Looking to poll the experts on starting tomatoes. I've been growing tomatoes on a larger scale for about 4 years now (as opposed to having 2-3 plants of whatever the local store had and crossing my fingers) and each year I take it a step further. Last year I successfully did seed starts for the first time. Previously I had failed and ended up justing buying robust starts from the local greenhouse. I have some varieties I want to start growing that I can't find started so it is up to me now.

Last year I rigged up a couple of old fluorescent kitchen lights so I could plug them in and they worked great for the seedlings. I ran into trouble when I had to start potting them though as I didn't have enough light to sustain them and ran out of room under the lights with the bigger pots. By the time I was able to transplant them they were scraggly and kind of sorry looking. After a late frost killed off my first transplants I still had enough to successfully transplant, but it seemed like it took awhile for them to get going and look healthy.

This year I got my family to give me a whole bunch of "wall-o-water" pieces for Christmas (recommended by a local friend who swears by them) to try and protect the plants after I get them in the ground. My other idea was to get a portable greenhouse to move them to once I pot the seedlings. After reading some reviews, it sounds like that may be more trouble than it is worth. I've read about all sorts of problems with temperature control and none of the portable greenhouses seem to consistently get great reviews. I have an area in my driveway where I could easily set up a 10x10 structure, or even a little bigger, but I don't have a place for a permanent structure and if it isn't going to help much (or be too labor intensive), I'm not sure I want to shell out the money and then have to figure out how to store it. I'd expect to have to got out there and water, etc, but I've read accounts of people having to alter their daily schedules to have to go out at a certain time of day to open it up so it doesn't overheat and people not feeling like they could leave home overnight for fear of losing everything. That is more than I'm willing to put up with.

Love the advice and knowledge everybody, another 10 years and maybe I'll be able to start shelling out advice!