Thread: Earthworms
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Old 30-03-2003, 12:20 PM
Kay Easton
 
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Default Earthworms

In article , Britannica
writes
Kay Easton wrote in message news:nlGoJ0HvuYh+EwOv@sc
arboro.demon.co.uk...
In article , Britannica
writes
We had a serious problem with a mole last autumn. The mole was dealt
with but after several months we are still suffering from an almost
total lack of earthworms in the garden -very few are seen when
digging.

Where to buy worms ? I believe those sold locally by fishing-tackle
shops are unsuitable ?


The earthworm variety fishing bait are tiger worms, which like the high
humus conditions of compost heaps.

I wouldn't have thought the mole was totally to blame - more that the
conditions aren't right for a high population of worms, so buy buying
some and adding them might simply be a waste of money. Url below might
tell more


Kay - thanks for the URL, but I didn't find a list of retail worm
stockists.


No, you wouldn't! He's basically saying get the conditions right and
you'll get the worms, so don't waste your money ;-)
I was hoping he'd got something in there about the conditions that worms
like.

The soil conditions won't have changed much since last May when we had
a shedfull of worms and in the last couple of weeks we've been digging
in plenty of good home-made compost and rotted-down leaves. No worms
to be seen though so I think we'll have to introduce a starter
population to get the numbers back up to normal.


What?? No worms in the compost??? - though they'd be tiger worms rather
than Lumbricus terrestris.

Anyway the mole-catcher cost us 40 quid and we can't really afford the
50 your Edward is asking for a consultancy fee


That's not a consultancy fee, that's a deterrent! He's a curmudgeon ;-)

so we'll just have to
resort to digging in the fields by torchlight.

OK - three things to look up on Google:

"Can-o-worms" - a widely available wormery. Suppliers of this should
also supply tiger worms, but they do need high humus levels.

"red spider" plus "natural predator" - that'll get you suppliers of
biological controls, at least one of whom will also sell you tiger worms

CJ Birdfoods - ISTR that along all the mealworms and so on they sell,
they also sell common earthworms, which is what you're really after.

Oh - and wait a month - the soil hasn't really warmed up yet, so things
might improve

Finally - once you've re-stocked, how are you going to protect them from
the next mole invader? - I'm not trying to be negative, just curious.
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm