Definatly not mealy..just from the ID and location.. In winter, Agave's need very little or no watering. I have 8 agaves ranging from 4" to 8" pots..They'll get a drink from Nov-Dec about once a month, if that.. My are also planted in clay containers so soil drys out faster. Feel your plant for mushiness. If any is solid, plant what's left..hopefully, your plant will make it..Toni

wfike, are you adding wood shavings to improve the texture of the casts or to help aerate the bedding? I've read, and surmise, that wood shavings take a long time to break down, so I'm assuming you aren't adding them as feedstock, am I figuring this correctly? I've also read, from several older vermi books (and the Vermiculture_FarmersManual), that horse manure by itself is not the best feed, but that cattle manure is good. Do you mix the 2 as feedstock and bedding? I guess what I'm trying to understand is whether you use horse manure as feedstock and feel it is an adequate feed by itself. I added soaked, torn corrugated cardboard to the horse manure because I'd read that it has excellent nutrition due to the high-protein glue that is used to hold the layers together. Another advantage that corrugated cb has is it's water absorbancy, so the 2 (horse manure and corrugated cb) mixed together make a good bedding and a good feedstock. But, you know, you can find all sorts of contradictions when comparing books, websites, and opinions...so I'm interested in what you find to be true, based on your experience. Cheryl, I have been freezing the food waste lately. It does seem to speed things up a bit, but there is still the issue of varying amounts of water being released, mold/fungus, and odors if you use too much or have strong smelling foods to vermicompost. I've found that as much as I want to keep food waste from the landfills, it's a lot of aggravation (too much water, mold, fruit flies, fungus gnats, march flies, houseflies, odors..etc), inconvenience (both of my freezers are half full of food waste for the worms, leaving only half for my own food), and guess-work involved in feeding food waste to the worms. Now, if I didn't have access to horse manure and corrugated cardboard, I would still use primarily food waste. But since I do have access to those materials, I much prefer using them. I have encountered very few issues/problems using horse manure and corrugated cb. So, I ease my conscious by reminding myself that these 2 items would have been dumped in a landfill somewhere, had I not taken them. I still plan on freezing some food waste to use as trench feedings in my raised beds. This practice has eliminated all issues/problems with using food waste because it is buried 4-6" under the soil, and I have many worms in my raised beds who process this food quickly (and thank me for the cold stuff when it's hot outside). The junk mail I use are advertisements for credit cards, various insurance, and a hodgepodge of solicitations. I just remove them from the envelope and tear into strips that could be used as bedding (I put them in the compost crate, so they will be partially composted by the time the worms get to it). I don't use glossy papers, not because they are bad for the worms, but because they take forever to break down and I don't like the look of them in the compost. The Vermiculture FarmersManual recommends shredding cardboard that has a waxed coating, so I assume wax is safe to use if shredded or had the wax seal broken in some other fashion . I've read that oils are not good for worms (I assume oil would smother them since they breath thru their skin), but I wouldn't think a small amount would be harmful. The boxes that you have should be fine. Most of the corrugated cardboard that I use has colored printing on it and I haven't noticed any problems with it (the majority of people say that most inks are soy based now). I also use shredded office paper in the indoor bin I just created, and to absorb water from the barrel bins outside when rain has been heavy, and that paper has been thru laser printers. I haven't seen any ill effects from any of the paper products I have used. Welcome to the thread, Cheryl. I look forward to reading about your experiences in the vermi-world.

Just wanted to shout: "Eureka, they live and multiply"!!!! This, of course due to the many awesome tips, tricks and all that knowledge that lives in these pages of threads on this forum; all dispensed freely, mostly empirically tested and I am so grateful for it. I'm the proud owner of now 2 bins chock full of happy, sassy worms and will be adding a third bin tomorrow night, too lazy to do it now, lol. Hummersteve, I mostly followed the directions that came with the factory but added much more shredded paper and cardboard, a really cushy, deep layer. I save the mush from juicing, all eggshells, all other veggie scraps minus onions and garlic as well as most fruit scraps in a bin in the fridge and blend it with a little water when it looks like they need more food. I also grab a good handful of good dirt from my outdoor compost and add once a week or so in addition to misting every third day, so far so good. The worms live in my kitchen, no odor, no other (undesirable) bugs that I've noticed. Equinox, yes I do read the Sunday paper, now I have co-workers bringing me theirs on Mondays, so lots of nice bedding for the worm's pleasure for free and plenty of food, too. Yeah, I paid $ for the setup but it was worth it as it takes up little space, no mess, no fuss and it is a great conversation starter, too and I get to sort people out in the process...the squeamish either are too horrified to want to know me better or they embrace the experience and widen their horizons just a little, lol. I'll take some photos this weekend to show the progress thus far and again, thank you to all here and especially all of you who took the time to respond!

Grinding a brushpile that (1) is already several big dumptrucks loads in volume, and (2) getting bigger all the time for another year or two, is simply impractical. It is going to rot in place. I spray the top of the pile with high-N dissolved fertilizer now and then to help it decay and throw a lot of rotting-wood "innoculum" onto the fresh added wood, but the pile cannot be reworked physically no matter what the benefit. The worms I was hoping could help with the final breakdown and mixing at the detritus base and soil surface. Most of the initial decay will be in the brushpile above them. The clay sprayed or tossed onto the wood I hope will help make an eventual loam layer at the soil's near-surface. More-perfect composting is attainable by a person at the cubic-yard scale perhaps, but without power equipment not at the tens of cubic yards scale. Especially when the real job at hand is felling, cutting up, and hauling the trees. With such poor sandy soil I simply did not want to burn all this potentially useful organic matter.