Hi, I still have company. Will be here until Friday. I had my grandson for 3 days, then he was still here yesterday and our company came yesterday, too, a day early ! Just as we were going out the door to make the hours drive up to take our grandson home. So, my daughter had to come down and get him. I had to cook dinner for everyone. At least my dh cooked the chicken on the grill for me, bless his heart ! So, I am exhausted ! Having a good visit, though. Anyway, part of the deal with the relish is also the density of it. Relish is normally denser than a salsa would be. Especially the ones that are water bath canned, you notice how much vinegar is in them ? A lot of people comment on how liquid they are, but that is part of the safety of the products. The size of the pieces of food is also a consideration in safe processing of foods. That and how much liquid is in something. That is why diced tomatoes packed in water takes less processing time than those packed without any added water. There are a lot of factors that go into a safe recipe for canning. Yes, that is true, too, what Carol said about bottled lemon juice being twice as acidic as vinegar, yet tastes less tart. That new book is nice, but it is the same as what is online. I saw the new copy of the book. You need to simmer the food for the time called for because it also "preshrinks" the vegetables. That, and you want the food really hot as it goes into the jars when you are hotpacking foods. That can make a difference in processing times with some foods. If you check some recipes you will notice that raw pack and hot pack are not always the same processing times for the same ingredients. I agree, keep the vinegar amount to 4 cups in the recipe. I sure hope I am making sense, as tired as I am !!! If not, forgive me. Things may get better, but then again, it is the starting of canning season ! I won't make any promises... Another thing, if you made jelly with the liquid, it would need some added vinegar. Just like all pepper jellies do. It would not be high acid like fruits.

Thanks

Here's my hardy banana, Musa Basjoo. This picture was taken last year. This garden is probably a zone 7 microclimate. For the winter I caged the banana with wire and filled the cage with shredded leaves and it came back strong(wish I could say the same about the Leycesteria in front of it). The lesson to be learned is right plant, right place. Everybody who comes to my garden marvels at the size of some of my shade plants. I truly don't know why they are as large and healthy as they are. My soil is average and I'm not real good about watering. I don't disturb them much-maybe that has something to do with it. This spring I moved a few hostas for the first time in years and needed a wheelbarrow and help. Here's one of my Hakone grasses. The picture is two years old. That Jack Frost Brunnera is a monster this year too despite dividing it for a friend last season. Ligularia 'Britt Marie Crawford', easily 4 feet wide this year and backed by a 6 foot wide Hosta Sum & Substance. All are surrounded by sensitive ferns that people are currently trying to kill on another message thread. Wish I could grow Clematis better. Mine sometimes end up all over the ground when I try to grow them through shrubs but I'm not giving up. Sue

I usually have a few tomatoes with BER, but this year I had three times as many. All of the BER was on container plants so I feel sure it was a moisture issue. I had one raised bed with squash. I had a patty pan, a yellow straight, and several zucchini plants. The zucchini was the only thing that produced, but probably only 20 percent of the female blossoms were pollinated and the rest died on the vine. I had one patty pan squash before the vines started to look sickly. I finally just removed them. I had honey bees, bumble bees, wasps, and 20 million of those little white butterflies that were all over everything. I have had an excellent year for cucumbers, both slicing and pickling. I only did one planting of each in early Spring and they are still producing daily and are still blooming. They have not been treated with anything and nothing has bothered them. I have had lots of beans. The pole beans starting producing very early this year. I planted Blue Lake bush beans and picked them for about a month then took them out. The bean was very productive, but was hard to pick because the beans grow low on the plant. The pill bugs did some damage to the low growing beans and I should have used Sluggo there, but didn't. This long stretch of hot, hot days has slowed the beans for now, and that's a good thing, because all of the tomatoes are finishing at once. I have never seen it this dry in the 11 years that I have been here. We drove to Joplin today and noted that the grass was brown along the road. This is green country and we rarely see that. It got a little better as we got closer to Joplin, but nothing looked like it normally does. My tomato plants are only still in the garden because they are still producing tomatoes. Very soon, I plan to yank them out and plant something else. They are drying and looking dead and I plan to put them out of their misery. LOL At the end of most days, the pepper plants looks so droopy that I wonder if they will make another day, but the next day they are fine. If cooler weather doesn't happen as promised then I will probably give them shade next week. I finally pulled the last of my onions this week. That was an experiment that worked and I know now that I can grow long day onions. Although not all of them were large, some were quite large. I see great wisdom in 'putting by' two years worth of food, because in Oklahoma it seems like very few things produce a good crop every year. I would love to get a nice gentle Fall that would provide some lovely days in the garden. Yeh, right, I'm awake now!