Carolyn, We have the same birthday ! Dec. 5th. Yaa..it's almost here. :) Thanks for the idea about checking the extension service. Unasmith, Excellent page ! I've found their list of links and it looks great. Jon, Agreed. I often pick though the mushroom book at Powells, but I'm afraid they only confuse me more. Everyone, I hadn't really thought about it, but the caution to not be eating stuff was a perfect warning. As a native, and an older one at that, I'm more than familiar with our yearly media stories of who got sick, died or got lost in the woods mushroom picking. It was nice to see they found that first lost woman this year.Not always the case. My purpose is to identify the mushrooms growing in my yard because I like knowing such things by name. Plus learning how they fit into the big picture.. how they work as part of the eco system. It seems to me each tree has certain mushrooms that live with it. My neighbor has property up in the Columbia Gorge where he clears trees every fall / winter and cuts pieces into fire burning sizes. Then brings that into town giving a truck load at a time to low income people that heat with wood. And there's often a piece for me.. a pretty one that will look good in my garden. I love these things as edges and pot lifters. but the best part is the different mushrooms that grow from each one every fall. Different than what I'm used to seeing here in Portland. I also received a load of wood chips from him a couple years ago and that was placed here and there for paths. yes.. more alien life forms there. In checking neighbors yards on my walks I'm seeing more varieties and those odd ones do have logs from someplace being used. So it seems I'm becoming a collector. Now that I see the ones in my yard have not only stayed from year to year, but are increasing, it time to understand more. But boy, oh boy, it's another new language to even try to start the process. And no eating mushrooms for me. Cooked they taste like slugs to me, and it's only recently I've been able to deal with fresh ones well meaning friends put is salads. uck ! But I think they are beautiful. Oh.. I have managed one ID so far of one pretty I have on one old tree trunk piece. They are tiny. I think the photo is slightly magnified. Here is a link that might be useful: Gymnopus acervatus photo

Thanks Dave. Its reassuring to read that you do them regularly and it shouldnt be of concern, other than doing everything precisely, just like everything else. Tomorrow, I get my three piece regulator you told me to get. I had ordered it, but they sent me the wrong thing, and had to return it. I finally just ordered one directly from Ace Hardware, which requires me to drive an hour away to pick it up. Fortunately for me, I have other errands to do in that direction. I would have just reordered, but the company said they wouldnt send the right piece till the other one was returned. And, well, I wasnt paying for a second piece till I was credited for the first. I dont deal well with hassels..... I havent pressure canned anything since I originally ordered that piece, except for spaghetti sauce and I never have liquid loss with that. I have more carrots to can, and I think I will do the mushrooms as well.But not till I get the piece first! ;)

