Dolivo, I hope by now that you've done the following: Telephoned Mrs. Wage's customer service number and gotten answers to your questions, and Been reassured that your pickles will be satisfactory to eat for the six months as Mrs. Wage's package stated. As far as being concerned about "soggy pickles" you have perhaps not been aware of a product by Ball's called PICKLE CRISP. If you want to read (more than you ever want to know!) about it, you can search those words on this forum. There's no need to ask questions here, though, because the answers are on this forum and also on the little Ball's container. You can also learn from reading Ball's reviews of the product. So, if you'd like to see what it looks like and read about it, go to the link below. It's an easy solution, and an inexpensive investment that will work for you on pickling cucumbers and also other canned products. To save yourself some time by shopping all over town, you might want to telephone a couple of stores to see if they have any more in stock. That should keep you from driving around town searching. Oftentimes stores don't carry much of this product and -- as you know -- it IS pickling season, so they might have sold ot. Good luck, Kathy Here is a link that might be useful: Ball's Pickle Crisp

Kim and Jordan has sent tabor seeds for his birthday even though he didn't put that down, and for my birthday Kim sent me a card and alot of cool seeds, she also has sent talla seeds for her fairy garden, which i also forgot to rate, geeze!! Kim is just a really great person!! i would trade with her anytime!! she is really nice to share her seeds!! and jordan is a little sweetie!! LOL thank you so much!! !~Medo

An update on my bins... I am impatient and decided to buy 2000 more worms and split them between two more of the same type of flow through bins. I removed the moist newspaper "lid" completely and the top is just exposed and the bottom is currently a solid piece of grocery store bag (not a thick cardboard like bin #1.) This bottom piece is breaking down on all 3 of my bins now and will open up soon and add more air flow coming up from the bottom. My two new bins I decided to use wet peat moss and shredded cardboard and coffee grounds as bedding. It works WAY better than bin #1 which was a bedding of shredded newspaper and cut up cardboard. Bin #1 is doing fine - it's just clumping and is going to take a long time to break down. I do fine eggs in Bin #1 so that's a good sign. I also decided to drill a bunch of tiny holes along the sides of the inner bins. I don't know if it's really making a difference but it doesn't hurt anything. I don't add any water to any of the bins because I've been feeding them a lot of melon and that seems to release enough moisture. At one point I had to put my dehumidifier next to bin #1 because too much melon caused too much moisture. It brought levels back to normal. My two new bins are probably pretty acidic due to peat moss and coffee grounds, so I plan to add a bunch of egg shells this week. I also have access to composted horse manure so I'm gunna give that a shot soon too. Equinox - thanks for the reply. I appreciated your post. The questions you have were the same ones I did, but I've just been watching my worms closely and they seem to be thriving. To answer a couple of your questions - 1. So far no problems with dripping (leachate), but my two new bins have dropped some castings (a couple Tbsp) on the basement floor. So I'm considering a solution there. 2. The buckets are pretty thick and sturdy, I probably could have cut a bigger hole and the structural integrity would be fine. I did toy around with the size of the gaps between the bars holding up the worms and compost. So I'll know soon which one works best for me. So that's the update right now. There's about 900 worms in each bin, and bin #1 is laying eggs, so they are pretty crowded. More bins will come before the end of the year

Hi all, I'm behind again. I've got 2 days worth of cards to list. From foreverrecyclereuse I received round cantaulope,Broccoli and Grand Rapids lettuce. jas.il sent poppies, chives and Buttercrunch lettuce. Panhandle_seed_swap sent a huge package of foxgloves, I would love to plant each one of them. Tularosa Market melon. Dirt Daddy sent a mother lode. There's moneymaker tomato, White lisbon onion, marigold mix, lettuce mix, Super beefsteak tomato, evergreen long white bunching onion, gourmet blend lettuce, bibb lettuce, Aunt Gertie's gold tomato, German Johnson tomato, Abe Lincoln tomato, and Rutgers tomato. Nikkineel sent a wonderful card with a snowman. I received Castor beans, echinacea cheyenne spirit, Cannibals tomato and zinnia swirls. jhgarden9 sent marigolds, Korean melon, and cucumbers. smitties sent sea holly and sombrero echinacia. and last but not least, roper 2008 sent red barn tomato, pink poppy and red and yellow speckled marigold. All I can say is WOW. To each and every one, thank you very much. Debby