, in Zone 3, I think you'd be a lot better off growing heat lovers like eggplant in the greenhouse than outside. The major problem I've had with greenhouse cultivation is insects and especially spider mites, which thrive in that type of environment. So, be on the lookout for those.

I took the last cuttings on May 18th. They are nearly ready for planting but most are destined to become pot tubers. I root the cuttings under florescent lights in our daylight basement. Temperature is about72 degrees under the lights. I do not believe I could be very successful in using my greenhouse as the temperature fluctuates too much, It is the heat that is bad. Skinny sprouts root just fine for me but take longer to grow into plants suitable to put into the garden. Like you, I more than one of the skinny ones into pots to root and divide them into single pots later. No rooting hormones or fertilizer is needed to root dahlias. Fertilizer will cause them to rot. A very weak solution of 20-20-20 greenhouse fertilizer can be applied after they root at about 12 days.

How about just putting the potting soil inside the aquarium covering the top with some plastic (with a couple of holes for aireation)and start your cuttings that way. I'm trying this now. I put some pea gravel (about 2") inside the aquarium, followed by a mixture of soil,perlite. I covered most of it with a 1/4" clear plastic (from Tap Plastics). Put in my cuttings and watered thoroughly but made sure that the excess water stayed in the pea gravel area. That way it doesn't drown the cuttings. Well see what happens. T2

After lots of hard work, yes. We're 20 years into this marriage. When we married (2nd for both), I had a 14 yo daughter, he had 5 and 10 yo sons. Within 3 yrs we had one more son and one more daughter. Needless to say, we both worked full time. The first years were hell. My daughter was a princess and was not thrilled about the male invasion or the loss of our "Gilmore Girls" lifestyle. She was - to be charitable - difficult for the first year or so... she loved my husband, but hated the change in lifestyle. Thankfully, her acting out was limited and her girlfriends all loved the idea of babies and a big family and being part of the herd; peer pressure was in our favor. The s-sons were a challenge. They were with us every other weekend, 6 weeks in the summer, and most school vacas. There were many issues - lack of personal hygiene, disrespect, walking away from their messes, plus throwing footballs, baseballs, etc in the house - often directly at breakables... intentional damage disguised as accidents (that came to an abrupt end when they mistook one of their father's prized possessions for mine). Much of our trouble was fueled by their mom - she gave them permission to call my daughter and myself D----- B--s... "because that's what they are!", they would chew their food at meals and spit it back on the plate... "It's a game we play at home - my mother says we can do it here if we want." They were not big fans of soap, shampoo or water - clean clothes were unheard of ( they would arrive with a bag of dirty clothes) and the younger one even arrived one time with an awful rash on his 'lower extremities' that the doctor said was strictly from filth! The younger one actually went through a spell where he would not use toilet paper; he wiped whatever on the walls!!! I cried with relief many times as soon as they went out the door and headed for home. My husbands guilt was enormous; his fear of alienating and losing his kids was crippling. I was afraid to rock the boat or come across as a witch and I didn't want to undermine my husband. Ultimately, after many terrible arguments, we came to the conclusion that we were not presenting a united front. We also came to realize that my daughter and I were really fringe issues. The core problem was the boys lack of respect for my husband and his condoning their disrespect and their behavior by catering to them. He also realized that the problem had become so significant that he was well on the path to destroying his relationship with them by virtue of his behavior. Kids instinctively smell fear and they know just how to leverage weakness. We had many family meetings where we invited their input but made clear that we set the rules. It took a long time (and a lot of tears) before there was any progress, but it happened. I think ultimately the boys stopped being so angry when they recognized that they were hurting themselves as much as (maybe even more than) anyone else and expending a great deal of energy doing so. Over time, they started to become more objective - sometimes a little embarrassed - and they eased into our routine. I found that "the more the merrier" helped - we encouraged each of the older kids to bring friends along and we kept them busy  we went many places with two strollers and as many as 8 other kids between 7ish and 16ish? The herd/peer thing takes them into a world of their own where their behavior reflects on and impacts them - it's not about the parent/step parent. The kids are now 33, 30, 24 and the Âbabies are 18 and 17. All the kids are doing well. The older 2 have long since finished college and have good jobs. Number 3 is in his last year of college; number 4 started college this fall and number 5 is the only one still here at home (and we're broke, needless to say). I am not the boys' mother, but we have developed pretty decent adult-to-adult relationships. They come to me for advice and the older one asked me to do a reading at his wedding. Our first grandchild is due this month. We all consider ourselves to be family. The kids do not think in terms of step and half sibs - they are brothers and sisters and are insulted when someone outside corrects them on the legal status of their relationships. The boys mother has backed off significantly, but has not given up. She has worked very hard to gain the allegiance of D-I-L and recently let me know that she was the babyÂs real grandmother. It has been a great deal of work and I sometimes wonder if I would have done it if I knew how difficult and painful it would become. After all the ups and downs and all the noise and confusion, we now find ourselves having to adjust to a new and much quieter life, and to each other. Our oldest recently reminded us that we had never been/lived together without kids - I guess that will be our next adjustment/ challenge!