empties - I keep all my jars - full and empty - on 2 metal storage racks in my basement. They are all in boxes - I have post it notes on them noting the contents. When the box is empty, the post it note disappears. As I empty jars, I fill them into the empty slots of the partially full boxes. I have an empty box that is my "catch bin" - as empty jars come out of the dishwasher, they go into the "catch bin" box. Then, for instance, when I go get a pint jar of marinara, when I pull the full jar out, I grab an empty pint jar from the catch basin box and put it in it's slot. When I want to can something, I can just go to the basement, pull out a full box of empties. The empties are clean, so I can just warm them in my canning pot. Though if it's been a while and they've gotten dusty, I'll pop them in my dishwasher on the rinse and hold cycle. One "advantage" to my system is that like items are always together. In each box is only marinara, or chicken, or applesauce. One "disadvantage" is that I could end up with a lot of boxes with only 1 or 2 full jars. That becomes and "issue" in Aug/Sept when canning is in full swing and I really need my empties. At that point, I'll combine some boxes - peaches and pears in the same box, or all the pickles in one box.

I do not make very high hills and I generally start the seeds indoors so that when I plant my plants they provide cover for there roots somewhat. The main thing is to mulch one your seeds emerge. I did not check to see what zone you are in and for that I apologize. In the northern part of the state say from Gainesville up you can hill and plant as usual. I have always furrowed my rows so that I had a nice 8-10 inch trough between them. If further hilling was necessary we scraped dirt into a mound and planted the seeds. Of course with Dad being a fishing person we could place the fish heads and guts under the hills to give the seeds a good head start. Fish emulsion works well in today's times. You then plant a few seeds to ensure you have one healthy plant and keet moist until the seeds sprout and once the leaves are off the ground good you can lightly mulch with leaves etc. I have grown many a squah, strawberry, potato, watermellon, canteloupe, casaba,etc this way. Hope this helps, Linda

Thanks for the encouraging words newgardenelf (love your name btw), my DH isn't a mason and we don't own a brick factory! We just know a guy from church that is a concrete and brick guy for a living. We had him do some brick work for us a few years back. We hired him and his crew to do the front yard work, the dig out and brick work for the children's garden, and is soon to be finishing up our slate patio in the back yard. As far as designing, I like to draw it all out on 4 squares to the foot graph paper, counting tiny squares, using pencil and crayons (just for this project mom got a new box of 120 crayolas!) and my computer engineer hubby likes to use a CAD program! I have lots of various gardening and rose books I look at ideas from, and I just subscribed to the magazine English Garden. I got some back issues on evilBay. Some of my ideas are straight out of books, like the inner and outer circle design in the front. The front brick columns idea for the children's garden came about as at one time we thought about having tall brick columns as posts for the back patio pergola. The massiveness of all that just wouldn't work with it being a small yard and patio. These two columns are only five foot high, yet with concrete ball finials on top and a wood gate it will add to the idea of it being an old style of garden. Of course it didn't look like that in the films of the book! And the kids REALLY like the key and lock idea, to them that really makes it a special and secret garden. The idea of the brick step style(cantilevered), also came from the same book, "Garden Structures" from Smith & Hawken. careytearose

When in Egypt, do as the Egyptians. What your Egyptian contractor is describing is known as spalling. The locally available materials and construction techniques are different in Egypt than in the western world. If you have noticed, in the USA, there are many layers in the exterior of a home, designed for moisture control and insulation. I don’t know what your materials are, but it appears that there is a moisture control issue. That is why they had to scribe/scratch the paint, to get rid of excess paint and to create a increased surface area (on a micro level) to have better adhesion between the new and old layers. The Jotun Fenomastic is a high quality acrylic paint. With all the layers you are describing, it would effectively create a thick impermeable layer on top of your surface (think of it as being similar to covering your wall with plastic). Water goes from a liquid to a vapor, and that vapor expands in proportion to the temperature. When the moisture builds up between the wall and the impermeable surface, it causes spalling. Believe what your Egyptian contractor is telling you. He may not know the technical reasons for the problem, but he knows the results. You are very limited by the materials of construction. My recommendation is to use lots of lighting fixtures with LED bulbs, which are much safer than incandescent, fluorescent or halogen. Halogen is the worst for safety, durability and overheating and should be avoided. Hang some mirrors to bounce the light around. Learn to live with the dark color, or prepare to pay for more scratching off old paint in hope that you can buy a lighter color hardener. Since I am not familiar with your locally available materials, I don’t even know if that is a possibility. https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-spalling-1798631 https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/75130/What-Happens-When-You-Put-a-Plastic-Vapor-Barrier-in-Your-Wall