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| I wasn't sure where you ask this, but after a pretty (I thought) cool experience with earthworm: I had a bag of compost laying in the yard which has wood chips for ground cover. I picked up the bag to move it and there was a whole little city of earthworms and, lots of rich looking worm castings! I've always thought worms were great for the garden so I took like 10-15 and put them in my garden.
So I was wondering if worms are healthy for a raised bed vegetable garden? I only saw one in my garden when I dug it up this fall. Also, I know worm castings are amazing for the garden- can I leave food out flr the worms to make into poop, and if so what kinds? (I put some coffee grounds when I moved them) does anyone do this? Or would I be craz? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Earthworms will go to where it's best for them, so there's no sense putting them in the garden. If they don't like it, they'll just leave. The best thing you can do with worms is vermicomposting. Once you get it up and running, you'll get great castings regularly. you don't use garden worms for that - you should order worms specially for it. Do a search - there's plenty out there, including YouTube. |
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| Be advised that the worms used for vericomposting are often not compatible with the native worms in a given area, and shouldn't be thrown into the garden or soil. |
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| I've always considered earth worms to be a sign of healthy soil. If you've only seen one, that's not enough. There should be several in every shovel full of soil. Put more organic material in your raised beds so they have something to eat. |
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| I keep reading the assertion that good soil must have visible earth worms in every spadeful. Newbies worry a lot if they think they don't have enough worms. They also get confused between earthworms and the kind of worms which frequent manure piles and other high organic content locations. As jonfrum says, they are different and moving them around is pointless. My garden has compost added several times a year plus manure at least once every two years. It is not deficient in organic matter. When I dig I might see 3 or 4 worms per 30 minutes. How many are in there which I don't see, maybe deeper, I don't know. However, somehow, even with so few worms evident I grow vegetables successfully. IMO it is NOT vital to have lots of visible worms in your soil and worrying about it is not helpful. |
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