Nancy, I tore my meniscus some 7 years ago and it was a while before I got to see the knee specialist. I believed I was mismanaged by my regular doctor then or rather his staff at the time. While they did immediately sent my file to the knee surgeon, either they didn't do much follow up or the doctor didn't emphasize enough the state of my knee. It took a rehab doctor to tell me I needed an operation and so with that information I went right back to my doctor and demanded they follow up with the knee surgeon. At that point they gave me the phone no to that clinic and when I made the phone and explained my state, I was seen immediately and they wanted to operate the following weekend. Talk about mismanagement and the further damages it caused my knee. 50 percent of my meniscus is gone. I cannot do any sports anymore as a result.

Shade cloth is good thing to protect from excessive UV and heat exposure and is used a lot here in Thailand. But it's not often used with tomatoes here, as they can use and need any UV available. We simply go seasonal outdoors fully exposed, or ventilated and misted in greenhouses during hotter month. I am not saying you shouldn't use it at all, but if the temperature is not exceeding the max, you don't actually need it - and if the temperatures are getting as hot as potentially inducing blossom drop, BER or even general tissue damage to the plants, the cloth shade wouldn't be good enough to prevent it - simply because it doesn't lower ambient temperatures that much. What I am saying is, that the window when a cloth shade is actually indicated and truly helping with tomatoes, is quite narrow ;-)

That setup will work great. You can do basically the same thing with the mini-green house kits for less but your system is going to be much more durable. Keep an eye on temps though, with it being covered, it will heat up fast if the sun hits it. Here is my mini-greenhouse system. It has a heatmat with thermostat under it which keeps it at 80 to 84 degrees. I dont have any lights set up yet as those wont be necessary until the seeds sprout and start growing true leaves. Those are 18 - 3" pots per mini-greenhouse. The top and bottom are just over $2 combined for each and if you get the 3" pots free, then it is a really cheap setup. The heat mat and thermostat are the big cost. I could use sun too but it wouldn't be as convenient or as controlled as what I have now. The heat mat and thermostat are each about $30 on amazon. I went cheap last year with no heat and did fine but decided to try to max my germination efforts and so I sprung for the heat mat. Bruce

slinkey, Thank you so much, I lost this thead and couldn't find it, then decided to do a 'search'. The posts are coming on so fast! kathleen, Thank you! When you live in a house for a while, you start to fill 'spots' that used to be OK to be empty! ha ha luvstocraft, Thank you so much, sorry I am late with responses! declansmom, Thanks you, I really appreciate your wonderful comments! Merry Christmas!