I am in the holiday spririt and was so happy to share my seeds in the Secret Santa Swap. I sent out 15 cards each with 6 packs of seeds on Dec. 1st and included my e-mail address. I am hoping to hear from someone that the seeds arrived safely to brighten my day. This was a great swap! Happy sowing everyone! May all of your gardens bloom with happiness in 2009! Carol

Did i read it well? 300 pots!!! Wow... i'd love to have so much room for plants... it would make it look like a jungle over here ("he" Tarzan and I Jane, hihihi) Sounds fantastic! I wish you lots of fun with your improved place for the hippies and other beauties. I have ordered a little balcony/patio green house. It is light weight and can be easily (so they said) put up and down. At the shop they have also spare sleeves and even winter sleeves that let light go through but isolate from cold. I think this will be my solution to be able to have the hippies outside during spring/summer/autumn. This way i hope to have more control of temperature AND to keep the bulb flies away from MY bulbs...grrrrr.... I will have to buy insect screen as well, in order to place it in front of the door when it's open for ventilation. I've heard that female bulb flies can be VERY persistent when it comes to find a place to lay the eggs :-O I see your plats are outside. Don't you have bulb flies over there? This is the "little green house" i mean ....not quite as big as a "little house on the prairie" :-D.... but it could accomodate a few plants...

I have canning directions from a number of universities, Ball, Kerr, Presto, etc., dating back for over 20 years to the present. There have been many changes to the recommendations given by the various sources over the years. Example: pressure canning tomato juice in "Presto Cooker Canner, Directions and Recipes, 1978" lists no requirement for adding lemon juice or other acidification, and a recommended processing time for both pints and quarts is given as 15 lbs - 0 minutes. We've used that recipe over the years with no problems, but have since changed to other processing methods (processing time, acidification, pounds of pressure). It was only until a few years ago that we could find an "approved" method for preparing and canning vegetable tomato juice (V8?), but we've been canning quarts and 1/2 gallon jars of our own "V8", using our own directions which I've published here a number of years ago, for over 30 years! Jeez, did I get the nasty comments after posting that. And, the person that posted that the large canneries monitor the temperatures of each container in a batch, and conduct lab tests on products from each batch has certainly observed canneries other than the 10 or so I've visited. Getting back to recipes for half gallon jar recipes, I know it would be no big deal for a University that routinely conducts food safety testing and publishes "safe" recipes to conduct tests and provide recommendations for canning at least a limited number of recipes they standardize as to type and amount of each ingredient, etc. Heck, I can't believe that a great number of grad students haven't wanted to do just that!

My dog keeps the rabbits out of the yard, for the most part. She caught one a few weeks ago, that had been snacking on one of my knockouts. We have tons of them around here, so I like to see one culled every now and again. My female lab eats rabbit, so she has a little extra incentive to catch them.