Our gardening guru recommends 1 part liquid detergent in 40 parts water. Spray thoroughly, make sure to cover undersides of leaves too. Wait 10 minutes, rinse with clear water. Repeat 3 times over 10 day period to get hatching eggs. This works like a charm, even on big ugly tomato worms. For the veggie garden, I actually use my hose end sprayer filled with liquid detergent and as soon as I've finished spraying, begin rinsing where I started. It works out to about 10 minutes all round. If I spray before actually seeing tomato worms, often there are hardly any later on. It's excellent for aphids but you really have to do the repeat spraying for it to work. This is all I ever use in the garden for spray. This year I tried using wood ash for my squash beetles and it worked fairly well, at least kept the bugs down long enough for the plants to get going. Just put some in a flower pot and shook it over the plants to spread it around on the leaves, especially in the centres. Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening With Ed

Beth, you GO, girl! You could teach container gardening for those who don't have garden space. I grew all my bell peppers in some metal trash baskets I'd bought at a thrift store for $1 each, last year and they did well. I have chopped peppers in my freezer now. I can understand your predicament having a 15YO in the house. My DGS is a Sr. in high school and he just inhales food. He is not overweight. I make sure I have things for him to snack on. A few days ago I made pumpkin moon pies and he ate the last one last night. I don't buy chips any more, unless I'm going to make something that calls for them as an ingredient or an accompanyment (Frito chili pie, for instance) and then I have to hide them or he will eat an entire bag at one time. With teenagers, portion control is hard if not impossible. They have huge appetites. Carol, there is a food co-op in OK that has several drop-off sites in different areas of Oklahoma, but almost everything is more expensive than what you'd pay for something similar in the grocery stores. Of course most of it is organically grown and probably lots better for you. I looked over their price lists and I didn't find anything I might consider a "cheap" price, but the wheat was reasonable as compared to prices quoted me by my local health food store, and there was a decent deal on pecans. However I have plenty of pecans in my freezer that were free. Since you have to pay an annual membership fee, and I would have to drive to Owasso to pick it up, and you have to pay a transportation cost of 8%, it didn't seem very feasible to me. I met up with the owner of a local bakery that belongs to the co-op and she offered to order a couple of tubs for me. I pay her what the tubs cost, plus the transportation fee, but this way I don't have to belong to the co-op and I don't have to travel to Owasso. If you want the link to the co-op I'll be glad to provide it. I've linked a website that had the NEXT lowest price on wheat, and they have white wheat berries, which some people like better than the red wheat berries that are what you'd get in Oklahoma. By price I mean the price for their product, which is pretty low, and then the shipping cost, which is as much as the cost of the product. There are a couple of wheat producers in Oklahoma that I found, but they are about a three hour's drive from me and their prices are a lot higher than what Grainlady pays for her wheat. Living right in the middle of it as she does, she doesn't have to pay shipping. This is sure a testimony for making the most of what is grown locally. Grainlady is a very good resource. She patiently responds to the same questions being asked over and over again on the forums where she posts. Dorothy, I have one of those steamer pans, too! I never thought of using them as seed sprouters. That would be great for the bigger seeds. I use a plain old wide mouth quart canning jar with a piece of cheesecloth secured onto the opening by the usual metal screw band, without the flat. But mung beans get pretty crowded in there. I bought some mixed lentils and I'm sprouting them now. I love sprouts on sandwiches instead of lettuce. I have one of those husbands who thinks salad is not salad without tomatoes. Since he drowns it in bottled Thousand Island, I hardly see how he tastes any of it. I've tried making Thousand Island at home and I made one that I thought was absolutely delish, but he informed me he "didn't care for it". Although he will eat the little dish of salad he gets with his meal in a restaurant that is nothing but shredded lettuce and a little red cabbage, and probably the dressing is something they make from scratch. So I don't get it and sometimes he really takes the fun out of cooking. I don't always cater to his preferences though or we'd have nothing but fried meat and potatoes every meal. Ugh! I really like salads with chopped apples, some onion, shredded red or green cabbage, carrot and celery. Let's just say when I make it that I have no problems with portion control where DH is concerned. I bet sprouts would be good in that too. Well, at least added to mine. I don't know how or when a tomato got paired up with lettuce, since they don't grow in the same seasons. I like my salad with just lemon juice, salt and pepper and maybe a few sunflower seeds. DGS likes Ranch dressing and he doesn't care if it's bottled or home-made. I use a bread machine to mix my dough. I buy bread machines at garage sales. Usually I pick them up for $5 or $10, and sometimes they haven't even been used. Sometimes I run two at the same time. I've given bread machines to my grown kids and to friends. It's so easy, just dump all the ingredients in, put the machine on dough cycle and go off and do something else till it beeps. I sometimes will let mine rise in the machine, although Grainlady doesn't like to. Once in awhile I will have made too big a batch and it will want to overrise so I try to take it out of the bread machine right after it's done mixing and let it rise in my dough pan. My mother baked every week, and she had a huge tupperware bowl that she always used. Before Tupperware came out, she just put it in a greased bowl with a towel over it. I use an antique metal dough pan with a lid that I bought during my "antiqueing days". I have a rule now that things need to do double duty, not just be something on a shelf to look at, collecting dust. Oh, and I buy my yeast a pound at a time at the health food store. It's lots cheaper and fresher. When I lived in Indiana, I bought my yeast from a bakery. I keep about a cup of it in a jar in the refrigerator and the rest stays in the freezer till I need to refill the jar. Here is a link that might be useful: Heartland Mill

