The best place to ask questions on botany or anatomy of a flower is Dr. Jeff Smith. His article in May/June, 2007 speaks about stamens. Stamens are the male reproductive organ of a flower consisting of a stalk or filament and a terminal lobe or lobes (the anther) producing and containing pollen. This article tells you why there are sometimes two stamen in some flowers and 5 or seven in others. It doesn't answer your question about why there are sometimes few or a lot of poll2n sacks. Rather it speaks about the pistil or style, the long thin tube which will receive pollon from the pollon sacks. But previously Dr. Smith has mentioned that single star shaped flowers have a lot of pollon sacks, semi-double flowers are caused by at least one of those sacks developing into a petaloid and in doubles, many of the sacks have developed into petaloids. By the Way, Helen Van Pelt wilson's AFRICAN VIOLET BOOK, which costs about $1.00 (about $10.00 shipping) may be purchased from abebooks.com. The aboved mentioned book is highly recommended for the subject of anatomy of a flower. Many of our older books may be found just by typing in African violet or the author's name. Nancy

the ONLY dumb question.. IS THE QUESTION UNASKED .... we are here to disabuse you of your ignorance.. as an old professor used to tell me. .. easy lesson ... soil ='s mother earth ..... dirt ='s what is on your hands and carpet .... after you have been in the garden .. playing in soil .. or mother earth ... medium is what is used in pots ... you will do much better in pots.. if you avoid soil ... medium is ENGINEERED for use in pots.. it is designed to hold and shed the appropriate amount of water for what is planted in it .... it is usually a mixture of peat, perlite [little white volcanic rocks] and vermiculite ... and a few other things depending on the plant going into it [e.g. pieces of bark in conifer pots] peat holds water .... a lot of water.. good for hosta ... perlite takes up space and holds little water.. but improves drainage .. like the bark ... it helps increase air pockets which allow excess water to shed out the bottom vermiculite is somewhere in between ... changing the %'ages of them.. can make widely divergent medium ... if we go on the premise the you try to drown a hosta.. you want a lot of peat .... but all plants like air in their roots.. so we mix some of the other stuff .. named brands are promix... sunshine.. etc ... any time you go to a nursery .. ask them what they use... and you will have a good tutorial on what they might use for differing plants ... being a hardcore gardener.. i learned long ago ... buy the biggest BALE you can .. and a spare plastic garbage can .... dump it all in dry ... take what you need.. and the rest will sit for decades .. while you use it up ... much cheaper by the bale.. if you can afford the upfront cost ... wetting medium is necessary ahead of time ... maybe 1.5 gals of dry will make 1 gallon pot of wetted ... properly wetted stuff should pack like a snowball .. but crumble .. but not a slushy snowball ... peat can actually float on water ... and i have found hot water wicks into super dry peat faster ... but we wouldnt put a plant into hot medium ... does that cover it ... ken

It would definitely be safe to leave out the cumin. I think it would be safe to leave out the green peppers too. You're changing the density, but it should be less dense with the extra liquid vs. solids, so it should be a little safer, not less safe. And of course you are reducing the low-acid ingredients which helps acidity. Finally, it's not a huge amount of green peppers compared to the overall recipe yield, so it's not a major difference. I noticed you didn't mention the vinegar. You can't leave that out! And I would want to get Linda Lou's opinion on upping the cilantro (Annie's recipe is something like 1/4 cup cilantro with 8 cups tomatoes, isn't it?). I've never read anything about substituting herbs for vegetables. Based on acid I guess it would be ok but since their texture is different and peppers seem to have a higher water content, who knows. Have you canned Annie's salsa before? The cilantro flavor fades a bit once it's cooked and canned, so you might prefer to freeze some cubes of cilantro (in water or oil) and then mix them into the jars after you open them. You can freeze it in an ice cube tray and put the cubes in plastic bags. So let's have our Master Food Preserver Linda Lou chime in. Give her a few days to notice this thread, I'm sure she is canning up a storm and answering lots of questions at the extension office! Glad you found a recipe you like. Melissa

Hiyah, I know we have quite a few folks from GA here. I hate to make a list cause I know I'll miss someone so apologies in advance (I put quotes ' ' around screen names): Me: NW Georgia (Acworth) Genie Guthrie: Suwanee Rebecca: Suwanee (I think) ** I think we have some more folks from Suwanee Cindy ('garmom'): south of Atlanta airport Janie 'josieoh-05': NE Georgia Tara: 15 miles NE Atlanta 'leslie-ann': Snellville 'hursetowhee': here's something I posted last year that may be of use to us: These regional office phone numbers are from www.georgiawildlife.org: 1- Armuchee (706) 295-6041 2 - Gainesville (770) 535-5700 3 - Thomson (706) 595-4222 3 - Augusta (706) 667-4672 3 - Social Circle (770) 918-6416 4 - Fort Valley (478) 825-6354 5 - Albany (229) 430-4254 6 - Fitzgerald (229) 426-5267 7 - Brunswick (912) 262-3173 Bluebird blessings, Linda...