George Shirley wrote:
....
I'm going to order a bag of earthworms too, no more red wigglers. We
found exactly one large earthworm poking around in the raised beds so I
think we will put some more in to help.

if i recall correctly your raised beds are
mostly organic materials and some inert filler?
if that is true then earthworms will find it
very inhospitable. i would not be surprised
if most of them die or migrate away from the
raised beds.

my own experience in transplanting a mix of
worm species is that the closer the garden
soil is to the soil they were raised in the
more likely they will survive. that is why
each time i take worms out to the garden i
bring back some garden soil for the next
generations.

i use a mix of worm species (from four to
six kinds) and with our poor soils it takes
several years of amending (both worms and
organic materials) to get a good population
of all types to remain.

other considerations are that smaller raised
beds tend to have wider extremes of temperature
and moisture - earthworms don't like it too
hot or too dry. the smaller raised beds i've
been able to combine with others have done
much better in comparison.

i have two thirds of a larger garden to
amend with worms this season. last year
when i was digging in there the earthworm
census was two. the undisturbed other third
probably has some worms in it but i didn't
disturb that area much last year. i'll do
a spot census this spring when i start the
gardening season.

the stark contrast between what happens
in a worm bin here in my room vs. what
happens out in a garden is very interesting.
these bins can support 2-20 thousand worms
each (one to two cu ft of soil, compost
and worm food). outside there is a lot of
predation and less than optimal conditions.

on the whole though, every garden space
i've worked on here has gone from very poor
soil to gradually improved and in a few
gardens now the soil is very nearly perfect
for veggies. every year as i plant out i
take note of how a garden is doing and how
many bins of worms i will put into it and
whatever else it might need. when i have
such a large number of gardens i don't have
enough worms to amend each of them every
season.


songbird