Worms Worms Worms Worms Worms

[harleysilo]

So in preparing the new tomato patch area i.e. digging 17 holes 2' diameter 1' deep I noticed a few worms in most of my holes. I have what appears to be 2-3" of topsoil and then georgia clay baby.....so chicken and egg time....worms as I understand it are good. So i want a lot of them.

Now can I just go buy some and say put 20 in each hole as I plant, or is it that once I get the soil in proper condition worms will come? If you build it they will come type situation? Thoughts?

[remy]

Hi,
I don't know about buying worms and adding them to the garden, but you are correct in the old adage "If you build it they will come". As you improve your soil, more worms do appear.
Remy

[mresseguie]

Hi,

As you add organic matter to the soil, the worms definitely will find it. Personally, I wouldn't buy worms. I know of several locations where leaves are piled up. I think of these piles as "worm factories". I can 'harvest' worms if I need any. Along with the worms, I include some of their habitat (leaf mold + top 2" of soil).

Good luck!

Michael

[jhp]

I mix in shredded fall leaves each year to feed my worms. I have a great worm population. I say, if you build it, they will come. I've never purchased a worm.

Jen

[Raymondo]

Worms that you can buy are compost worms that, in the wild, live on the surface in the litter layer. If you drop some in a hole then backfill they'll tunnel their way to the surface and if there is no mulch layer they'll die. The worm that lives in the soil is a different type of worm. Just build up the soil and in no time the few you have will multiply. Worm population is generally in direct proportion to available food.

[dice]

While there are thousands of species of earthworm,
there are 4 main kinds in North America that concern
gardeners:

Nightcrawlers: These big worms live in vertical tunnels.
When you see little volcano-like craters on top of the soil,
those are the tops of night crawler tunnels. They will come
up and sample organic matter in your beds and mulch, but
they don't do a lot of horizontal tilling of the soil there,
and they don't hang out there most of the time. They have
one side darker than the other, and spade-shaped tails.

Red Wigglers: These are manure and compost worms, that
hang out in the top few inches of soil and in piles of organic
matter on top of the soil. They get accustomed to the kind
of food they have been eating. If you get a pound of red
wigglers that have been eating nothing but manure, it will
take them a generation to adapt to eating compost instead.
So you get a big population drop a month or two after adding
them to your holes, then they will come back as egg cases
hatch and juvenile worms adapt to the local diet. They have
a rich, reddish brown color, and they are usually not more than
a couple of inches long.

There is another species with the same dietary habits
and habitat as red wigglers that is mainly found in
the south. They don't adapt to winter cold as well as red
wigglers. They look similar, and they function about the same
as red wigglers in a garden, hanging out in the top few
inches of soil and eating decaying organic matter.

Finally there is one that just hangs out in the top few
feet of soil and eats dirt, organic matter, anything that
is there. These have a lighter overall color than the
manure and compost worms, but lack the size and
spade-shaped tail of nightcrawlers. They don't come to
the surface unless their tunnels fill up with water. These
are good tillers, but less efficient at incorporating organic
soil amendments or mulch into the topsoil as humus
than red wigglers or the southern equivalent. I have seen
these in my garden, but never in the same numbers as either
night crawlers or red wigglers.

For your holes, I would find worms in your area that inhabit
piles of grass clippings, decaying leaves, etc. They are already
used to the sort of diet they will find in a compost-amended
raised bed or improved hole in the ground, and they are likely
to be perfectly happy and productive there, without the period
of generational adaptation that purchased worms that have
been living on manure are likely to have.

It can't hurt to throw any that you find digging the holes
back in there with the amended soil. At the very least they
have to eat their way out, even if they find that amended
soil is not their kind of place.

There is an old fisherman's trick for collecting worms:
get a dry cell battery (motorcycle battery might work),
and wet a patch of soil or lawn down with the hose
(shady spot works well). Attach wires to the leads of the
battery, with the other ends wrapped around screw drivers.
Stick the screw drivers in the soil about a foot apart. Any
worms in between the screwdrivers will come wiggling up
out of there.

In the outside foot of compost piles is another great place
to collect red wigglers and the like that will like garden
soil improved with compost, etc.

The difficulty with buying them is that although they
may be the right kind of worm, usually you don't know
what they have been eating and how close it approximates
what is in your garden. It can be a waste of money, because
the way they adapt to radical changes of diet is to lay eggs
and the newly hatched worms get used to the new kind of
food, while the adults that have been eating something
quite different die off.

