Using Earthworms in the Garden
Earthworms
are already in the soil. Many people are familiar with dew-worms, which are
often collected at night for fishing. The dew-worm cannot be tamed for domestic
reproduction, so they have to be collected individually. Another fishing worm
is the red wiggler, which is commonly grown on worm farms and used for fishing,
composting, and improving the soil. I buy them from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. The
first time they did not arrive quickly, which is a problem with living worms. I
received a free replacement for the 2,000 worms just as the late, somewhat
dried shipment arrived. That gave me an abundance of earthworms to spread
around the yard.
Shewell-Cooper,
a famous British gardening expert, had a significant insight that has not made
the impact it deserves on the bookshelves. He made tons of compost and used it
as mulch, arguing the earthworms would pull down all the soil could use. The
rest of the compost would serve as a weed barrier and be renewed as needed.
Gardening
books obsess about ways to make the work more difficult, although they pay a
bit of homage to the far more effective earthworm moving and fertilizing the
soil. The next step from hauling finished compost to the garden for mulch is to
create compost in place by planning the mulch as a one-time, or fairly rare
soil amendment, left on top, never stirred and rototilled into the soil.
Another
gardening writer is the Maven of Mulch – Ruth Stout. Mulch is the name we use
for laying down organic matter that will block the sun from germinating weeds,
hold moisture in, and avoid erosion from wind and water. Stout advocated using
a deep layer of plant material to accomplish this. Although I composted and
hauled finish compost around in my early days of gardening, I decided to merge
Shewell-Cooper with Stout and simply make instant compost out of the lawn by
mulching it after planting roses. This has great promising in reducing the
labor in establishing a rose garden in a lawn:
· No
rototilling.
· No
spraying.
· No
hauling wheelbarrows of compost from the backyard to the front. Hint – never build
a compost pile downhill from the garden. As I did in New Ulm.
The initial labor consisted of digging the holes and
planting the roses, covering the lawn with newspapers, and covering the
newspapers with shredded wood mulch from Lowe’s.
Leave It to the Earthworms –
This Way
The entire
yard can become a haven for earthworms and for all other creatures these steps
are taken. Many will invite themselves in, like the toads, simply because an
earthworm-friendly yard benefits the entire coalition of wildlife engineers,
from the microbes to the bird population.
a. Order red
wiggler earthworms from a supplier and expect them in a few days. An order of
2,000 may seem small, but the same worms will double in size shortly, after
re-hydrating.
b. Place
a few at a time, on top of the soil, in various places, starting with corners
of the garden area and composted or mulched areas. I used borders of the house,
the fences, and a few places in the middle of the lawn. Earthworms on top of
the soil, when it is daylight, will have them dig down to their new homes at
once. No need to mix, stir, or rototill them.
c. Create
earthworm habitats with an abundance of organic matter. Circle some chickenwire
from a hardware store and fill it with grass clipping, tree leaves, and garden
trash. Neighbors are delighted to dump their vines, vegetable trash, corn and
sunflower stalks in that pile. They are feeding the lawns, trees, and flowers
all around by centralizing the earthworm population.
d. Instead
of raking and giving away autumn leaves, rake them onto garden areas.
Earthworms, mites, and springtails quickly reduce them to soil food in the
spring. In the winter, they hold moisture, insulate the teaming microbes
beneath, and start to decay.
e. Let that
beautiful taproot herb called dandelion have their way in various places in the
yard. They mine calcium and other minerals, break up hard clay soil, create
fluff for the birds’ nest, greens for the table, and a shower of organic matter
for the soil. Pull a dandelion after a long rain and an earthworm will probably
be curled around the root – homeless and yet testifying to God’s engineering
and planning.
f. Consider
whether those big, ugly, healthy weeds in the back are really bad – most are
not – or actually beneficial for the soil, birds, and beneficial bugs. Why plant
berry bushes for the birds when birds plant pokeberry on their own? Tall weeds
are soil builders with deep taproots and shelter for the creatures we take for
granted, including the earthworms below.
The earthworm’s role in the
infinite dependencies of the garden is beyond comprehension.
