Hey Brad... I wanted to ask you a few questions about pine mulch that i am looking for... i will send an email with those questions if that is ok... You are in Suffolk right? Im sorry to here of the loss of your queen palm...these past two winters have been brutal here...lets hope for an early spring...we all deserve it!! As far as the forecasted temps...i wouldn't put any $ on them..LOL...especially from one city to the next...remember when we had the weather watchers call in on the local news...i guess those days are gone...it did help people like us that are interested in gardening and our plants/trees in general...Miss that J. Cash..on the local channel here...he seemed pretty good...oh well...we just have to be out own weather watchers!!! Please post pics of your your citrus and other great trees...i/we would love to see what you grow....I especially would like to see the key lime..lemons..Guava..Bananas..ok...lets see it all...LOL Even..the "worm" That has really worked well for you... It sounds wonderful..and you have done a great job!!! Take care everyone.. Laura in VB

"But actually it isn't all that difficult to know the approved ones as there are so few of them for spaghetti sauce since it is a low acid product. NCHFP/USDA publications, which includes the ones in So Easy to Preserve, and those in the Ball/Bernardin books. That's it. There aren't any in Small Batch Preserving." Well, it may not call itself spaghetti sauce, but there is "Chunky Basil Pasta Sauce" with fresh herbs and veges in Small Batch Preserving, and also "Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce" with both veges and fresh herbs in Small Batch Preserving, and also "Seasoned Tomato Sauce" with veges and fresh herbs that Small Batch Preserving suggests using in "pasta sauces, soups, stews, pizza, or casseroles." So, although the OP did leave the door open to reasonable questions about recipe safety, it is also good to take care in making broad statements about recipes which include such phrases as "there are no recipes which. . .", or "all approved recipes for (pasta sauce, salsa, whatever) MUST be. . ." since there may well be a safe recipe which allows such processing. For example: you CAN use fresh herbs in the approved NCHFP spaghetti sauce recipe, as this email from Elizabeth Andress states: Thank you for visiting the National Center for Home Food Preservation. > question -> Spaghetti Sauce without Meat: > 1. Can I eliminate the celery/peppers completely? > 2. Can I use fresh herbs or only dried? > 3. Can I add basil (fresh or dried)? > 4. Can I eliminate the sugar? For our particular procedures: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_03/spaghetti_sauce.html You can leave out the celery and peppers completely, leaving everything else the same. (The mushrooms are already optional, also.) If you use fresh herbs, make sure they are very clean. I can only recommend using the equivalent volume measures, though, and that may not give you the flavor you desire. Eg., instead of 2 TBSP dried oregano, use 2 TBSP minced fresh oregano. I do not have enough information to know the upper limit on how much fresh to add, so that's all I can suggest without testing. (which we cannot do). You can use basil as a substitute for one of the other herbs (eg, you may not want the parsley with basil). Or, if you are leaving out the celery and peppers completely, you could add 2 to 4 TBSP of basil. Yes, you can eliminate the sugar in this recipe. The chopped celery and/or peppers and the sugar add a little moisture/liquid in many recipes. In this particular sauce, however, it is cooked down to thickened consistency anyway, so the amount of liquid that would be added by these ingredients would not be important as it might be in other types of food products/mixtures. Best wishes, Elizabeth Andress -------------------------------------- Elizabeth L. Andress, Ph.D. Project Director, National Center for HFP Professor and Extension Food Safety Specialist Department of Foods and Nutrition The University of Georgia 208 Hoke Smith Annex Athens, GA 30602-4356 Phone: (706) 542-3773 FAX: (706) 542-1979 -----------------------------------------------

Somebody else just asked about this recently... http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/2941879/please-help-what-is-this-hellish-weed-ca?n=13

No, the pickle worm is a different critter. very destructive in the southeast. Usually arrive here (Augusta Ga) around the Fourth of July. http://www.extension.org/pages/60954/biology-and-management-of-pickleworm-and-melonworm-in-organic-curcurbit-production-systems#.VbETTNJViko