Hi, I still have company. Will be here until Friday. I had my grandson for 3 days, then he was still here yesterday and our company came yesterday, too, a day early ! Just as we were going out the door to make the hours drive up to take our grandson home. So, my daughter had to come down and get him. I had to cook dinner for everyone. At least my dh cooked the chicken on the grill for me, bless his heart ! So, I am exhausted ! Having a good visit, though. Anyway, part of the deal with the relish is also the density of it. Relish is normally denser than a salsa would be. Especially the ones that are water bath canned, you notice how much vinegar is in them ? A lot of people comment on how liquid they are, but that is part of the safety of the products. The size of the pieces of food is also a consideration in safe processing of foods. That and how much liquid is in something. That is why diced tomatoes packed in water takes less processing time than those packed without any added water. There are a lot of factors that go into a safe recipe for canning. Yes, that is true, too, what Carol said about bottled lemon juice being twice as acidic as vinegar, yet tastes less tart. That new book is nice, but it is the same as what is online. I saw the new copy of the book. You need to simmer the food for the time called for because it also "preshrinks" the vegetables. That, and you want the food really hot as it goes into the jars when you are hotpacking foods. That can make a difference in processing times with some foods. If you check some recipes you will notice that raw pack and hot pack are not always the same processing times for the same ingredients. I agree, keep the vinegar amount to 4 cups in the recipe. I sure hope I am making sense, as tired as I am !!! If not, forgive me. Things may get better, but then again, it is the starting of canning season ! I won't make any promises... Another thing, if you made jelly with the liquid, it would need some added vinegar. Just like all pepper jellies do. It would not be high acid like fruits.

Dave, I did not want to grow these cuttings, they were the result of windstorms, trees breaking branches that fell and broke my plumeria. I did not have anymore gritty mix, so I just stuck them in the ground. They were so small I never thought they would survive, but they rooted. I did not even use root tone, I was surprised. I lost the cuttings, that I got at the PSA sale in July that I had in gritty mix and water bottles. Wish I would have stuck them in the ground. Like I said its a learning experience. I have no trouble rootting cutting in the spring, but never could root plumeria during the summer, until now. Whats strange is the ones in the ground get watered by a sprinkler system every other day, that is why I am so surprised they rooted. Barbra

How nice this thread got bumped! I enjoyed re-reading it and thinking about how much the yard has changed in a year. My bird-friendly yard is evolving. Have made great progress removing invasives, particularly Bittersweet, Buckthorn, and Norway Maples (treework cost me $2000 last year and there's still one GINORMOUS Norway maple left). There was a lot of brush created by all this tree/shrub work. Some was burned this Spring, right smack in the middle of the Oriental bittersweet patch, but the rest is in piles. The brush piles attract a lot of birds, particularly Sparrows, Cardinals, Juncos, and Wrens. The birds also love the back half-acre, which is wild and full of Crabapples, Choke Cherries, White Pine, and still some invasives like Honeysuckle and Autumn olive. Also making great progress on growing bird-friendly natives. Purchased another 50 native tree/shrub seedlings from the NH Nursery. That makes 130 total between this year and last - all of which ultimately make berries/nuts for the birds and wildlife. Most of them are in holding beds and haven't flowered yet, too little, but I've given away some and started to plant out a few. I winter-sowed many native species of perennials, annuals, and vines. Exactly where all this stuff is going, is not completely clear at this point, but I'm creating lasagne beds like crazy! The birds are always flitting around the yard and it's only going to get more interesting and fruitful for them (hopefully). It's great!

The idea for the shallow pool was to be a place to sit on a beach chair and read a book. Because of the slope on that side of the house it would have required much higher retaining walls to have the main pool in that location. The aesthetic goal was to be able to see water upon entering the home. Since we also wanted the sound of the waterfall this is the solution our landscape architect came up with. We didn't want a hot tub. The main pool is 3.5 feet deep on either side and 5.5 feet in the middle. We didn't want a deep end since in our previous home everyone always congregated around the shallow end.