Note: In warm weather, worms lay eggs about every 20 days.

[the999bbq]

If you treat your soil kindly they will come. And when they came moles will come and take some of the population away ;-)

In my country (Belgium) it has been a hype for a while to import Canadian nightcrawlers that where supposed to be the best kind of worms to improve the soil. Some still do it, but it isn't hyped anymore.
If you don't do 'clean gardening' and leave some debri for the worms they'll be happy to help you. The worms in the compostheap are indeed a different kind of worm - you don't do any of the two a favor when you house-swap them. But when you apply the compost to the soil (superficially) the earthworms will finish what the compostworms started, and they bring 'the goodies' deeper in the soil.
If you don't care about your soil it could be a heavy investment to purchase worms that will not be happy in your patch, will suffer, die or move out...

[robin303]

I love my earthworms. They eat and digest organic matter and aerate the soil. Sign of really healthy soil.

http://aquanic.org/publicat/state/il-in/faq/earthworm.htm

http://www.deckerwormsales.com/order.htm

http://www.fiddlecreekfarms.com/store/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=4693

http://www.happydranch.com/

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/HowTo/WormRaising.pdf

[GIZZARDFARM]

Hey i got a question what type are the dull almost light green ones. They have little action and just kinda lay there i usually see them if i dig a hole in the yard. They about the size of a wiggler and fish seem not to like them either.

Gizzard

[matereater]

not sure if anyone addressed the issue or not but I've heard if you add worms to your soil you should place them on top, not bury them, not sure why.

[robin303]

Wow Gizzard do you have a picture. I study entomology [bugs] Like to take a look see.

matereater
I always bury my worms due to birds and sun then give them a tad bit of water and they love coffee grounds.

[Tom C zone 4/5]

If you have indigenous worms; and you feed them, more will come. I dunno how they do it. Cell phones maybe.

Lay them out some nice manure and compost. They'll find their way to supper.

[TZ-OH6]

Worms are great for keeping good soil in top conditions but I have found that I really need to do a first time preparation for poor soil to help the worms get established rather than rely on the worms to change things.


We have clay (with chunks of sand stone) soil with 1-6 inches of brown dirt on top. The dirt is the result of 40 years of lawn growth/clippings, so there is less dirt where the lawn stops and the "woods/ bramble field" begins. A worm filled ten year old compost pile on top of the clay soil resulted in a pile of compost on top of clay rather than a deep mixed layer of good dirt under the pile.

Worm activity keeps the dirt portion aerated (but by no means light and fluffy). A lifetime of digging up worms for fish bait have shown me that the worms seldom venture down into the clay/rock layer (they stay up where the food is), so in order to improve our soil for a first time garden plot I have to dig down into the clay layer and mix in organic material as deep as I can (like traditional double digging). I don't mess with expensive compost, but simply mix in a lot of inexpensive, coarse material such as woodchips, hay and/or straw to keep the clay from repacking. The coarseness of the material helps crumble and mix the clay over the season in a way that smooth compost and peat does not. With smooth compost worms seem to simply eat their way around the clods, reducing the organic material, which allows the clods to stick back together. The clay stays in chunks/clods for the first season, but crumbles more when turned over up at the end of the season when it is drier. The second year's cultivation evens things out quite a bit. Top dressing and shallow cultivation of high quality compost, plus worm activity keeps things well mixed from then on. The long term break down of the coarse material really helps worm activity too.

A bit of high nitrogen fertilizer helps speed up the break down of the coarse material into worm food by stimulating fungal breakdown of the plant fibers.


Hope these observations help.

[harleysilo]

Wow, I didn't expect to learn so much about worms this morning! Well one thing is for sure, at the end of this season when I pull out the dead tomato vines I'll be able to see if any change in the worm population has happened due to the new holes full of organic matter. Till then I guess I'll just assume it's occurring.

[dice]

Gizzard:

I think those light-colored worms are the kind that do not
come to the surface unless they are drowning and cannot
find a big rock down in the dirt to crawl under instead. They
just burrow around horizontally in the top few feet of soil
most of the time. It does not look to me like they have
a metabolic rate anywhere close to that of nightcrawlers
or manure and compost worms. Their usual habitat just
does not have the energy supplies available as food to
nightcrawlers and manure/compost worms. I see them
occasionally up here, too.

Nightcrawlers, by the way, may not do much horizontal
tilling, but their tunnels do get water down to deep roots
faster than it would get there without them, and they
will haul loose blades of grass and stuff like that down
into those tunnels, too.