I have been canning for over 40 years and I have NEVER had any problems with my jars not sealing. This year has been a whole new experience for me. I purchased 15 cases of Golden Harvest jars and lids as everyone seems to forget to return their empty ones to me. Out of those cases only one set of lids held their seal. Having working in a glass manufacturing factory for 26 years in Canada,as a maintenance mechanic,who was responsible to make sure all equipment worked properly, I can honestly say its the capping machines that are causing all the problems. I have found in these new cases, 2-3 lids all under the same cap,and double lids and caps on the same jar. Also the lids and caps are being put onto the jars too soon as the jars are still hot from being made in the first place. The lids then seal to the hot jars and forms a ridge in the rubber. This renders the lids useless when you go to use them.The capping machines are also using too much pressure to apply the lids and caps. I had to go out and buy all new Bernardin lids separately and reprocess pickles and peaches. Sadly tomatoes can't be reprocessed. As for mentioned as to where I worked, we were the last Canadian glass plant that could manufacture 4 different kinds of glass at the same time,before being bought out and ultimately closed. We made all the whiskey,beer, baby food,ketchup, and canning and pickle jars for all the big name companies as well as all the tableware and amber coloured bottles. Its not the lack of dividers in the cases or the shrink wrapping of them. That is strictly a cost saving deal. Its strictly a lack of quality control checks and then having all bad pallets of containers redone properly. Part of the mechanics job was to check on all the equipment regularly and adjust the equipment to make sure these things don't happen. Also the quality control people were required to sample check all products on an hourly basis and the report any issues to the mechanics etc. Cheri Mac

I'm no expert, but I do put multiple cuttings under a single Mason jar since some may not "take," not because I aim for a fuller bush. I try to space cuttings under a jar so I have a chance to separate individual roses' root systems, which limits the number under a single jar. (No one has told me the minimum recommended spacing between cuttings, so in my ignorance I settled on 1-1/2 inches apart or so.) If more than one makes it, I plan to try to move the extras to allow healthy root expansion. I get more cuttings, and taller ones, under a "sun tea" jar than a canning jar. When I first started using Mason jars, I found they overheated and killed the cuttings unless they were in either natural shade (north side of an existing bush) or protected from direct sun by a strategically-placed piece of lumber. I started by relying on natural shade, which meant I rooted some cuttings in spots where I don't want mature plants, so they will need to be transplanted later. But if I shade the jar with something so it does not get too much direct sun, I can try rooting right where I want the mature plants to grow. From my reading, to get an apparently bushier rose one should choose a variety that has a relatively compact growth habit (at least in mature width, if not height, which can be controlled by pruning) - not a climber or sprawler. David Austin recommends planting his roses in groups of 3 or 5, with individual plants spaced not closer than about 1-1/2 feet apart. Hope this helps, from one learner to another. Rick

Not sure the insulation - damp or otherwise - makes much sense to me. At least in the Bosch DWs and I would have to imagine, any well constructed DW, the insulation is not open to the DW itself and in fact is more open to the outside than to the inside of the DW cavity. So should the insulation be getting overheated or dampened somehow, I would imagine that smell would be just as profound when you're in front of the DW with the DW door shut as when the DW door is open because the source of the smell is on the outside of the DW. I did have the dreaded DW stink. We had put in our DW about a month before the renovation and at that time, the DW did not smell at all. After the renovation, put the DW back and it smelt like the dickens for a few days. I didn't really suspect the DW 'coz it hadn't smelt at all at its first install but still, the smell was something fierce and entirely unpalatable. Well, it took a few days but eventually our kitchen sink backed up - the drain had had a slow clog somewhere and it took a while to be detectable. We got our plumber out, he flushed the line to look for the clog and indeed he did mention that after a renovation, it is not uncommon for the drain to become slow because during a renovation, construction trash does tend to get into the drains and so usually the drain lines should be snaked to ensure they're clear. He did say that he didn't hit anything noticeable but bottom line, the drain cleared, the sink drains perfectly and the DW immediately lost its stench. In the two years since the renovation has been done, the DW has not smelled at all except on the couple of occasions when a dirty dish was left in it for several several days when I went out of town (don't usually leave dirty dishes in the DW when am to be out of town for a week or more but I've forgotten a couple of times). I do a DW load every 3 to 4 days and I don't get DW-odour in that interval. Based on my experience, whenever I read of smelly dishwashers, I suspect a slow drain with the sewer gases backing up. One probably doesn't smell it in the kitchen because the smell gets a chance to diffuse. Well, that's my $0.02

