[gjbingham]

I agree. Should not be a problem waiting 6 months to cure. What's your rational? Worried about cracks? While there have been many discussions about the length of time that it takes cement products to gain full strength (75 years or more) I think 30 days would be an adequate wait period to assure everything's pretty well cured. Though I didn't research it, I'm pretty sure that a graph of the strength of concrete vs. time would show a pretty sharp rise in strength over the first 30 or so days then flatten out significantly after that period. Who knows? I'm sure you can find the information on the internet pretty easily.

I assume you don't have much rain there during your summer. If that is the case, you probably don't need to worry about covering it too well.