On Tue, 13 Nov 2012 14:08:31 GMT, Baz wrote:

Early in October I spreaded lots of horse dung on the top of the soil in my
intended potato plot and covered it all with carpet etc. It has been said
here many times that the worms will do their work so I don't really have to
dig it in.
My question is where did the worms come from, there are loads of them even
now when I lift a bit of the covering to have a look. Nice big fat
earthworms and lots of much smaller red worms. The red worms are quite
different from the ones in the compost heap.
I was thinking that they could have come with the dung, if so, how? And
also should I be doing someting about it?

Thanks
Baz

It's quite possible that the red worms (most likely brandlings) were
introduced along with the dung - a lot depends on how it was stored
before you got it. Just leave them to do their job. Some will also
have migrated from elsewhere in your garden - they can smell dung a
mile off (pardon the pun) and will converge on it. If the dung is
warm, they will also reproduce rapidly and it's not unusual for
numbers to double in little over a month!

As things cool down, they will disappear and reproduction will slow
down. They tend to go to sleep below 10C and die at 0C.

Brandlings are litter lovers. They aren't really soil dwellers. You
might find them amongst fallen leaves, decaying surface vegetation and
the like. This makes them readily available for ground-feeding birds.
And this is, I suppose, why we don't see so many of them outside
wormeries, enclosed compost bins or covered areas (like under your
carpet).

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the East End of Swansea Bay where sometimes
it's raining and sometimes it's not.