I had a paper route when I was 12 years old and every morning I was out and about delivering the Beckley Post Herald to my 30 or so subscribers in Lewisburg, WV. Lewisburg is limestone country with rich soil, a soil that supports a large night crawler population. On warm, wet mornings, the night crawlers were all over the streets and I had to swerve my bike to keep from running over them. Sometimes, I would feel sorry for a given worm and actually stop and pick it up and put it in the grass. Once a night crawler is out of his hole, he’s likely a dead duck, but by putting them back in the grass, I at least gave them a fighting chance.
Recently, my boyhood instincts took over again. On one of our recent warm, soggy mornings, I saw a dozen or more earthworms out on the pavement. Nearby, I had a large pot with garden soil where I had raised a pepper plant, so I picked up the worms and put them in the potted soil, and I also added some table scraps and leaves.
Worms will eat most any bit of organic matter, but they need something to eat. Soil is a medium for worms, not a source of food.
Worms are neat creatures and they are among the best fish baits God ever devised. Worms are also a gardener’s best friend.
Earthworm activities and waste are supremely beneficial to a garden. Attracting earthworms provides the organisms, which will loosen soil and add important nutrients for better plant growth.
Earthworms need lots of organic matter. It’s good to work in compost, rotten leaves and other organic material into soil. Most worms live within the top foot of soil, so a shallow incorporation of nutrients will provide them with necessary food.
You can simply lay a mulch of organic material on the surface of the soil, as well. Thick layers of mulch will protect the moisture in the soil and encourage worm activity. This will also prevent you from disturbing earthworm burrows.
I hope my pot of worms will survive and prosper, maybe even multiply. Who knows? I may become a worm baron and ship internationally?