hi mark, glad to hear you did well, but i am not surprised, you are a genius at growing anything! now how's that money tree going? get any seeds yet? :) i am NOT a fan of mel bartholowmay (sp?) and his square foot gardening. i know people swear by it, i swear at it! for some things it's ok for others it is a disaster. maybe i did it wrong, any guess what a 4' X 4' square of bush string beans planted 2 or 4" on center looks like? it's a horror show. that said, i'm a big advocate of using 4' sq beds for some things. my garlic did fantastic! i grew garlic in '95 and '96 and it was a small amount, 1st year ok the 2nd was not good so i gave up. this past fall i allocated 4' X 12' for garlic (same as onions). i used my 6" onion planting guide to plant the garlic. i had 10 or 11 rows of music, 5 or 6 rows of german white, 2 rows of georgian crystal, 2 rows of an unknown hard neck i got at a health food store and 2 rows of softneck from stop and shop, the cloves for the sn were HUGE. of the hardnecks, 3 or 4 plants grew funky, maybe 2 or 3 never came up. of the sn, 1/2 did not come up and compared to the hn it did poorly tho ok. i dug it all about 7/25 and dried it in my shed. i trimmed the roots and stalks on friday. i did very well! i did have a problem (only with german white and only 8 or 10 bulbs with about 30+ that are fine) so i went to the farmers market looking for the farmer i bought my garlic from to ask about it but he was not there. so far i have not been able to get him on the phone. i did ask a few farmers why happened and the concensus was that i watered too much. my problem was that only the german white had 8 bulbs that had a white mold or fungus around the stalk within the bulb. the cloves were firm but looked water logged, a sort of translucent pearly grey color. the other 30 or so german white were ok. all the other garlic was ok from what i can discern. i did mulch with 5-6" of 1 or 2 year old shredded leaves, removing all but 1" in late march (which was too late but that did not harm anything). i thought that the leaves introduced the problem but then all the garlic should have had it. these guys told me they do not water their garlic, it rains enough here in the spring and summer to suffice. all the sources i read always said to keep it evenly moist but i 100% discount that now. unless we go for 3 weeks without rain, i will not water garlic again. however, if you saw the size of the hardneck bulbs they were selling you'd laugh. my german white has some cloves that are so huge that 1 clove is 2/3 the size of their entire bulb! i am not kidding you. my music cloves are just about the same tho i think the german white has larger cloves while music has larger bulbs, more cloves per bulb. my bulbs are about 2.5 to 3" in diameter, theirs were about 1.5 to 1.75"! so like i wonder about watering, you know :)! still, one guy told me garlic originated in siberia and they have wicked dry weather so the no watering does make sense. i harvested about 160 bulbs out of about 175 cloves planted. i used 48 sq feet of garden. to compare, i used 120 sq feet for potatoes. i grew 13 superior and 13 yukon gold and got a WHOOPING, SIT DOWN, HOLD ONTO YOUR HAT, 15 pounds of superior and 16 pounds of yukon gold and i use a soaker hose around the seed for adequate water. prior to that, my potatoes were often hollow or very small, so the soaker hose helps. garlic requires only cutting the scape and virtually no weeding with 1" of mulch. digging is easy. potatoes require work to plant, 2 or 3 hillings which is a lot of work in the heat, usually a lot of work killing colorodo potatoe beetles tho i saw only 12-18 this year and no larvae and the digging to get the potatoes is really hard work especially with a soaker hose in there. so i wasted 120 sq feet again! this fall i plan on planting at least 100 sq feet of garlic, NO potatoes, i may plant 125-130 sq feet. i plant 6" on center. i know from experience that if you crowd onions you get small bulbs. my red wings and copra are much larger now that i space them 4" on center vs the 3" i used to use. i suspect garlic is the same. i gather you used 6' too using the crw? storage is something only time will tell. i don't know what to make of the taste of all my garlics. georgian crystal is mild. the others are not like grocery store garlic which is HOT and SPICY. it is what i am used to. some of my cloves have been hot but most are so so. not sure what to make of this. but it is organic, it will be free once i grow enough to plant and eat for the whole year. this is why i need to buy garlic cuz i'd have to plant too much of the harvest based upon the amount i want to plant/grow next season, maybe 3/4! the guy i buy from charges just $4 a pound and he is organic!!!!! one of the guys i talked to at the farmers market told me he wholesales his to whole foods and he is organic and he gets $6.50 a pound, wholesale!!!!! so i gotta find the guy i dealt with last summer for about 30 pounds of garlic and that'd be $120! but i think that would allow me to have enought to plant and eat all year. yes, it was very successful and i am very pleased with the results. garlic is easy to grow. the hardest part is cutting the scapes when it's 90 and humid but anything is difficult under those conditions! as a side note, ever grow grandfather ashlock (i'm on tomatoes now)? i tried it this year and it is 1 heck of a fantastic tomato rivaling earl's faux! tom's yellow wonder was the only other new variety i grew this year and it too is quite good. i am not a fan of yellow tomatoes but tyw is very good. the 1st 1 i ate i would have thought it was a red tomato it had such good flavor. they are huge too 1 to 3 pounds. tom