I would many times over rather receive a homemade food gift than any widget. I always need to eat, my friends always need to eat, but hardly ever truly need a widget :-) My next-door-neighbor sends a plate of Xmas cookies over every year, and although I don't really do sweets, my visitors always eat them right up. I would never think of a homemade food gift as cheap. Ingredients are $$$$! I also think the folks who give homemade gifts are enjoying themselves creating the gift, as opposed to the stressed-out-shopper trying to find a perfect widget (in my case, the perfect widget would be a 2.5 carat diamond, so if anyone wants to give me THAT...well, SURE!) And for those who don't like to bake, a pound of coffee or a nice container of tea would be such a nice gift... One year, I didn't know what to get my brother, so I made him a Bloody Mary basket. Everything he needed to create his favorite drink, with different mixes and olives...it wasn't cheap, but it sure seemed to be his favorite present that year :-) A previous coworker grew and canned her own pickles, and a jar of these pickles was coveted by every member of the office every holiday season. Wish I still could get some of those... If I ever start canning, which I always say I am going to do, I will be so happy to give away my jars of treats to people. Joanna

rushmom3 - I use white vinegar in the rinse water in my laundry (about 1/4 c. in the softener dispenser, instead of high-priced softener). Once dried, the clothes DO NOT smell like vinegar. I've tried to remove as many products that have a fregrence in them as possible, because I think they can be dangerous to the environment and people. Vinegar is a good grease-cutter, so is an excellent cleanser for floors. No-wax floors can be cleaned with a solution of 1 cup vinegar per gallon of water for a shinier surface. In the Bathroom... To remove corrosion or mineral build-up from showerheads, soak in vinegar overnight. Remove stains from the toilet bowl by spraying with vinegar and spraying. To remove soap build-up from faucets, clean with a mixture of 1 part salt to four parts vinegar. Spray shower walls and shower curtain with vinegar to help prevent mildew. Alcohol is an excellent and inexpensive disinfectant. I use it to wipe off things like the phone, door knobs, faucets, keyboards, etc. If your no-wax bathroom flooring suffers from hairspray residue, a spritz of alcohol will easily remove it. CAUTION: Alcohol is flammable, so keep it away from open flames. What's in Toxic Cleaning Products - glycol ether, acids, caustics, borine, chlorine, ammonia, petroleum solvents, butyl, phosphate, MEA, EDTA, nonyl phenol, sodium lauryl or laureth sulfate, known carcinogens, artificial fragrance, colors or preservatives. -Grainlady