You truely don't know what you have. I have spent the last 5 years doing dry stack walls with the same stuff. It is incredable. Start with the smallest 1st. then gradually go up in size, with the top stone covering the the lower two. work in really small ones in the gaps to help block some holes that soil can exscape from. I have terraced my 3/4 acre lot with these, and had to go find a few more to finish the projects. I also have 24" high round free standing bed for flowers (8 ft diameter). You can free form any size and shape beds you want. I also inter mix really large stones periodically to change the dynamics of the the bed, and then peice together the smaller stones around and up over the larger rock. once you figure it out, you will be hooked. Have some fun.

There is absolutely no reason to water the bin. This is the source of your 'sludge'. There can be isolated areas of wetness in a bin, but sludge is from adding too much water and not enough absorbant material. Most bins homemade or commerically bought are plastic. It doesn't breathe. Yes, there are holes, but it is still plastic and water doesn't escape easily or quickly. Feedstock is mostly water. Any fruit or veggie is mostly water. If you have any doubt about this, take the food you were going to put in the bin and put it in a blender instead. Puree it and see what you end up with. Soup. It's water. Adding nothing but feedstock is adding water, over and over to the bin. This results in lots of water running out the drain (in units so equipped) or super soggy worm poop. (aka sludge). To moderate the wetness requires putting in bedding material (which is also feedstock) DRY. The moisture in the bin will soak the dry material within a day or two. I guarantee this will happen or I give you triple your money back ;-) In my CoW I initially put in moistened coir (it came with the unit) and put a couple presoaked sheets of newspaper over the top and slipped food under the paper. I was getting 2 cups of stinky black liquid in a week out of the drain. The bottom of the unit which isn't supposed to contain anything was filled with sludge. I started adding dry, shredded newspaper a couple inches thick (loosely stacked). When I add food, I add newspaper - dry. I now get at most a couple ounces of black liquid per week and the bottom of the bin has no sludge. Ya gotta balance the wet feedstock with dry feed stock (aka bedding material) or you don't get vermicompost, you get stinky sludge reminiscent of what is in the sewers.

I have three sun golds which have produced almost 12 pounds. I am waging war with stink bugs right now. The bugzooka has taken out many. I am going to add three Japanese beetle traps. Two plants were transplanted in at the same time. Then one additional one was added later. I am getting about 25 a day. They will probably slow down soon due to increasing temps. Last year they stopped in July/August, then kicked back in late Sept/Oct.

Thanks folks, for the kind comments. I do love by birds and gardening. Kathi-MDGD..."Oriole" nectar is just hummingbird nectar (4 parts water, one part white sugar) served in a larger "Oriole" feeder. The way to prevent feeder dominance is to put out more feeders and spread them out as much as possible. Perhaps put one on the east side of the house and one on the north. Or put two or three feeders out but have several feet between them. The more feeders there are, the harder it is for a dominant oriole or hummer to claim them all. I rarely fill my feeders all the way, since I empty and replace the nectar two to three times a week. Sour or fermented sugar water will do more harm than good to the birds. So I normally fill them maybe 1/4 full. My oriole feeders are the older style with rubber plugs over the feeding ports. I remove the port plugs on at least two sides and the orioles, hummingbirds, finches, woodpeckers, and all the other birds can all drink the sugar water. If you have the larger nectar feeder, with larger ports, nearly all the feeder birds will drink it. Once the yellow jackets arrive, usually mid- to late-August here, I replace the port covers to slow down the YJs. The orioles and hummers can continue drinking. . A male oriole at the feeder. . Mr. and Mrs. House Finch at the oriole feeder. . A hummingbird at the oriole feeder . And the oriole feeder here in Larimore with an oriole. You can't prove it by these photos, LOL, but I normally only color the water in the early spring for the first filling. After that it's usually clear. It seem like every photo I had shows colored water. I'll have to fix that. I don't want to set a bad example. LOL