So, would you consider this salsa safe to store at room temp for long periods of time? I would, assuming it was properly BWB processed after jarring. You don't mention any form of processing or the time it was processed and that is what would allow for safe shelf storage vs. fridge storage for a defined period of time. If it wasn't processed then no, it would not be safe for shelf storage because of the air still inside the jars. Dave

I also suggest freezing, but vacuum-seal it first using a FoodSaver, OR, in Mylar bags and use oxygen absorbers to remove the oxygen from the bags. Unfortunately, there is really no true "long-term" storage for brown rice - only white rice, but oxygen-free storage AND in the freezer are the best and preferred over room-temperature storage. Oxygen-free storage helps prevents the oils going rancid and the freezer slows the oils and nutrients from degrading. But it only slows it down - but doesn't completely prevent it. It will eventually go rancid even in the freezer. You might consider growing your own medium-grain rice in buckets as outlined in the book "Homegrown Whole Grains" by Sara Pitzer (page 121) to assure you have a source for it. Check your local library for a copy. Bob's Red Mill carries medium-grain brown rice, and I'm sure there are other resources for it on-line. I use short- or medium-grain brown rice for milling into rice flour. Long-grain brown (or white) rice is fine for milling if you want to use it as a thickener or breading, but for baked goods (rice flour is often an ingredient in gluten-free baked goods) short- and medium-grain rice are best. -Grainlady

Hi old_house_owner, I faced a somewhat similar situation a couple of years ago when I moved to Africa for a year and put all my stuff in storage. The first thing I noticed in looking at your pictures is that your garage is most definitely not rodent proof, nor cockroach proof, and the gaps may be wide enough that other critters could get in with a little effort--raccoons, for example. Rodents and roaches in particular love nothing more than paper and fabric. I would suggest that you both eliminate any way for rodents to get in AND make sure every box is air-tight, waterproof, and impossible to chew through, which, of course, eliminates cardboard as an option. Additionally, I would suggest that anything important to you that is in boxes, of whatever material, be wrapped really well in air-tight and waterproof bags or other containers. This should also help keep that SF fog and other moisture away from your valuables. And if, heaven forbid, a pipe bursts, or heavy rains bring flash flooding, your things are protected. No boxes directly on the floor. Invest in some shelving. It doesn't have to be expensive, it just has to hold your boxes. Wrap everything. Your garage will get dusty while you're gone. Dust on/in electronics, including TVs, can ruin them. Use heavy plastic and try to make everything as air-tight and waterproof as possible. Wrap any furniture in heavy, thick plastic, like people did back in the day when they didn't want their furniture to get dirty. I would also suggest that you scan all important paperwork into your computer and store it in the cloud or somewhere on the www, so if everything got ruined by fire or water while you're gone, you will still have access to all the documents. Make sure your homeowner's insurance will cover everything while it's in storage on your property. When you do the actual moving of your things, take a photo or video of the contents of every box and of everything else, so if something goes wrong and you have to file an insurance claim, you will have proof of what was in there. Obviously, store the pictures or video off-site, preferably in the cloud. If, for some reason, your homeowner's insurance won't cover your things while they're in storage, consider an inexpensive renter's insurance policy to cover it. I've found Geico to be particularly good in these types of situations. I'll leave the suggestions for the renovation of the garage itself to others with more expertise. Due to your location and condition of your garage, I see potential threats to your property in this order: 1. Moisture (Depending where you are in the Bay Area, you could add flood to this list.) 2. Pest infestation 3. Dust/dirt 4. Theft 5. Fire (I suggest installing a fire alarm/smoke detector that is connected to the fire department or a private security company, and having a security system/burglar alarm also connected to a private security company.) 6. Earthquake (Arrange boxes, etc., with this in mind to help mitigate any earthquake damage.) One final suggestion. When you get home, you will be eager and so happy to see your stuff! LABEL EVERYTHING!! No matter what you think now, you will NOT remember what's where. :-) I hope Europe is wonderful! With a little care now, you can rest easy in Europe, knowing your possessions are safe back home. :-) Sincerely, Debbie