Grandmother's Hat sure is a chameleon. Look at this bloom on her today. Very hot colored pink and white (sort of reminiscent of Double Delight!), and the camera got the color pretty faithfully. Normally she is a cool mid pink, but now in August she looks like this (and is as fragrant as ever). She is next to and partially under a big cedar tree for a little sun protection as I noted she did not do well in Ingrid's sunny garden. Mine came from Vintage. Melissa

I was afraid that heat was causing my problems. Most of my plants are in the shade atleast 6 hours of the day after the first of June. The ones that I use the most are in light dappled shade more than that. I know I lose bud quantity by not being in more sun but since I'm fighting the heat, I figured the shade from my big old oaks would help. This year our weather was really freaky. It was so cool in April and the first of May that I didn't start having blooms until the last week of May. I usually have some the first week in May and by the second week, I'm getting around 100 blooms a day. So, the blooms were late and then, Blammm!! It goes from 40 at night to 95 in the day and the lows only in the 70s. I dare not even try to explain how high the humidity was. Next year, I'm going to be up before dawn putting on pollen. I hate getting up early, but I hate worse working 4 hours everyday for nothing. No, I don't freeze my pollen. I leave it in the vials, in my cool home until I get ready to use it. I don't know the science behind pollen, so I hope pollen doesn't "die" for the lack of a better word??? I did freeze some the first year, but it would sweat in the vials before I could use it and this just didn't work for me. My blooms usually don't have fluffy pollen until around 10am. The ones in the early morning sun fluff up first and then the ones in the shade will be ready to gather by the time I finish gathering the ones in the sun. It's amazing, the little bitty bees can sniff out dry pollen the second it gets ready and they are gone with it before I can get to it!! I use the little light weight hair nets to keep the bees off if they really get to greedy. I sure appreciate the feed back. I thought maybe you had a magic potion to hold the pollen to the pistol or something when you said you were getting such high success. I even wondered if some were wetting the pistol since I see so many photos made with water showing on the petals. Ya'll made me feel some better. Now, I'm going to work on getting my plants in good shape for next year. I need to repot about 300 pots and it will probably take atleast 600 pots to put them into. Sooo I have a lot of potting to do. Any recommendations on good fertilize. I'm using Mircle Grow garden soil in my pots and topping them off with mini pine bark mulch and using MG slow release fertilze. It gets expensive to repot this way, but when you think about paying $50 for one fan, using $3 worth of soil to put it in, isn't outrageous. I just haven't been able to pay $250 for one fan. I'd have to sleep with it to make sure the ______!!! voles didn't eat it. While I'm asking, what's your favorite parents this year? I'm going to purchase about 10 plants later this year, and I'm wanting to get the best pod builders I can. One more question: When the bud count is listed in the description, does this mean the total buds on all scapes for the year?? I have never seen a scape with 50 buds on it. I do good to get 15, most of mine is 8 to 10. I do have some that say they should have 35 - 40. Have a great day, Mona

The latest info on the calcium, when mixed with water is that if it darkens or turns an off color, toss it. Why would you want to mix the WHOLE PACKET of calcium powder with water in the first place?? They give you EXTRA calcium in that packet anyway. If you are only using PART of a package of the Pomona pectin, like 1/4 or 1/2 or 3/4, measure out the whole packet of calcium powder too, which is a tiny amount, and then measure only the 1/4 or 1/2 or 3/4 amount of it. PUT THE UNUSED PORTION OF THE REST OF the CALCIUM POWDER BACK INTO THAT SMALL PACKET, fold it over and tape it shut! Then mix that measured amount you juts got, with some water (any amount of water up to 1/4 cup!). I think your 'over analyzing' showing way too much concern about a 'small additive' that is used to trigger the setting up of the Pomona pectin (citrus based). I have not tried it yet, but I bet if you mixed a little BAKING SODA or CALCIUM CHLORIDE (Pickle Crisp) into water, it would ALSO make the Pomona pectin set up just exactly the same!! Because you seem to indicate that your making small batches of jellies, you may want stick with the low/no sugar pectins from SureJel or Ball, etc., ss they only make about 5 cups at a time. If you find the Pomona too difficult or confusing to deal with. These other pectins do not need calcium, BUT must be exact when measuring the total liquid for the batch. NO THERMOMETER NEEDED FOR ANY OF THESE!! Here is a example of a (no recipe!!) the I used to make my apricot preserves. I simply cut up and removed the stones of about 35 apricots, added a little mango nectar juice, and a small package of cut up dried California apricots and acup of water. Used a WHOLE BOX of Pomona, but mixed it with some water and the rest of the mango juice in a blender until it was dissolved. Added plenty of asorbic acid, and Splenda to the now boiling apricots, as well as my favorite 'acid blend' to boost the 'character' and flavor of the 'cots. TASTED until I felt it was sweet enough with the SPLENDA. Then, while boiling, I poured in the dissolved Pomona. Stir well while bringing back to a boil again. Then, I added the WHOLE packet of calcium that was now mixed with a little water (still a 1/4 cup). Stirring while adding it. The spoon now showed a coating and soft globs forming when I lifted it out. Got my jars ready and filled 13 pints. Then BWB processed. End result, perfection!! NO recipe, no worrying, no failure, no probelms, and no setting up failures!! simple... Pomona is good stuff!! It is virtually foolproof!! Best of luck!

It looks like I picked up Ken's "cranky rants" banner, LOL. I worked in a cannery when I was in college. When you're sourcing fruit, determining standards in the field, grading, testing in the lab, it's easy to arrive at consistency. Lemons by the boxcar tend to average out and I certainly can see that for commercial applications a ton of lemons is consistently more acidic than an equivalent amount of bottled. But the home canner uses only one or two or three lemons, which individually may be lower in acidity. Who can know? There is just no way to account for all the things which may happen with a canning formula in the home kitchen. You make applesauce and use windfalls, which are less acid than apples picked from the tree, not even imagining it's an issue. Inexperienced canners, especially, are prone to doing the unimaginable. I can say as a teacher, I can't count the ways the human mind can re-configure the most basic of instructions. I told a friend how to can tomatoes, believing I'd covered every possible way for it to go wrong, only to discover he'd decided water up to the level of the fruit in the jar was sufficient for a boiling water bath. Fortunately, my husband happened to go down the street to visit, spotted the error and insisted he re-process the batch. Sorry if I came across as hostile. Canning fatigue. Like farmers, glad to see the end of harvest. Carol