Earthworms - where do they come from?

Ok, I know about mammy earthworms and daddy earthworms, but what I'm getting at is this:

Last year when I first tackled my severely compacted back garden, I didn't encounter any earthworms. Presumably the soil was just too hard for them to tunnel into, and even if they could, there'd be no oxygen under there because the ground was just so compacted.

Now, as I re-dig a patch that I just roughly broke up last year, there are loads of earthworms. The thing is, the patch I'm digging is surrounded on all sides by hard ground - my house at one end, a bit that I haven't tackled yet at the other end, a car park on one side, and a garden that's been gravelled over on the other.

So where are the earthworms coming from?

 

You don't get mammy and daddy earthworms.

 

[size=large]worms are hermaphrodite!

My guess would be the gravelled over garden. That's not hard ground. In fact, it would keep the soil underneath nice and moist and stop it drying out in the summer, protect it from the frost in the winter.
Bet it's been a regular worm M1 under that fence since you dug over your garden![/size]

 

They breed in direct proportion to the suitability of the conditions.

So all it takes is for one earthworm to parachute in and if it likes it then in no time at all you'll have loads of them.

 

If you want to know which end is the head, you tickle it & see which end giggles.

 

There was a googleplex of them when I emptied the worm bin.



And I certainly didn't put any in there:DOH:

When the mummy/daddy mummy/daddy worms want to make little son/daughters, they wiggle along side each other and rub segments together, then the saddle works its way down the body & collects the eggs, forming a ball as it comes off. Later, little live babies slither out.

 

Ah! A mussel omelette! :D :D

 

:D:D

Started burning shells instead of composting them. Will bash em all up with the bones of the dead from the furnace & pour acid on them.