Many Bills are supposed to have round white spots, Mike, so if yours are among those, that's a GOOD thing. I grow them about the same as Neos; bright filtered light, i.e. about 50% shade in our conditions.

"Large crops of pink, 8-10 oz that have a full, old-fashioned tomato flavor. Smooth, blemish free fruit are borne in large numbers over a concentrated time period, making this variety a favorite in Southern states for canning and eating. Strong determinate. 80 days, #4515 (30 seeds) $2.55" [Tomato Growers Supply seed blurb] My opinion is that description comes from somewhere other than a grower of Bradley, if you get my drift. I mean it seems to ape other seed blurbs for Bradley rather than the results I've experienced over the past 4 years growing Bradley. First of all, I agree with the 80 days to maturity from transplant. But I don't think I ever got a 10-ounce tomato off a Bradley plant. Maybe 8 ounces with plenty of them running 6 - 7 ounces. "Full, old fashioned flavor" maybe in a hot, dry summer but I'd describe it more on the sweet side of old fashioned and down right bland and watery if the season goes overly wet. Tends also to get soft inside with skin splits in overly wet conditions. I had some excellent results in containers, though, where I did get truly blemish free, 8 ounce, tasty fresh slicers. Concentrated set? Not so much. And surely not like many determinate canners that set one huge crop with maybe a second wind smaller crop then peter out completely. The Bradleys I've grown started yielding at 80 days from transplant and continued with reasonably generous yields until cool, low light conditions in autumn tended to shut them down or render the fruit tasteless. Bradley definitely is a producer though, and does have genes that are useful for increasing yield and standardizing fruit size when crossed with an heirloom like Cherokee Purple. I did that in 2007 and in 2008 grew the F1 that yielded more tomatoes of a uniform size (about 6 - 8 ounces) than any other regular size tomato in the garden ... like 8 - 12 fully ripe tomatoes per picking with two or three pickings a week at the peak season. Awesome. And in no way was the F1 Bradley x CP semi-anything. It was robust indeterminate and grew as long or longer than JD's Special C-Tex and Cherokee Purple as next door neighbors. Out produced them both, too. See below: Bradley x CP, one vine, one day.

That could be why it's just dirt - nothing will grow, but this is an inner city school in a district with major budget issues, and until a few years ago, was pretty neglected over all, so it's also possible there's been no one to care for it properly. I'm just now getting involved. We have an outdoor education program funded mainly by donation and PTA help and sales (herb sales, plant sales), so funds are indeed sparse although we can get man/kidpower and I'm working hard on donations of materials. We do have a few large planters for veg/herbs and another raised bed on one end . We'll be working on that over the next couple of weeks. hmmm, crushed granite. That may be an option. I'll need to see if there's any reason why not. I know some parents have complained about it at another non-school location. Finishing off the edges is definitely a good idea. I'd like to fill it in a bit so it's not so ugly/muddy/dirty, but it also needs to be usable space. I have shadowturf (I think it's the same as turffalo) at my house, just around the corner, and it is AMAZING in heavy shade. but, it's super expensive and spreads far too slowly - if we waited til school's out to plant, it's too hot/dry, but if we plant in March, the plugs would be a mess with school in. And even if we took plugs from my yard to save money, it'd take years to fill in. :( I'm afraid to ask too many questions of the admin in advance, for fear they'll just put me off saying "no, not possible" to general ideas. So I want to plan it out with estimated costs/funding sources and longer term expenses (like watering, altho there is a sprinkler running once per week, no idea why since it's dirt!) before I even bring it up. My short experience has already taught me that "ideas" get shot down immediately, "plans" get consideration. Ideally I'll let the kids do some research into various options, but I'll have to steer them in the right direction ;)

The coating is very durable. They do advise you not to scrap the glass, or use an abrasive cleaner on the outside. The coating requires sunlight to activate it, so if you have windows in shady areas, they will not perform as well as windows getting sunlight, when it comes to reducing water spots. But the coating has no effect on the windows energy performance. So even if it did wear off in 10 or 15 years, the glass would still maintain it's energy efficiency. And since there is no upcharge for it, why not take it? As for appearance, you cannot notice any difference. I have combined units with and without the coating during the initial product changeover, and you cannot tell, unless you spray water on them. As for mitigating UV rays and sound, if you read carefully, they compare the UV reduction to regular double pane glass without LowE, and the sound level compared to single pane glass. Having done several jobs with the Woodwright, I know you'll be happy with your selection.