I wrote to Damn asking them if their product dissolves grease when I add it to hot water and flush it down my drain to the septic tank (basically) and here was their response: I wish we could help, but Dawn has not been tested for the purpose of rinsing grease down the drain. Because it hasn't been tested for this use, we have no data to claim whether using Dawn and hot water to flush grease down the drain will be safe for a septic system or not. Thanks for writing. Karen Dawn Team I thought that was interesting given the fact that they say: Dawn gets grease out of the way, breaks up and dissolves grease fast. from their website: Since Dawn was invented in 1973, Dawn dish liquid has been known for superior grease-fighting power. It's so effective on dishes, pots and pans, that over the years, consumers have found many uses for Dawn around their homes. Animal rescuers have even discovered that it's a great way to remove grease from animals in oil spill cleanups. As a result, Dawn has helped conservation organizations save thousands of animals for over 35 years. Today, Dawn has grown into an international family of dishwashing liquids dedicated to innovation and answering consumers' ever-changing needs. SO I guess they back it up in all ways except the septic tank. LOL

Rachel, At this point, unless you want to follow Barbara's suggestion and cut off the bottoms of the buckets, etc., then about the only thing you can do is water your 5-gallon buckets heavily (to the point that water runs freely through the drainage holes), several times a day to try and wash out the gunk left from your home remedy. There are several issues involved here. First, 5-gallon buckets are too small for indeterminate tomato plants in our climate. There's just not enough space in them for good root growth and they dry out too quickly. Of the 85 or so tomato plants that I planted this spring, about 30 of them are in containers, and 10 of those in are 5-gallon buckets. I normally only put smaller, determinate types or early-season producers in 5-gallon buckets. The smaller determinate types still won't do as well in 5-gallon buckets as they do in the ground, but they'll do reasonably well if properly fed and watered. The larger indeterminates like the varieties you mentioned above really are not at all happy in 5-gallon containers, and do much better if planted in 10 to 30 gallon containers, and the larger the container, the better they'll perform. Secondly, Blossom End Rot, while related to calcium deficiency is not purely an issue of there being a lack of calcium in the soil. Rather, BER is a physiological plant problem that results from a complex set of issues related to the availability of calcium and other nutrients in the soil in a usable form and related as well to uneven watering and, often, excess nitrogen. So, even if you have calcium in your potting mix, the plants may not be able to take it up and properly use it if something else is going on. That something else can be in the form of one or more kinds of stress, including too much fertilizer, which causes excess plant growth; uneven delivery of moisture (clearly an issue with plants in 5-gallon buckets in our climate) and even too much wind, which stresses the plants. The way that plants react to so such stresses is that the calcium essentially leaves the fruit and goes into the main part of the plant, since helping the plant is the top priority and the fruit are secondary, and that leaves the fruit deficient in calcium even though the plant itself and the soil may have adequate levels of calcium. So, if you can avoid stressing the plants, you often can avoid BER. Mulching the soil in your containers helps keep the soil from drying out as quickly and might help reduce some of the stress that causes BER too. Some of the problem may lie in your mix. Other than the calcium that would exist in your compost and manure (and there's no way to know how much calcium was in them) and maybe in the topsoil, you didn't specifically add a calcium source, so it is hard to know if your potting mix has enough calcium in it. It also is hard to know if whatever calcium it might have is in a form the plants can take up and use. Next time, try adding a handful of lime to each container and that should give you plants some calcium. Third, there's the water issue wich is hard to overcome. You want to keep the soil in your 5-gallon buckets evenly moist, but never sopping wet and never bone dry. I usually water every morning and every night and, on very hot days, sometime between noon and mid-afternoon as well. Even when you water that often, there are periods right after you water that the soil is very wet, and then of course it can get pretty dry pretty quickly in this heat. One way to overcome the watering issue is to hook up a drip irrigation system on a timer, which I haven't yet done this year, since I'm home all day and can stand there with the hose and hand water. It might take a little time and effort to figure out how often to have the drip system to come on, and how long to run it, but once you figured that out, your containers would be low maintenance. Fourth, make sure you're not overfeeding with nitrogen because if you are, it can interfere with the plants' vascular system taking up and using other nutrients that the plants need. Fifth, if you need a quick fix for BER, dissolve 1 cup of hydrated lime in 1 gallon of water and feed some of it to each plant. Then, try not to water those containers again until the next day so the plants have time to take up and use the lime. Sixth, tomato plants that are struggling in containers are often underfed. This occurs because the fairly heavy watering needed to keep their soil moist often leaches out the nutrients they need before they can take them up and use them. You can work around this by feeding them every other day with a water-soluable fertilizer diluted to 1/4 its normal rate. Sometimes they also benefit from a period feeding of Epsom Salts. You mix 1 T. of Epsom Salts with 1 gallon of water in a watering can, stir it up and feed some to each plant. The Epsom Salts give the plants sulfur and magnesium and often greens up and perks up struggling tomato and pepper plants. I have no idea what the milk might have done to your plants, but at this point, it doesn't sound like it helped them. My big concern is that something in the milk will encourage the growth of harmful bacteria or fungal spores. Growing in a container is quite different from growing in the ground and plants can go downhill very rapidly if they get too dry even just one time, if they are routinely too dry or starved for nutrition, if they are poorly draining and stay too wet, or if they are struck by disease. Next year, it probably would help to mix in some form or organic tomato food with the soil in each container. Each year I add Espoma Tomato Tone plant food to each container and also a handful of bone meal and blood meal as well. I do reuse the soil in the containers each year, and just add the plant foods I mentioned above plus some compost and manure to put some nutrition back into the soil to replace what was used up by the plants during the previous season. If you can't get the pots to drain any better, drill or poke more holes in them. I am concerned that either the rocks or the gunk from the milk or both are blocking your drainage holes. The rocks, by the way, are not necessary at all. Dawn

