Worms for garden

[ilove to dig]

Are the worms sold at fishing bait stores good to use in the garden? Or are there a special type that is best?

[Alan]

It depends on a lot of things really. If you have a lot of organic material and mulch then you might be able to get red wigglers or European night crawlers to live in your garden, however without a layer of mulch they will not survive, and any tilling will kill them. However, Canadian night crawlers might be a possibility, but they burrow so deeply that I don't know how much help they would be. Depending on the bait shop, what they call a red wiggler is probably a European night crawler and like I said they will live in the garden if you give them plenty of organic material to live in and munch on, however they will not burrow like an earthworm so cannot live in just soil like a regular garden earthworm. If you want the benefits of earthworms without the trouble of keeping the earthworms alive in your garden you could either A. buy worm compost which is usually available at large garden centers or B. Start a worm colony and make your own or C. Add as much Organic Material to your garden as you can provide and attract native earthworm populations in, restrict tilling until you deem in necessary. I hope this helps!

[bluelacedredhead]

Alan, last night I took a look thru a Rodale publication from 1982 entitled Make Compost in 14 days.
It says that the best earthworms for composting are red wigglers (Lumbricus rubellus), commonly sold as fish bait and readily available. They thrive only in manure or garbage and are rarely found in ordinary soils.
But like you mentioned, few will survive if turned out into regular garden soil without lots of raw organic matter to feed upon.

[Alan]

yep, red worms are great, most of us worm ranchers these days raise the Eisenia foetida redworm, they eat and breed faster than any other compost worm, some of us are also/have also experimented with Eisenia Hortensis, better known as the european nightcrawer, which is a pretty voracious eater, but somewhat slow to grow and breed and has a much shorter lifespan, however makes a lot better bait worm for bigger fish and in cold water fishing.

Having said what I did above about them not surviving in a garden without a good layer of organic material (or a lasagna type garden) I will say this, I have heard of people who have made compost piles surrounded by some type of retaining structure (such as landscape timbers or crossties) and once finished off a signifigant amount of compost have added red wigglers and plants and turned the compost bin into a garden, I have heard the results are phenomenal and If I were doing this on a small scale I would definetly try it out.

Just my two cents for gardeners who want to play in the dirt with worm friends.
-Alan

[bluelacedredhead]

So if I just mosey on down to the baitshop and buy a tub of worms, and introduce them to the manure pile, I'll have the start of a new colony?? Then what happens when I move that manure to the garden? They live for a while and then die off??

I have lots of earthworms in my herb garden. Should I put a few in there as "insurance"??

[Alan]

as long as there is a good layer of OM they will definetly live (Provided your not tilling). You can buy them at the bait store if they say redworms they will be either eisinia foetida or Hortensis, but don't waste your money on the canadian night crawlers.
-Alan

[bluelacedredhead]

I was just out digging and cleaning up mulch around the garlic bed. Lots of worms there. Maybe I'll just go get a couple of shovelfulls with them in, and transfer them to the Compost Pile I worked on this afternoon??

Yes a compost pile. I don't know what I'm going to have to put in it other than well composted manure, straw that overwintered as mulch, leaves (lotsa of them), egg shells and weeds. But I'll try making one with that.