Now you have strayed with your OM pronouncement right into my direct experience to the contrary. I have had a garden site in central florida for six years. There were no earthworms to start with. I have not seen one in this entire county, nor do I ever recall seeing one in florida, and I was raised in the state and was outdoors constantly. Back to the garden plot. I have put absolutely staggering amounts of OM and manure into it. Also large amounts per sq ft of humates. There has been benefit from that, though not nearly as much as there would have been in Kimm's climate, a cool wet one. Not an earthworm to be seen.

Why is this Kimm? Do you thinks it's possible that your blanket statements about OM are missing some other very important factors when it comes to the web of life? What are the things that earthworms must have? More so than many other life forms, they must have moist conditions around their bodies, as well as air. It so happens that in most parts of florida the sand is so well-drained that 99.9% of the time there is not enough moisture in the sand to allow an earthworm to exist. If you brought some and added them to the sand, along with lots of OM, what would happen? If you had some experience with the the evaporation rate in the region, you would know that any kind of OM dries out within hours or a couple days at most. Even if by dint of using absurd amounts of irrigation one managed to keep the earthworms alive, summer would come with it's high ground temp and extreme metabolic rate, the OM would vanish and the worms would die before then because they are not adapted to the high soil temps in any case. Up north when the top inches get hot they easily go downward to cooler moister soil. In florida if they went down they would encounter bone dry sand.

You don't help when you give simplistic advice from one paradigm to be used without thought in another. Internet is never going to have earthworms; but in florida lack of earthworms is not a factor in growing food.

Internet, raising food plants and fruit trees in florida is difficult. Methods that work in most of the temperate latitude states do not work there (where I am right now, putting in crops). I have lost many fruit trees. Beyond that, florida is huge and has very differing climates so you have to figure out your particular region. The keys are fully tropical, south florida is just sub-tropical, central is a transition zone between sub-tropical and continental (and consequently maybe the harshest region), far north and west is warm continental and also tends to have much more favorable soils. Not surprisingly, that latter region is where earthworms may be found in florida.

OTOH, my Mom's house, which had limestone mulch installed back in the 70s (& I understand arsenic was commonly used to treat the underlying soil as a weed suppressant) was bereft of earthworms for decades - not to mention the fact that the island she lives on was built from sand dredged up from the intercoastal waterway.

The great majority of peninsular florida was beach dunes formed at varying sea-levels. Presently then there is a thin skin of living matter growing on ancient beach dunes. Hence the extremely low natural level of OM and moisture in the 'topsoil'.

The OP should certainly not base any gardening decisions on lack of earthworms, that is the important point and perhaps also the implied OP question.

Adding OM will be wonderful for your soil. You don't need earthworms to grow veggies. Just add OM and don't worry about earthworms or no earthworms.

Dan

Michael357

His proposed solution, or delaying tactic, was to divert most human efforts toward grinding glacial rocks to remineralize ag soils in the temperate latitudes, thereby boosting plant growth and reducing CO2 while at the same time drastically improving human health.

Dan

Dan

Most of peninsular florida is excessively drained sand. Worms will never persist in that environment without some sort of extraordinary alteration and maintenance of conditions. If one kept piles of fresh horse manure wet from pumped water during the dry season then probably one could maintain some manure worms, for example.

They may or may not come. Are they helpful - yes. Are they required - no.

I have a new neighbor that started a garden this year; I'll have to ask if they saw any earthworms while digging around. My other neighbors hire professionals to do the digging, so they wouldn't have a clue.

soil type and climate determine the presence or not of earthworms, not some kind of "wait-and-see" attitude on the part of the gardener. Hot climates (like parts of texas) can have worms if the soil is sufficiently heavy. A cool wet climate can have no worms if the soil is sufficiently drained. The examples are ad infinitum.

Lloyd

Statements like that do nothing but add heat while shedding no light on the subject. The fact is that EW's are common anyplace the soil and weather supports them.

I grew up between New York City and Upstate New York and I ALWAYS, ALWAYS had worms in the ground unless the soil was solid clay as it was in some areas upstate. After every prolonged rain the sidewalks and roads had many dead worms that appeared to try and escape drowning in the saturated soil.

Anyone who spends time outdoors where there are worms sees this after a rain.

Here in Florida (been here 30+ years) my yard is so full of worms I cannot dig a hole the width of a shovel and not turn up several worms.

My tropical fruit trees thrive in the soil as it is. The fact that worms are there may not be relevant but I like to see them.

Gary

I posted that I didn't have any earthworms after 3 summers of gardening in Texas.

Well this is my first year of serious gardening where I added organic matter, actually fertilized (organic), and didn't neglect my crop. As I planted my fall garden, I started seeing worms. The red ones that you would buy with worm composting. I've only seen them in my garden so far....after seven years of not a one. And this was the hottest summer in a long time.

I just wanted to update what I stated earlier. I don't care to argue about what this means to who and if it indicates anything or not.

Gary, this thread seems to have established that far southwestern florida has some frequency of soils with earthworms, in contrast with what is typical in most of peninsular florida.

"I have had a garden site in central florida for six years. There were no earthworms to start with. I have not seen one in this entire county, nor do I ever recall seeing one in florida, and I was raised in the state and was outdoors constantly"

Diplocardia Mississippiensis is a NATIVE eartworm in Florida.

But you bring a new option for observations OT: how about down under, does one typically find earthworms in arid climate soils there?

You are wrong. I have plenty of earthworms in my south Florida soil and I don't live anywhere near muck. It is simple sandy soil with lots of OM, plenty of shade (due to food forest planting).

Don't be angry or set in your thinking. The world is a garden.

I guess this thread is a good example of how difficult it is to understand generalities vs absolutes, apropos here that as a generalization thermic sands will have few or no worms, especially as compared to less sandy cooler soils. Of course there are exceptions, such as when a gardener brings in large amounts of OM over a long period of time, as mentioned by several posters in this thread. Case in point, at my central florida place, after years of importing different types of OM to that deep deep sand, I finally saw a worm, just once, under some bark mulch. So that makes one earthworm that I know I have seen after gardening in various places around FL.

In the poorly drained regions of florida, or in the mucks, as I keep pointing out (to no avail apparently), there would be no surprise in finding various adapted annelid species. Anyway, I'm glad this thread has been of amusement to many and possibly even a learning experience.

I don't say that in defense of lawns, landscapers, or anything else. It's just, between thick lawns, scheduled irrigation, and a decent placement of trees and shrubs, I see them all the time, particularly after rain, when they're crawling (or baked dead) on pool decks when (i'm assuming) escaping the saturated soil.

My own property had very few worms initially, but I found something that tended to help, enough so that earthworms started showing up in my pots, planter boxes, and garden beds. I'm hesitant to mention the "big M" though, because this is the organic gardening forum, and most probably would not find it kosher.

Are you referring to miracle-grow, F'rverlad?

My soil on its own is mostly worthless. Often water-repellant, rarely hosting more life than ant piles and the occasional curled up grub. In my garden beds I've found that mixing (and obviously watering in) Milorganite, along with the leaves and compost I normally add, has made a huge difference in both summoning and maintaining earthworms in the soil. Possibly coincidental, but a number of the neighborhoods I work in, where I tend to see the most worms, use reclaimed water.

Anyway, a couple of photos from this morning:

Ants on a worm in the gutter in Largo

Live worm I found on a pool deck in the same area

Baked worm on pool deck, same property

Soil in my yard

One dig with a trowel to uncover this in one of my beds (I'm in Palm Harbor, north Pinellas)

Again, I only bring this up in discussion on worms, not as an argument for or against organics.

I live in Fort Lauderdale 1.5 miles from the beach. Sugar sand is 2 feet deep.

This theory sounds like you may very well want to let it die. There are local earthworm farmers around here too.

As a kid I lived in the Tampa Bay area in various locations - we were always digging in making fortifications for toy soldiers, I remember the red and yellow sand but not worms. We lived in Gainesville for a while, also digging occurred, there was the novelty of small stones and gravel, even clay here and there. I don't recall worms though there must have been some in that kind of soil.

Lately I have gardened in the very deep sands of the north-central peninsula around the ocala forest. Again, no worms in the gardens except the one that I saw under some bark mulch a while ago. How did it get there? No doubt imported with the mulch from a much damper location near a slough.

It isn't only a florida thing, of course. I can find areas around here where the ground is so sandy and dry and so low in OM that one will search a long time before finding a worm. Other places merely walking on the leaf-litter sends dozens of giant crawlers skittering away. Florida is a big, big region with a lot of variation in underlying strata - the sand can appear try similar but in some regions it underlain by dozens of feet of more sand, other places by clay, others by limerock within just a few feet. All this has an impact.

I don't have a "theory" about where worms will absolutely be found or not found. Apparently my first statement to the OP that they will likely be waiting a long time for worms to come has outraged those who know of places within the state that harbor worms. Maybe the OP will return and update us....