Now that we have two Carols, I will say I am not the one making jelly. It has probably been 20 years since I made jelly and since we probably use 4 jars a year, I'm not likely to become a big jelly maker. I was, however, intrigued with the pepper jelly being made after Dawn said how good it was spread over cream cheese. Now I might like to spread that on something, so I will probably try growing a few habanaros next year and give that a shot. I have to jump in on the pie crust issue though. Mine may not be the "most perfect" piecrust in the world but it is very good and oh, so easy. I call the flour measurement (scant) because I probably use about a tablespoon less than the measurement. This will make a regular size double crust pie or two one crust pies if using those disposable pie pans. 2 cups (scant) all purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup cooking oil 1/4 cup buttermilk Mix the dry ingredients together then mix in the wet ones. This is soft crust and you can stir it with a spoon. When you have a big ball, put half between two sheets of waxed paper and roll it out. Lift the top sheet of paper to release it from the paper, then put it back on loosely. Lift the entire crust with both sheets still attached and turn it over on the counter. Your can pick it up by the back and it doesn't fall off (on this turn). Now release the second sheet the same way except DON'T put it back on. Now this is the hardest part. Put the pie plate close to you and lift the pie crust and paper together. You need to put your hands 2/3 of the way back on the crust (and bottom paper) and let the back 1/3 fall over the back of your hands and the 2/3 in front of you hands. It will still be attached to the paper, but only lightly, so put it onto the pan, paper side up and slowly release the paper from the crust after you have it all placed in the pan. If you get a hole in it, no problem, just patch. Make the edges pretty and it is ready to bake or use depending on the pie. One bowl, one spoon and the rolling pen never touched the dough. It is also oil which I feel is safer than shortening. I know, I know, it sounds too easy. I have been doing it this way for around 15 years and have not once made a different pie crust, except for fried pies and one dutch oven class. I sent pies to Uniroyal with my DH once and five people asked for the recipe. I carefully made five typed copies and sent back with him the next day. He said they had it at the copy machine making more copies last time he saw it. LOL I never, ever, use sugar in the crust, but for a two crust pie I mix a little cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle over the top crust just before it goes into the oven because it makes it pretty. When I make fried pies I use a recipe with an egg in it because I want the crust to be tough enough so the filling doesn't come out during cooking. I assume that was the reason for making that other crust recipe in the dutch oven because they wanted to be able to let it cool and lift the entire pie out using the parchment strips underneath the crust. Don't laugh until you try it. I will be very surprised if you don't like it.

"-----Hrmm Pressure Fryer sounds like something I bet Dcarch could make.--" As a matter of fact I had converted a regular pressure cooker into a pressure fryer. But i will not give that much details because it can be very dangerous if you don't have the required understanding of what can happen. First you need to modify the pressure "giggler" to allow for lower pressure built up. Then all gasket material will need to be of material which can withstand around 400F. I even changed the handles to all metal. An oil fire is a very dangerous fire, the cooking should be done outdoors. I am happy with the end results of regular frying, it is not worth the trouble to pressure fry. dcarch