Al- Thanks for reading my long post and for the compliment. Ronalawn- been there on the wrong side of the road, making left turns was the worst for me. By the way, speaking of the weight of a gallon of water..... I believe a US gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds (at least it's a little closer to your 10 pounds, which is indeed the weight of an Imperial gallon.) Also, a liter weighs 2.2 pounds. There are 7.5 U.S. gallons in a cubic foot of volume. So, 5 gallons equals 2/3's of a cubic foot. (2/3 x 7.5 = 5). A cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds. And just for grins I'll throw in... Watering Your Garden: To cover 1,000 square feet with an inch of water takes 625 gallons. One Gallon per minute (gpm) = 1,440 gallons per day. It takes 10.4 gallons every minute, to apply one inch of water over 1,000 square feet every hour. Gallons divided by minutes x 8.03 = cubic feet per hour. Gotta go water, it's HOT!!! Rebecca

Pretty well everything in composting has 'good ranges' and there are different opinions as to what these ranges are. I go with: C:N range 25:1 to 40:1 Moisture range 40% to 60% Oxygen not less than 5% (I think atmosphere is around 20%) If you are using HM (with no bedding) and leaves, I wouldn't use a lot of leaves but I'd make sure I mixed them real good. Leaves and grass I'd go 2:1 by volume as long as the leaves were finely shredded. Unshredded, I'd go more bags of leaves. Once again, mixing really helps. Some of the best stuff I've seen is that last cut of the grass in the fall with a carpet of leaves on top. That stuff gets chopped and mixed so well it's almost perfect. Add just a wee bit of moisture and boom, 150 in a day. I love those bags of fall leaves/grass. Lloyd

tanya, Please don't use 600 g of peppers and onions instead of 2.5 cups! It is not the same thing at all and might not be safe. There's every reason why 28 ml isn't the same as 28 g, and a fluid ounce not the same as a wight ounce! It's for the same reason that a litre isn't the same as a kilogram. They're totally different systems --- litres, ml, and fl oz are measures of volume, and kilograms, grams, and ounces are measures of weight. So it all depends on WHAT you're measuring. The connection between the two systems is water. A ml of water weighs a gram, which is not a conicidence --- it's the reason those units were chosen way back when in ancient France. It's easy to see why people get confused, because a "fluid ounce" seems like it should be the same as an ounce. But it is the same ONLY IF what you are measuring is water, or a fluid of similar density. (That's why it's called a "fluid ounce" --- it's the amount of volume that water, or a similar fluid, takes up if it weighs an ounce.) But chopped onion, green pepper, cilantro, etc. have very different densities than water does. I am guessing you were assuming that 2.5 cups would be 600 g because a cup is about 250 ml, so 2.5 cups is about 625 ml. So that much WATER would weigh 625 g. But anything very different will have a very different conversion. solid. Think about it --- 2.5 cups of popcorn would weigh a lot less than 2.5 cups of ball bearings, right? Using weight measurements properly shouldn't give you a different salsa than using volume measurements. To get a proper conversion, you would have to measure the volume of onions, etc. called for, then weigh them. Then use that weight. Which would give you exactly the same recipe.... But you might prefer to measure that way if you have a scale. To solve your runniness problem, instead I would advise as Ken did --- try using a meatier tomato. OR you could cook it longer. So, 625 grams of onions and pepper is not the same as 625 ml; as you found out, 625 g is more like a litre than like 2.5 cups, which is way more low-acid ingredients than the recipe is designed to have and therefore might make it a place where botulism could grow. Does this make sense? Zabby

As far as I know, there are NO U.S. standards by which measuring cups and spoons are gauged. The only thing that keeps everything from flopping in a recipe is that most recipes are a ratio of ingredients, and as long as the measure is consistant, you maintain the ratio. That's why when "granny" used a pint/quart jar or coffee or tea cup for measuring, and spoons out of her silverware drawer, it worked. No matter what size measuring devise she used, she maintained the ratio of ingredients. For instance, a standard, plain cake has, by measure, one-third as much fat as sugar; two-thirds as much milk as sugar; and about 3 times as much flour as liquid. You can measure with cups, buckets, or truck loads and get cake, as long as you maintain the ratio of ingredients. I have a large measuring cup my daughter brought me from Germany. It has measurements for sugar (in grams) in one column, water has 2 columns (ML & L), rice (grams) and flour (grams) in other columns. It's very confusing for my American-trained eye where the cups are graduated measurements for all things measured. It always amazes me when people need a pound of apples, for instance. Rather than weigh a pound, they have to look on some equivalency chart and find out 1-pound of apples is about 3 medium apples or 2-3/4 to 3 cups sliced. When the only accurate measure was weight - not the size of the fruit or how many cups of it it was when sliced. Other examples from a chart that proves how inaccurate conversions can be: 1# American Cheese = 4-5 cups shredded 1# Cheddar Cheese = 4 c. shredded 1# almonds in shell = 1-1-3/4 c. nutmeats 1# almonds shelled = 3 cups blanched whole 1# potatoes (approx. 3 medium size potatoes) = 1-1/2 to 2-1/4 c. cooked, diced or sliced OR 1-3/4 to 2 cups mashed 1# confectioners' sugar (unsifted) = 3 to 4 cups Once again, the only accurate measure for those foods is a 1# measure on a scale because there is a HUGE difference in 3 and 4 cups, and to mention again human error filling and packing a cup. -Grainlady