Ants are an unsolvable problem, spraying only kills workers, and then you can not eat your crops. I was told to buy a bait to have the workers take back to the colony to feed the queen. No queen equals no workers. I bought every type of bait on the market and the ants would not touch it. They were too smart. If someone knows a cure for ants please post that. Try the soil forum, and add lots of compost. It costs a lot of money to buy a lot of compost and add it. It's a huge investment, but there is not much that can be done about the cost of it. Making compost takes time and also money for bins or other products to add to compost mainly browns or else you need lots of leaves. I have page up on my website about composting, if you want to read all my suggestions. Click on the soil link. Here is a link that might be useful: My website

The issue with old jars is with the threads on the neck. If the lid fits, it's useable. The MAJORITY of jars in my supply are second-hand. They're hand-me-downs, auction finds, and goodwill purchased. Mine get used for pressure canning as well as HWB. I have not had a jar break on me in decades, unless it's one I've dropped. I have never counted how many jars I have, but given I may put up three or four hundred bottles of produce, you can imagine. I buy new ones only when I run out of a particular size. Just check them first, as you did and clean them well.

Any idea how old these actually are, and whether the sealing material might have degraded in this time? Many years old and yes it may well have degraded. I'd pitch them rather than waste my time. Now, after reading about heat transfer in Putting Food By, I wonder whether I should be processing these (BWB) according to the pint times instead of pint times due to the width of the jars. Any insight? Now this part I don't understand. Pint times vs. pint times? I can only assume you mean pint times vs. HALF-pint times, right? A half-pint jar is a half-pint jar regardless of shape - wide mouth or regular mouth - both the same. Processing times don't vary based on the shape of the jar. Wide-mouth and regular mouth jars can be used interchangeably with no problems. If your recipe calls for X mins. processing for half-pint jars then that is what you do. If it calls for using pint jars but you are using half-pints then you don't change the processing time. You process them for the time given for pints even though they are smaller. This is because while it is safe to use smaller jars, you have no way of knowing how long to decrease the processing time. So you don't "guess", you use the time given even tho the jars are smaller. But you don't go to BIGGER jars than called for in the recipe. In other words, if it calls for pints you can't safely use quarts and if it calls for half-pints don't use pints. OK? For future reference, Putting Food By is a very outdated book and generally no longer recommended as it is not current. So it should be used with great care. Hope this helps. Dave

I know we've discussed this before, and I often re-use mayonnaise jars and spaghetti sauce containers, pickle jars, etc. I don't use them for pressure canning, as I tend to get more breakage, but have experienced no more problems with my "recycled" jars than I do with commercially available Ball/Kerr jars. This is from the National Center For Home Food Preservation: "Most commercial pint- and quart-size mayonnaise or salad dressing jars may be used with new two-piece lids for canning acid foods. However, you should expect more seal failures and jar breakage. These jars have a narrower sealing surface and are tempered less than Mason jars, and may be weakened by repeated contact with metal spoons or knives used in dispensing mayonnaise or salad dressing. Seemingly insignificant scratches in glass may cause cracking and breakage while processing jars in a canner. Mayonnaise-type jars are not recommended for use with foods to be processed in a pressure canner because of excessive jar breakage. Other commercial jars with mouths that cannot be sealed with two-piece canning lids are not recommended for use in canning any food at home." Given the above statement, the premise that "Mayo type jars, as I know, have never been approved for preserving good products long or short term" is incorrect, they have been and still are "approved" for limited use. So, it's perfectly fine to re-use those mayonnaise jars and such, if you have them available. Even the Goverment and the widely recognized experts above say it's OK. Grandma did it, and I have some of the old wide mouthed marshmallow cream jars from back when they were still glass. Grandma used the stuff in fudge so she had several and when she quit canning she gave them to me. They've held at least 20 years worth of sweet relish and salsa, I like the size and shape for that as the product is easily accessed. Why do I use them when I can easily afford to just buy new commercially available jars? Because I don't like to buy things I don't need, I like to reuse/recycle/re-purpose all I can, and I don't like useful items to end up in landfills when it's not necessary. In spite of recycling centers, most things don't get recycled, and more resources must be used to produce more jars, so that they can then be thrown away. It's just not sustainable or ecologically sound. Matthias, it's good to know that those plastic lids fit the jars. I like to use them when storing a jar of something that wasn't completely used up, and the newer/thinner lids get bent by my can opener to the point where the ring doesn't screw all the way down and the jar isn't completely sealed shut. I also use my old "vintage" blue Ball jars for storing lentils, beans, rice, popcorn, and as refrigerator containers for leftovers. Sometimes in canning season I'm right down to my last lids, so I don't want to "waste" a good flat on a storage container. Annie