boxcar, The foam is waterproof, so if you lay it under crushed stone with no place to drain; it won't. However, if you have the patience to fiddle with the crushed stone, grading and packing it firmly to the center or one end and can dig out a drywell, you could lay the foam over it, leaving the top of the drywell open from the foam, then more stone on top, and the water would drain to the drywell. But it would result in a much nicer and easier to keep clean floor, not to mention tracking the stuff, to just overlay the foam with concrete patio blocks or bricks. As long as the crushed stone is well and truly packed, the foam really will support the bricks or blocks, that will lay easily and could be butted tightly to avoid the need to fill between them. You could even broom mortar into any cracks, wet it and when it dried, would have a really solid floor. BTW, just in case you aren't familiar with drywells- They are just holes dug down to below frost line, lined in the old days with mortared brick or stones and now, plastic liners that can be bought for the purpose. Or, you can use a length of fairly wide plastic culvert pipe. You could also use the same heavy plastic channel drain as I did, except that instead of the section with the drain drop leading to a sump pit, it would go directly into a drywell. There are a number of options, but for any drywell, always- the deeper the better, then fill it with large stones to the top of the liner and either set a made for the purpose cap or channel drain drop section over it, or top it off with with 1/2 inch hardward cloth and lay a piece of window screening over that, to prevent anything other than water from seeping into it. I drain my GH with a channel drain that connects to a sump pit, fitted with a sump pump, that empties the pit to a 150 ft. long line, but I fitted out my GH out to serve as a tropical fish hatchery, so often need to dump hundreds of gallons of water at a time, and have a large utility sink out there too, with H & C water, so it's a different GH use and set-up than most. I also laid OSB over the foam, then topped that with 3/4 inch concrete board, but that was because I wanted a glazed quarry tile floor and it requires far more elaborate under pinnings than do patio blocks or bricks. The tile also lines the kneewall, but there too, my needs were different. All you really need for a GH in which you only grow plants, is a means to drain off excess water from the plants and avoid too much dampness that might cause fungus on them as well as the interior walls of the GH, although the ability to hose down a concrete block or brick floor with cold water is a nice extra, for keeping the GH clean and help cool it on hot days. It really all depends on HOW you want to use your GH, and WHEN in relation to your climate, and how much time, effort and money you are willing/able to spend to fit it out for your own maximum use and enjoyment. After all, a garden GH is really only for pleasure, because unless you are feeding an army of kids, for what it costs to build and maintain one, it's cheaper to shop for veggies at Whole Foods and buy started plants at any nursery. So by all means, put a lot of thought and effort into your foundation and if, after you have the GH you need to back off on the fittings until your wallet recoups; do so and in the end, you will have what you really want. We spent an entire season preparing the foundation for my GH and by the time we actually got to erecting it, all we had time for before winter set in was to install the heater, but as anxious as I was to use it, patience paid off. (Of course, we are also a pair of arthritic old poops, so everything takes us longer now.)

I made my first batch of marmalade today!!!!! While it isn't going to be the best in the world since I had to use navel oranges (all that were available), it's still better than the cheap stuff on the grocery shelves. It was rather tedious trying to get the (uncooked) peels cut into the small strips I wanted. Finally, I put the peels into my food processor with the attachment that chews up carrots for carrot salad. It was still a difficult part of the process because they just didn't come out right. So the result was very large and very small pieces of the peeling in the marmalade. However, that's all right for the first time. When we've finished eating this batch, I think I'll just put the oranges in my food processor and chop them up coarsely after squeezing the pulp and juice into the pot. Then the seeds can go into a muslin bag and be cooked with the lot! Since I have so much of it and I don't put it into jam-jars for safe-keeping, I've decided to freeze it in pint containers. Ruthie, Thanks for the idea. One of my favorite cakes of all time is a Pig-Pickin' cake, which uses mandarin oranges in the cake itself and crushed pineapple in the frosting with the juice carefully poured on the cake layers with holes punched in them. I think I'll spread the marmalade on top of the cake and maybe even spread the pineapple icing on top of that.

I had trouble finding some of the varieties because the spelling on a few was different. Here are the links to the ones I bought: Chinese: http://store.tomatofest.com/Chinese_p/tf-0115.htm Carol Chyko: http://store.tomatofest.com/Carol_Chyko_s_Big_Paste_p/tf-0102.htm Cuoro D Toro: http://www.totallytomato.com/dp.asp?P=%7BA4CE1B4C%2D9C9C%2D4C3D%2DA046%2D582BAAD79494%7D Opalka: http://www.totallytomato.com/dp.asp?P=%7B933CB145%2D3FAE%2D4107%2D9F3B%2D1FD171CDFCED%7D http://store.tomatofest.com/Opalka_p/tf-0355.htm San Marzano Redorta: http://store.tomatofest.com/San_Marzano_Redorta_p/tf-0444.htm Russo Sicilian Togeta: http://store.tomatofest.com/Russo_Sicilian_Toggeta_p/tf-0437.htm Personally I wasn't able to make my own decision on these because of the lousy tomato year this last year. I will try them all again this year. I'm such a newbie with tomatoes that it will take me a while to truly evaluate them.

I make shredded carrot salad with either raisins or currants, can add pineapple and celery, dress with oj and tiny bit of mayo or some evoo, top at the table with walnuts or sunflower seeds. But probably would not go over with picky eaters. My dad is a picky eater and the thought of a raisin in a dish sends him into fits, lol! Funny that he will eat raisins plain from a bowl or box or in gorp, but if you put it in a salad or bread or cookie or something, oh the horror!