"Do you care to comment, maybe in a new post, on any possible use of cowboy charcoal in a vermicompost system, especially any possible use as surface area for microbes? " Cowboy charcoal is the same as lump charcoal, right? I had never heard of it before by that name, probably because cowboys likely used found wood instead of hauling messy charcoal around. I don't think that charcoal is a bad thing, but it seems like extra effort to burn off substances that could have fueled your worms instead. Turning wood into charcoal would theoretically keep most of the ash content, but lock it away longer than a lifetime if the char was buried without further reduction. Granted, if you were doing a very long term, multigenerational project of land reclamation and had an unlimited budget, charcoal does stick around for a while and has the habit of adsorbing things that would have otherwise been washed below the root zone. Instead of washing away though, they would be locked away. From what I remember, clay has similar nutrient performance to charcoal, but you can amend the soil to forcibly unlock its treasure. "the picture clarity was excellent of the worm mating and worm kibbles and bits. " The worm kibbles and bits that I was referring to as undercooked were the cardboard bits. The cardboard looked like the dense stuff that one would find in a cereal box. I add this stuff to my bin and am not saying it's bad. Cereal boxes are often treated with a preservative called BHT. It's not considered harmful because people don't eat the boxes and BHT is the synthesized version of the natural wax found on apples. The BHT would likely repel moisture though, and thus the cardboard has not started to break down in the close-up image. As I was saying though, it really does not matter because the worms bypassed the waiting period by breeding and thus trying again when the food would be ready. "Is there a great food or bedding source for worms that is often overlooked? " You ask if there is a great food or bedding source that is often overlooked. My reply to that I've been saying over and over. Worms need space. The more space you give worms, the more they will be able to take care of themselves. The bin needs to be deep because worms will inhabit whatever depth they prefer, and different worms of the same species prefer widely varying bin microenvironments. A large bin also lets you perform hot composting right in the bin without threatening the worms or wasting the compost products or heat energy. They simply go away from what they don't like and toward what they do. I have performed this experiment in robots I've built in the past that had the equivalent of one brain cell but were fully capable of moving towards one stimulus and away from another. One braincell, but worms are smarter than that. The larger the bin, the more likely it will be outdoors where it doesn't matter if it smells a little and can manage it's own temperature in the cold. I live in zone 5 and my bin has already frozen and thawed through without apparent hardship. My bedding of most interest is fine wood chips, I have mostly newspaper and corrugated cardboard that I have put through a paper shredder that I modified, and that is acceptable bedding for outdoors. My favorite worm food input is dead animals, such as mice and frost-burned meat. "What do you think of those newfangled cloth worm bins" The cloth worm bins seem to have the advantages of a larger mass, more depth, and the much desired flow-through design. They also may keep people from digging around in them if they are awkward enough. On the downside though, their excessive exposure to air would likely make them unstable in varying conditions, inconsistent because of perimeter drying, and a maintenance hog. I don't have one of these though, so I can't tell you anything from experience. You asked something about google and freedom of information. Information is not freely available on the internet. Most of it is copyrighted property of someone and using it for your gain will land you in trouble. This is a general hindrance to the betterment of mankind. A good example is that university research is generally free information to all because universities are heavily subsidized by government and donations, but whatever company that is holding it for you to look at will nearly always require you to pay for access to it. I feel this is against the spirit of government funded education and the nature of public information. Also, I have switched from google to bing for one reason. Google has a feature where you can block up to 500 domains from your search results. This is good because they often serve up loads of spam web pages that don't hold the data that was implied. But these pages are profitable for google, so google refuses to block certain pages from their manual (pain in the butt) block list. The pages that are refused blocking are always the crappiest ones that fill pages of results going to the same place. For this reason, and because I also use Firefox browser, I have switched to Bing because I can get a Firefox addon that will force-block results of my choosing (without the pain in the butt) from Bing's search results. The addon is called "bing results remover". Google and Bing give substantially the same search results with only a general change in the brand and attitude slant. This means that google will offer more of the pages that pay it to do so and offer more bing-slandering sites, while bing search will do the very same thing in its own benefit. This is another example of how the information is not free... but at least general information is more obtainable on a search engine than raw research publications from anywhere I've seen on the internet. This is ironic since the internet was created specifically to share research information. It was not freely available back then though either. "I way like your basing worm stuff answers on actual facts. " I'm basing worm stuff on my interpretation of observations, reading, and logic. If they sound more agreeable than other worm stuff, that alone does not make them actual facts. Furthermore, a fact is not guaranteed to be correct. I like to help and communicate information freely with the intention of being a good neighbor, or something similar, but I don't have anything to sell and make no money or have any financial interests related to worms or gardening besides growing food for myself and making fertilizer for my own use. " Please tell me the common species of vermicompost worms do not need grit. " I do not suspect that worms need special dietary care for their gizzards. If you suspect they do, then you can chuck some dirt on the bin. A worm gizzard is really small. At that size, it's not likely to have the same exact use as a chicken gizzard. I would not confuse the two animals. Furthermore, worms and chickens do not have a stomach like a human does. The crop and gizzard do the metering and mastication that a human uses its teeth and stomach for. "This board, or another one, used to have a lady who since moved on who provided research based worm information. Her posts are my vermicompost holy grail. Perhaps you could be this boards new her? You might need a bit of a makeover though. She was very, very sweet." Lead nitrate, arsenic, Ethylene glycol, phenylalanine aspartate, sodium saccharin and Kelly Slocum are all described as sweet. I would rather be described as bitter so as to serve as a warning that I'm not to be recklessly over-consumed, as no one should. I have no reason to be excessively nice or "sweet" and I consider that a virtue. I'm happy to learn and share what I learn. Some people think that's nice, some want that and a smile. This post was edited by buckstarchaser on Sun, Feb 24, 13 at 2:04

Hi Karen, thanks for the answers! I potted in a mix of Black Gold All Purpose Organic Potting Soil, a little more perlite and a little orchid bark mix. I copied the ingredients below for you- is this a mix that you would recommend? The black gold says it’s a combo of: Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss, Composted or Aged Bark, Compost, Earthworm Castings, RESiLIENCE®, Horticultural Grade Perlite, Pumice, or Cinders, Organic Grade Fertilizer The better gro orchid bark mix says its a combo of: Dynamic combination of western fir bark, hardwood charcoal and sponge rock specifically formulated by a team of highly trained orchid growers I’m glad the pink is most likely nothing! I googled so long and nothing came up. I was looking at propagating in Case things went south, but Since it looks healthy I can definitely hold off. The Aerial roots make sense then! There are so many, and it’s hard to see them on others’ pictures so I wasn’t sure it was normal For general care I’ve read so many websites about Hoyas... So I’ve been watering around every 1.5 weeks when the soil feels dry and the pot feels light. It’s in a south window with cellular shades but hanging so high it’s not in direct sun yet. And I’ve sprayed it twice so far with diluted neem oil so it doesn’t get bugs. I’m in north NJ (I see you’re in ny- hope you’re ready for the nor’easter as well!) so when the spring and summer seasons come do you water your Hoya more often? Or do you still let it dry out fully between? Oh and the cat was not amused it was his feeding time and I was taking pictures of the plant thank you!!