The Apricot Chutney in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving is WONDERFUL!!! I love it, especially served with roast pork or chicken (and if the meat ended up a little dry or overcooked, the chutney REALLY improves it). Tomato jam can be used where ketchup might be used - so on burgers, sandwiches (delicious with turkey sandwiches). It's also delicious on crackers with cream cheese or an herbal dip (my preference). Some like them on a rustic bread with a soft cheese. The pepper jellies are very often warmed up a bit (if too firm) and poured over a brick of cream cheese to serve with crackers and small bread slices at parties. Absolutely yummy. The cream cheese can help with the heat of the pepper jellies if they are a little too hot (many people love them that way). They also can be a lovely glaze for grilled meats like chicken.

Lynn, I see that you and I still like many of the same tomatoes. LOL I think you will like Jubilee and Jaunne Flammee'. Both are really great performers in our heat, but your heat probably is worse than ours. Heatwave is iffy. It does produce in the July and August heat but the flavor is a little lacking (but you know that I say that based on my "heirloom-preferring" tastebuds). In your soil and your growing conditions, it may taste better than it did in my soil and growing conditions. I do think Heat Wave II tasted better to me than the original Heat Wave. Brandy, Sorry if I confused you by referring to seeds sown directly into the ground as wintersown. On GardenWeb, winter sown does refer to seeds sown in containers and exposed to the cold temps. To me, though, anything I plant in the winter in wintersown, which probably would drive the people on the wintersowing forum nuts! LOL If you want a good explanation of wintersowing, go to the wintersowing forum here at GardenWeband read Trudi's FAQ. It is very informative. I sow larkspur, poppies, etc. into the ground anytime between November and February, depending on when I get around to it. This seeds will sprout in the cold and form tiny ground-hugging rosettes. You won't see much vertical growth, but they are making roots all that time and, when the spring conditions are right, they start to grow like crazy. (Lots of cool season weeds, by the way, grow exactly the same way....germinating in fall or winter's cooler weather and flying under the radar until spring). Some plants don't like to be transplanted, and for me, poppies and larkspur are two of those. (I have transplanted poppies before, but they aren't crazy about it because they have long taproots.) So, wintersowing them in containers doesn't work because they get mad when you transplant them into the ground. As far as the purple coneflowers and hollyhocks....I tried numerous times to start them indoors under lights. I was able to do it with the hollyhocks pretty easily, but the coneflowers just didn't want to sprout. Yet, they would reseed readily in my garden. So, I wintersowed some a couple of years ago and had great results. As for the hollyhocks, there is no reason to take up a lot of space indoors under lights because I can direct sow them into the ground (if it is not a rainy winter) or in flats. They transplant easily and are pretty cold hardy. I seem to get higher germination rates with the ones sown outside than I do with the ones sowed inside. I love hollyhocks and have them every year. However, if a really, really wet rainy year, the seed often rots before it can germinate because I have horrible, slow-draining red clay soil. Your problem with hollyhocks last year probably had more to do with the excessively wet weather, the lack of sunshine as it seemed to stay cloudy FOREVER, and the late cold spells. Those three conditions caused lots of problems with plants here that are usually pretty easy to grow. Between "the cold" and "the wet", a lot of roots were stunted and the plants just didn't grow. I noticed this weekend that hollyhocks are already sprouted in my garden. They are small and low to the ground, with 2 or 3 leaves about the size of a nickle or so. You could direct sow hollyhocks in the ground now or wintersow some in a flat or other container. My main challenge with wintersowing is that the cats like to lay on any flat I plant anything in, even if I have lids on the flats! The dogs, of course, like to walk on the containers, and the wild things, like racoons and possums, like to paw through the soil looking for whatever. Also, if I am not careful, the wind carries them all away, even when I think I have them in places where they are sheltered from the wind. Dawn

I love anything to do with tea, I am an avid ice tea drinker but I love to use my tea cups for flavored teas or even cocoa. I think I posted before that I have collected tea cups and saucers for a long time. I even made the Teacup Bird Feeder about 5 years ago. At one time my hubby cut the tea cups in half, I glued them to a piece of framed board and decorated with dried flowers. A young man I use to work with told me about his mom's idea about teacups. She is an inspirational speaker and writes beautiful short stories. She attaches them to the tea cup and saucer - www.teacuptraditions.com. If I ever decide to open a shop I would certainly keep it simple and concentrate more on the different teas. I love decorating cakes, cookies, etc., but I don't like the actual baking. I have lots of ideas on the decorating and reading all the posts on this site sure makes it tempting - but I took an early retirement last June and it is scarey thinking about getting up every morning and going off to work again. The only thing that would make it right is if you really love what you are doing. I love the name, Kathleen. I once thought about "The Copper Kettle" (my mom had a copper tea kettle once). It sure is nice to day dream about all the good times you would have with your friends. At my gift shop years ago, we loved sitting on the front porch swinging - lots of times the hubby's would sit there while the wives shopped. BEBE

Hi Lisa. From the sound of your post, you BELONG here, LOL. I'm glad you joined us. I'm not to the dishaholic stage yet..but not because "they" haven't tried to influence me! I can sort of relate to your DH's method of shopping. Mine is a golf nut, so its fine for me to shop while he does his thing. LOL. Makes me really like golf a lot. I was just thinking, when I joined this Forum two years ago, that it mostly was holiday stuff. Then during the off months when almost no one posted, some of the gals started showing dishes and tablescapes, and its been so much fun ALL year to be part of this Forum. You won't find a friendlier bunch! Jim and all the gals are just wonderful. And loads of photos to enjoy and inspire! hugs, Karen