Barb -- Even as an instructor, I've always found home canning to be an expensive method for food preservation if you have to purchase the food, and especially if you have to purchase canning equipment. In the home canning class I teach, we do cost analysis charts so people get a better idea of the true cost. Not to mention the hours of food preparation it takes from garden to the table. I used to break down the cost of utilities, but it changes periodically, and now there isn't just one cost, it varies throughout the day, so I don't bother with that anymore. It's not worth my time and trouble to plant, care for, harvest, and process 8-10 pints of pickled beets (about the average we would use in a year) when I can purchase them for 67-cents per can. That's one of the few commercially canned foods I buy. It's expensive for the cost of the utilities to process home canning, and for the extra energy to cool your home with an air conditioner while you process it. Do you have the kind of stove you can do home canning ON? Are your burners large enough (size and B.T.U. out-put) for the size of canner you are using? For a LOT of reasons, freezing or dehydration is a less-expensive choice for home food preservation. I also believe unless you have access to fresh-picked produce in the amounts it takes to fill a canner, you are probably wasting your time AND money because it means your home canned food won't have much in the way of nutrients after the delay from picking until it's canned if you have to wait several days to get the large amounts you need. It definitely doesn't pay to only fill a canner with a few pints/quarts when it takes nearly the same amount of energy to process a canner that is full. I also think most home canned foods are inferior when it comes to nutrition due to the lag time from harvest to processing, as well as from the heat processing, and how long and under what conditions they are stored in. And not everyone likes to eat home canned food.... Most of my friends and most of my students now can a favorite family recipe or two and jam/jelly/apple butter for gift-giving. Dehydrating takes very little energy, other than what it takes for blanching (but not everything requires blanching). I place my dehydrator in the basement where the heat it produces dissipates quickly. The exception is onions, which I do in the garage because of the smell. Kale can get a bit smelly, too. Dehydrated foods takes up less space than canning. It's amazing how many dried apple slices or dried tomato slices you can stuff into a canning jar!!! The FoodSaver product you are considering is fine for what it's designed for, but I think you would be happier with one of the full-size units which are more expensive. I have one of those small units and rarely use it (purchased it at Tuesday Morning for $19 several years ago), while I use the regular one many times each day (and have been using them since 1986). I'm into home food storage and have a whole room in the basement filled with vacuum-sealed dry goods. The FoodSaver is the center of my long-term storage, so it's a must-have for me. I have a new one, still in the box, I purchased on sale, ready to go if the current one quits. My entire freezer is organized with vacuum-sealed items, because they last longer in the freezer. No more freezer-burned food! I can pull out a plastic storage basket and flip through it for vacuum-sealed fruits or vegetables, all in a single layer in the bags. Cut the bag open, remove the amount needed, and reseal the bag and put it back in the basket in the freezer. I freeze soup/stew/chili in serving sizes. Pop it out of the freezer container, stack the "cubes" and vacuum-seal them a FoodSaver bag. Take out what I need and reseal the bag. I have all our breakfast meat in serving amounts and vacuum-sealed. I divide bulk amounts of chicken, and other meat products, into several bags and vacuum-seal it - both raw and pre-cooked. My pantry shelf is lined with foods in canning jars of various sizes. Instead of standing them up-right on the shelves two and three deep, and having to move them to see what's in the back, I lay the jars down on their side with the lid to the front. I have my shelves adjusted so they are the distance apart of one 1/2-gallon jar space (which is the largest jar I use). I spray painted the lids with chalk board paint, and I use a chalk board pencil or liquid chalk board markers (in fun electric colors) to mark the chalkboard lids. Some jars are covered with plastic Ball jar lids and you can write on them with liquid chalk markers. Not all of these are vacuum-sealed, but many are (especially those that contain freeze-dried foods). So my pantry is lined with canning jars filled with dry gluten-free pasta, dried and freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, baking aids like cacao nibs, chocolate chips (several kinds and sizes), chia seeds, palm sugar, arrowroot, whole grains and homemade cereal products, crispy nuts (soaked and dehydrated), pinto bean flakes, dried parsley..... And even more in the food storage room. You will have to determine whether a FoodSaver will meet your food storage needs and goals. -Grainlady