gldno1, Windows is the operating system. What brand of computer do you have? That will tell me where your system check should be located. You should have one already programed onto your setup. If it has been removed you may have to find a place to download it again. Also if your router keeps dropping the connection, Try this. Turn your router off, Turn your computer off, Then unplug your router from your computer, Then unplug both, Let sit for 10 minutes, Then replug your router back into the computer, Then replug your power to both, Then power on your router, Then your computer. That is what the internet service told me to do when mine kept dropping the connection. Good luck. Bonnie

Sue, I guess I'm coming to this post kinda late we have a new grandson too. I can't imagine what the horror of facing this kind of pain and risk is. I will hold all of you in my heart when I'm holding my little one. Courage and peace. I hope you are seeing that things are better at this point and encouraged about a full recovery. How wonderful it will be if at this young age he doesn't remember the pain of the struggle he's had and only the triumph.

The Territiorial Seed catalog came last week, I've been looking at Burpee online and my North Haven newsletter came in the mail yesterday, reminding me that now is the time to start tomatoes and other plants from seed to be ready for the Spring. I try to add a couple of new fruit or vegetable varieties each year and see what does well and what doesn't and I also try to companion plant so I guess I'm a bit of a planner with a tendency to 'plop' new stuff in throughout the growing season, lol. The only tree in our backyard is a Rose of Sharon in northwest corner (to the left of the garden,) so most of it is in full sun all year. My Fall garden has chard (leftover from the Spring,) snow peas, onions, a few carrots I let go to seed, cabbage, rosemary, raspberries and my surprise veggies that haven't died but aren't in season (small spaghetti and pattypan squash vines, a marigold and at one point before Christmas the basil and a couple pepper plants were still hanging on too.) I'm babying the squash in the hopes they will survive. I really want to grow artichokes and asparagus this year but I would have to kill off swaths of Bermuda grass first and I'm wondering how much of a hassle that will be. I need to clear my third raised bed of the remaining grass too (I think it was partially solarized by large bags of soil, lol.) I would also love to espalier a few fruit trees, but we will see if/when that happens.

The worm bin questions on water and make up/foods have been answered very well by annpat and armoured. Including where to get your starter worms, and how it can end up being an outdoor thing as time goes on with gardening. In case you can't find any locally, this is what I'd suggest for ordering commercially. Being in the Midwest, if you are certain you only want red wigglers, then you don't want to order from anywhere that sources or raises the smaller composting worms in the South. Most have either 100% blue worms, Perionyx excavatus, or a good portion of those. Past handful of years blues have found the warmer parts of this country to be a great home. They out compete red wigglers in the same small space because they are just plain faster. Breed faster, eat faster, move faster. Little race cars. Blues are good if it never freezes for any lengthy time frame where you'd keep worms, and you don't need worms for fishing purposes. Blue worms are the supermodels of worms, really thin. Blues do make vermicompost very fast, arguably faster than red wigglers. Cold weather exposed small composting worms for more than 16 hours will kill off most anything that isn't a 'red wiggler'. Some sites mention 45f degrees, but death after being kept in 34f for 16 hrs has been documented. Can't remember if this was a large bin or something else. I keep my blues indoors so no trouble. Blues would not in theory work outdoors further north in compost piles, rarely tumbled tumblers, or composty garden beds. They might drop cocoons before dying, or find some other way of adapting, so who knows. Probably best to keep blues away from the outdoors either way, because of how fast they process materials. My outdoor worms are mostly Alabama Jumpers and African Nightcrawlers. They co-exist seemingly fine, and occupy different layers. Alabama Jumpers are I believe one of the highly controversial outdoor worms, for similar reasons that Blue Worms could be bad news to unprepared forests. Have also used the indoor variety of 'continuous flow through' bins. Worm Inn, both sizes, The Urban Worm Bag version 2, etc. Have one of the small breeder Vermibags, but not one of the big versions yet. I get freshly interested about vermicomposting each winter mostly. When the garden beds are slam full of greens, carrots and such, so I have little room outside for tucking in all the scraps and small animal bedding. Suddenly I'm eyeing my indoor worms and saying... get ready little guys! Time to step it up! A bin that has been functioning with live worms and no problems for about 6 months would count as 'established' to my understanding. If you split off worms from an established bin to a new bin, those old worms don't automatically make the new bin an established one. Also used many many Rubbermaid type bins and Can O Worms previous to those. They all work, but if you like blending and have lots of wet scraps, breathable bags might be easier to manage. Bag type bins are great for getting a lot of materials processed faster than usually occurs in a solid Rubbermaid type bin. Where to keep a worm bin in the house really depends on the tolerance of others living in the home. Over my life in many houses, they have been in every room of the house, and sometimes as a variety of disguised furniture. Except in a basement. Only because I've never lived where a basement is a practical thing, and not an under the house inadvertent pool. Green with envy about basements. ;) Only thing is you can not run a extra damp or overfeed bin out in a public living space. The chance of some sort of smell or flying pest is just too high. I run all my bins on the dry side, but the ones I disliked the most were the Can O Worms (stacking towers) because the finished trays, even with running them somewhat dry, were so very heavy and all end up with the red wiggler worms dangling from the bottom holes. Guess worms didn't read the manual for how they were all supposed to move upwards. Imagine holding one of those trays. Where do you set that down? I was quite unhappy every time I needed to harvest that thing. *Shudder*