A friend at work and I were talking the other day about the poor condition of the soil at our homes. We started talking about the possibility of introducing earthworms. I have no idea how to go about this, though. Do I just go to a bait store and buy some worms and put 'em out? Do I have to “farm” the worms? Is there a specific kind of worms I should get? Help?
Can you be more specific about the soil at your house? Why is it poor? Is it all sand and rocks, or hard clay? Is it solidly compressed and hard as rock from years of being walked on, or just “spent”?
Worms work by aerating the soil and processing plant and other organic material. If the soil is sand, heavy clay or rock hard they’ll be of no use in the former; if there is little organic material, they’ll be of no use in the latter.
So please, some specifics and we might be of more help.
I don’t know if you want to plop them down into your soil but I do know you can buy bins and earthworms for making compost tea. Throw your kitchen scraps into the bin, the earthworms process it and then you get earthworm squeezin’s* (excrement) to put on your plants. It’s supposed to be very nutrient rich and an easy way to compost because the worms do all the work.
*Do not actually squeeze the earthworms.
Earthworm castings (poop) is very good for gardens and for plants in general. Depending on the size of your yard you would need a lot of earthworms to make it worth the effort though. You also have to keep in mid that worms are low in the food chain and will be food for birds, moles and other small animals.
I always thought earthworms were good for a lawn but my only reference books on the subject consider them a pest and discuss ways of getting rid of them.
My garden had awful soil also. I improved it using compost from home and composted horse manure from my daughter’s barn. That would be the place to start. I have lots of earthworms in my compost pile, and they get introduced into the soil with the compost. Some people sell worm ranches so you can grow your own. What I have found though is that if you make the soil attractive by compost, the worms will find you.
For the horse manure, find a barn near you and ask. They have to pay to truck it away, so most will be all to happy for you to put it in bags and haul it off. Especially if you dig into the pile for the composted stuff, it doesn’t smell.
According to Gardens Alive , yes, the kind of worm matters, and they sell two kinds: “earthworms” for dirt in general (like you want, I think) and “redworms” especially for compost piles or bins (they say redworms won’t live in regular dirt). For their earthworms, which they sell in cocoons wrapped up in some kind of stuff and call capsules, “We recommend at least 1 worm capsule per square foot.” At 50 capsules for $12.95 or 100 for $19.90, plus s/h, it could get expensive to cover a yard or large garden. I’d probably choose to start small and hope they breed like bunnies. As for “farming,” I’d imagine you’d want to keep the dirt, er, moist until they hatch and get established, but I’ll bet Gardens Alive can tell you more if you contact them about it.
Horse manure when fresh is very rich, and will tend to ‘burn’ many crops. You want the stuff that has been in the manure pile for months or years – go to the back side of the manure pile, and dig down into the pile.
If you don’t have worms in your soil, it’s probably because the conditions in your soil are not to the worms’ liking. So, if you introduce new worms, how do you plan to keep them there? A little fence? No–they will tunnel their way out.
What you need to do is add some stuff that will make your soil more attractive to worms, i.e., compost. This will assure them of what they need, which is pretty simple: food and water. Build it and they will come!
If you don’t have worms in your soil, it’s probably because the conditions in your soil are not to the worms’ liking. So, if you introduce new worms, how do you plan to keep them there? A little fence? No–they will tunnel their way out.
What you need to do is add some stuff that will make your soil more attractive to worms, i.e., compost. This will assure them of what they need, which is pretty simple: food and water. Build it and they will come!
From The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible: “The best food for worms is, providentially, also the best food for garden plants–compost.”
Do not use bait worms in your garden – they’re two different types of worms.
I can’t find an online cite for this quickly, but wanted to forestall anyone who was planning to run outside and start flinging around handfuls of bait worms before I can track one down.
I just want to second the idea that it is Bad News ™ to put fresh manure on your garden. It will not only burn and kill pretty much everything (from the acid content), but it is also very probably full of undigested grain and weed seeds which will then sprout from the ruins of your yard or garden.
There are two easy ways to discover if you have earthworms in your soil.One is to scrape under any places you didn’t rake last years’ leaves, or have any decaying organic matter lying on the soil surface.You can place a sheet of cardboard on the ground and look under it in a week or two, as well.If you have worms they’ll be at the soil juncture.
The other way is to dig a hole eight or so inches deep, and put veggie peelings,banana skins, etc. in the bottom.Recover the hole, and have a look in a week.That method is also known as pit composting.
Some areas don’t have the worms you’re thinking of, and purchasing worms to introduce won’t work unless there is organic matter in the soil.The worms eat the decomposition from smaller yet processors, which is to say they are secondary consumers.
I think they’re good for the lawn, but can attract moles, which are bad for the lawn. Since there are ways to get the good effects of earthworms without attracting moles, most lawn care literature concentrates on getting rid of them.
Gosh, I’m senile. I forgot this thread.
My yard is reclaimed phosphate land, which means that more than 5 or so inches down (underneath the fill-dirt they evidently brought in), it’s a mix of poor dirt, rock, and clay left from the mining process.
My co-worker’s yard is alkaline, I think he said.
I second Hilarity’s suggestion to work on improving your soil (composted organic matter or purchased bulk compost from a reliable source are a couple of the best options).
Healthy, organically rich soil will have lots of earthworms, and you won’t need to import any.