(Pat Kiewicz) wrote:

Tyra Trevellyn said:

I'll tag my question onto this thread, but it's about common earthworms
("fishin' worms," etc.)

I have a currently cold compost pile with a good earthworm population of
its
own. Is there any reason not to leave them there.....if the pile ever
heats up
will they escape into the surrounding areas?


I've watched them come wiggling out when a newly-made compost pile
starts heating up. If it get's too hot, they will move.


Is this wrong-think? Do earthworms generally survive if you move them
from one
environment to another? (I'm careful to include some soil/compost from
their
previous home, make sure I've roughed up the new area a bit, and put some
dried
crumbled leaves over them for shade.)


Young worms will sometime migrate in search of greener pastures; mature

worms prefer to stay at home. A large nightcrawler, for instance, has
a
permanent burrow that it built while it grew and sticks to it most of the
time.
(It does come out at night to pull in food or seek out a mate.) It would
be
severely stressed if you tried to transport it far from home, and might
not be
able to make the transition.

Treat your soil gently to be kind to the worms. Once a garden is dug and
established, the most you should aim to do is fluff the soil a little bit.
A lot
of deep tillage can wreck havoc on the worm population.

Got it. Once my beds are dug and planted, I usually dig only to amend small
areas that are being replanted, or to enlarge the beds (I'm always trying to
get more space). This I do almost entirely with a hand trowel and thus I can
grab whatever worms I see, put them nearby so I can continue in that area
without maiming them. I'm probably ruining their setup anyway, but at least
they've got more of a chance than if I chopped 'em. But I'm not going to try
any major relocation anymore. I add organic matter to established areas by
mulching, mostly, no digging involved.


Organic mulch on the soil surface will feed the worms. In the spring you
can often find the surface openings of nightcrawler burrows; the worm will
have pulled bits of dead vegetation and leaves into its burrow from all

around. Nightcrawlers also have 'latrine' areas where they cast waste
and soil from the burrow. In clay soils these large castings can be a
real nuisance, getting rock hard when they dry, leading some people to
try and rid their soil of worms.

I must have an even larger population than I thought....I see those crumbly
castings showing up again very quickly after heavy rains. (My soil is sandy
clay.)


Alfalfa meal or pellets will feed the worms and your plants.

A couple of general-knowlege worm links:

http://www.soils.umn.edu/research/ars/mn_worm.htm
http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/NEWSLTR/v3n1/sa-9.htm

Finally, while nightcrawlers (and some other now common worms) are welcomed

by farmers andgardeners, they are not native to North America and are
associated

with problematic changes to the leaf litter and habitat of the forest floor
and the
spread of invasive alien plants in areas where no native worm species
occurred.

(And in areas which had native worm species, they have also been problematic,
driving down the population of native worms in southern forests.)

http://www.invasiveplants.net/impsal.htm
--
Pat in Plymouth MI


Thanks so very much, Pat, for the info and the links.

Best,
Tyra
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