I have spent the past year returning the garden of my refurbishment-project home to a usable state after 30 years of neglect but I was puzzled at the apparent lack of earthworms in the borders as I reinstated them. I didn't find a single worm in a whole year of digging! Yesterday I found what I suspect may be the culprit - a New Zealand flatworm hiding under a log. I'd never seen one before and had to look it up to identify it. I'm just wondering if anyone else has any experience with these and any advice to offer? I'd like to buy some earthworms to reintroduce to the garden but I'm wondering if all I'd be doing is feeding the flatworms? What do you think?
I've never found a vast number of worms either in the flower borders or the veg bed. Compost heap yes lots of them. Over the years I've found the occasional NZ flatworm and disposed of it. Every few years the gardening press have a panic about the NZ flatworm causing the extinction of the earthworm, but this hasn't happened yet. Apparently groudbeetle larvae eat the flatworms. I've never considered buying any earthworms and work on the principle that as with slugs there are probably far more around than I see when cultivating the soil, so I continue to garden organically dig in compost etc and remind myself that shallowish soil on a hill side isn't an ideal habitat for worms or slugs, the worms being quicker on the uptake than the slugs.
I don't see many earth worms in my veg garden, but the lawn is probably full of them judging by the worm casts on the surface. I spotted a couple mating yesterday but they had done the business before I could get my camera. I've never seen a flat worm. The ones in compost bins and you can buy are a different type, I believe, to the common earthworm
Where are you? UK or abroad ? Like @pete, I have never found one in the Home Counties ,but believe they are found in Scotland &NI. As an invasive species, they should be killed with salt (sodium chloride). Resist the instinct to chop with spade, as they can regrow and you may increase the population! Rather than buy worms, encourage them with copious quantities of organic material and restrict digging.
I'm in Renfrewshire in Scotland. Rest assured that they'll get killed along with any slugs I manage to hunt down.
I make an exception only for 1 slug, this one: February - Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust I have managed to source a few-inadvertantly-and encourage them by moving them to all areas.Its the best hope now that we are only permitted to use ferric phosphate pellets, which are USELESS
Taken from the link... "On average a UK garden is home to over 20,000 slugs" I rarely see a slug in my garden so who's got the other 19,999?
I'll decline your kind offer @NigelJ. Nope, never seen a snail here @pete. I think it's because I have sandy loam soil, it's like dust.
