Ms holly, I sent u a surprise, lmk when u receive it. I'm glad the waterlilies are doing great!! They really love this hot weather. I thank my husband everyday for the gifts of my water gardens. You'll love it even more when it blooms. I hope u have it in a sunny spot. Take care

I could not make it to the Newcastle swap and I am so sorry! I was wondering if there are any plans for another Swap anywhere in Seattle area? Also, what do you do with all the things you didn't give away? If you have any left . . . that is why I thought another swap might be a great idea. I live in the Ballard area and would love to see one close to home!

From a compost pile yes. Then later if you decide you want species specific worms you can put the original worms back in the compost. Be sure to tell us if it ended up both types were identical. I would prefer to have Eisenia foetida. I do not know what I have. Maybe half Eisenia foetida and half something I like less. Mine are free from my outdoor compost. At one time we let a few red wigglers from a library workshop into the outdoor compost. You might want to practice with compost worms and then move up to the $ worms when you feel confident of their sucess. Just put the first worms back into the compost to not contaminate your new worms.

Thomas Barret in Harnessing the Earthworm _____________________________________________ They are sometimes swallowed by birds and fail to digest and are then dropped in a new location, perhaps on a high mountain or on an island of the sea, or some other out-of-the-way place where it would have been impossible for a mature worm to find its way. _____________________________________________ Funny I just got to that part and when I had wrote it before it was more just intuition rather than gained from reading or experience. Something else that might fit into this thread well that has been gnawing at me a little is the remarks from Pete regarding the reduction of material on its way to becoming castings to the extent that maybe 10% is realized in the form of castings from a given amount of material. This has had me thinking and is somewhat confirmed in the above mentioned book though not really spelled out clearly, at least I have not gleaned it as of yet. My thoughts are that if we say an earthworm consumes its own weight in soil every day then the resultant excrement will much depend on how well the worm is able to reduce it on its fast path from one end to the other. A worm in rich material such as finely prepared scraps or manure would not need to consume as much material to get the nutrients it needs, eating dirt means very little nutrient so much more needs to be pass through the factory to support the same high standard of livin. So a fine dining worm can subsist with a lesser daily volume then one scraping along on inferior fare and would subsequently produce a smaller volume of castings where one that is choking down a large percentage of dirt is going to be passing more of that material and needing to run ever more through the mill to get the same nutritional value. Since a worm will homogenize mineral content from the soil along with the organic output the dirt part is a good thing as it adds these minerals to the litter in a water soluble form ready to be taken up by plant roots and they in turn bulk up the VC daily take (or I suppose that would be leave). Just some thoughts and not very organized at this point so take it all with a grain of salt or soil if your digestive tract can handle it.