Here is a suggestion. Remove all the mix from the pot and mix it up. Put a layer of this mix in the bottom of the pot so that it is about four and a half inches from where you want the top of the soil to be. Place a plastic 24 ounce water bottle in the center standing straight up and fill around the bottle with more mix. Pour in water with B-1 and or superthrive so it floods the pot and twist the bottle and slowly remove. Now put an inch of new, clean soil or perlite in the bottom of the hole and wet this carefully with your water mix. Wet your cutting and dip in rootone with fungacide up about four inches. Place the cutting in the center of the hole with the bottom on the moist perlite or mix and fill the hole with dry, new soil mix. Do not water. The moisture will come up from the bottom to encourage rooting but the stem will be drier and less likely to rot. I use this method for reds, hard to root or expensive cuttings and have a very high success rate over hundreds of starts. I have pictures but my main computer is down so they are not on my laptop. if you want pics, ask and i will be back up next week. Bill

I make bread crumbs with our extra bread and bagels. I tear up the bread into small pieces, spread it out on a cookie sheet and put it in the oven at 200 degrees for a couple hours. When it's thoroughly dried, I put the larger pieces in a zip lock bag for homemade coutons and crush the smaller pieces for bread crumbs and put these in a large tupperware container. Michelle

Taking meat out of the freezer tonight I found a package of short ribs cut on the thin side. Finally it clicked why I bought these so I'm trying the maui style ribs that Dinanna55 mentioned many moons ago. Looks like they were a hit in Hawaii but the place has closed down. Here is one recipe that was linked to in her post and a link to one on epicurious. I'm going to play around with both of them and hopefully come up with something good. They sound different and unique to me tonight. Rib recipe keeps Hawaiian secret safe Azeka's is a ribs and snack shop in Kihei, Maui that has been in business for more than 50 years. The shop's legendary Maui ribs recently inspired Patricia Shorting to e-mail me in search of a recipe. Shorting had a card listing the ingredients -- soy sauce, cane sugar, fresh garlic, fresh ginger and sesame oil -- but wanted to know the proportions. By Times Colonist (Victoria)February 20, 2006 Azeka's is a ribs and snack shop in Kihei, Maui that has been in business for more than 50 years. The shop's legendary Maui ribs recently inspired Patricia Shorting to e-mail me in search of a recipe. Shorting had a card listing the ingredients -- soy sauce, cane sugar, fresh garlic, fresh ginger and sesame oil -- but wanted to know the proportions. Azeka's website, azekas.com, says the shop came up with a special marinade for barbecued beef short ribs in 1976, and it quickly became a favourite of Maui residents and visitors, solely through word of mouth. "Don't forget to try the ribs at Azeka's Market!" people would say. The marinade is based on an original recipe of Bill Azeka's mother, and the shop treasures the formula so much, it trademarked the product. The chances of getting hold of the secret recipe are, well, nil. So, if you want to taste them, go to Hawaii, or they'll ship them to you frozen and you can cook them yourself. The other option, of course, is to come up with a recipe that resembles the tasty morsels of ribs served at Azeka's. The place to start is with the meat. As noted, the cut used is beef short ribs, which may come as a surprise to some. Most associate short ribs with thick, five-centimetre-wide pieces of meat that require long, slow cooking to make them tender. For Maui-style ribs, however, the short ribs are thinly cut, one-centimetre-thick, long strips that become tender by deliciously marinating the meat, not slowly cooking it. The result is short ribs that take 10 to 12 minutes to cook, not two hours. As for the marinade, the key balancing act is between the salt from the soy sauce and the sweetness from the cane sugar (sold at some supermarkets and Asian markets). In a first go-around, I used three parts soy to one part sugar. It wasn't quite right for my taste, so I opted to go with two parts soy to one part sugar. That may sound like a lot of sugar, but when I tasted the ribs, they were sumptuously sweet, not overly sweet. I added the ginger, garlic and sesame oil in small amounts until I achieved the somewhat subtle, I-know-you're-still-there flavour I wanted to achieve. All three ingredients have pretty powerful tastes, and if you overdo it with any one of them, they, not the ribs, could steal the show. Is the Maui-style rib recipe I came up with like the one served at Azeka's? Likely not. And that's a good thing, because it's nice to have secret food finds that keep you wondering why they're so delicious. That being said, my ribs were tasty and can be cooked indoors or outdoors. Because of the high sugar content in the marinade, you need to cook the ribs over medium heat -- any hotter and the sugar will burn before the ribs are done. Eric Akis's columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday. The best-selling author can be reached at ericakis@shaw.ca Maui-style Beef Short Ribs I used Kikkoman soy sauce in the marinade. It's a little lighter in colour and didn't turn the ribs a deep black colour, which some of the darker soy sauces do. I didn't want that to occur with my ribs because they'd be darker and less appealing-looking once cooked. Preparation time: 10 minutes, plus marinating time. Cooking time: 10-12 minutes. Makes: 4 servings 8, 5 to 6 bone, thinly cut strips of beef short ribs, about 3 1/2 lbs (see note) 1 1/2 cups soy sauce 3/4 cup cane sugar 3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger 3 garlic cloves, crushed 1 1/2 tsp sesame oil Place the ribs in a sided dish just large enough for a single, slightly overlapping layer. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar into the soy sauce. Pour over the ribs. Cover and marinate the ribs in the fridge at least 8 hours, or overnight, turning them occasionally. Preheat an indoor or outdoor grill to medium heat. Remove the meat from the marinade; discard the marinade. Lightly oil the surface, then grill the ribs 5 to 6 minutes per side, until cooked through but still juicy. Adjust the heat downward if they're darkening too quickly. Note: At some supermarkets, unmarinated, thinly cut short ribs are labeled Maui-style short ribs. Eric's options: After marinating, these ribs could be frozen raw -- something you may wish to do with half the ribs if you're only feeding two. Thaw them overnight in the fridge the day before you intend to cook them. © (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc. The link below has the recipe from epicurious. I've always had good success with the recipes from that site. If you google there are many more but they all have the same basic ingriedents. I'm going for it!! David

Ann t.......Our Peameal Bacon and Canadian Bacon are our home cure. I got interested in curing and smoking the pork loins from a post last summer from annie 1992. Quite a lengthy thread it was. I really doubt that "our Peameal Bacon" is anything close to yours in Canada. We tried tho and are pleased. The canadian bacon and peameal verison reminded me of the pork my grandparents cured way back when I was a kid about a hundred years ago. I have thought if I could find on the internet I would order, have never pursued that yet. Any suggestions? I too droll over all the posted pics of all breads baked and unbaked. Shirl