Worms or more importantly a lack of worms.

I have been gardening here now for a full year. I haven't turned over much ground but I have dug about a hundred holes for plants, shrubs, trees and fence posts. I have never ever dug up a worm.
Is this something to worry about and if so, what should I do?

 

When we started out, there wasn't a single worm in sight. The ground was practically devoid of life.

After starting our own compost and using it around the garden, the situation has improved dramatically within the span of two years. Now I can't dig anywhere in the garden without hitting at least half a dozen of worms.

It also helps a lot of you don't always rake the leaves and stop removing everything that looks dead. Worms love to munch that stuff and you save your self a lot of work.

 

Worm tend to like humus, or so I'm told.
So if the soil is devoid of vegetable matter the worms will die out or move on.

Worms generally mean the soil is in good health I believe.

 

If you want to jumpstart your garden, you can always buy a bag of worms (up to thousands in there).

But a lot cheaper and more long-term would be to ask a neighbor for some healthy compost with lots of worms in it. And even more important to get a few bags of fallen leaves (from the woods, street trees or your neighborhood. Work them into the soil and leave them there to rot. Believe me, the worms will come unless you live on an island or with concrete barriers all around your property.

 

I put several bags of manure on the borders of my bit of the garden but I haven't needed to dig holes there. Maybe they are all living under that!

 

Soil improvement is the way to go if you want worms.
The ones you find in compost tend to be the red ones, brandlings.
They dont last long in the open ground, the common earth worm will come in if the soil is right.

 

Same scenario here when we arrived. It was a sterile, chemically-blitzed field, no worms, no birds let alone hedgehogs. Luckily there was a dairy farmer just down the road who was only too glad to get rid of the enormous muck heap generated by his cows, every couple of years. Once we'd got grass established, it was cut without collecting the clippings. I've learnt to leave prunings/dead-headings in the middle of the borders, chopped up a bit. Anything to cover the soil! The worms are impressive Like small snakes! First realised how much things had changed when the moles turned up with freezer bags at the ready
Keep persevering with the manure and any other organic material you can lay hands on. The worms are much deeper down in the summer months, where it's damp, but they'll become more apparent in autumn.

 

Next time I cut the "Meadow" I will leave the grass box off.

 

When I moved here, the ground was so dead that even the few blades of grass were struggling. I dug the whole lot over and dug in two tonnes of spent mushroom compost, on the recommendation of someone here. My back garden has been lush ever since.

The front garden was next. I dug it over, not a single worm or bug. I've since dug in a couple of half rotten bailes of straw I had from an old project. Dug it again a few months later and there were loads of worms. The front still needs a lot more work but at least there's life in it now. Earthworms are a good indicator of soil health. I believe the more the merrier, bit I'd never buy them in, because that's like cheating. If the soil is healthy, worms will magically appear from nowhere.

 

Yes, try adding a nice layer of mulch/ soil improver this autumn. Depending on where you are, some local councils can also supply that in bulk and very inexpensively, making it by recycling garden waste. Mine doesn't have the space to do that, so when I wanted to do that several years ago I went to a commercial supplier* who delivered direct, hoisting the bulk bag from the lorry into my front garden. It worked out much cheaper than using lots of individual bags and really did make a difference to soil health; now I just top up each autumn using the contents of my compost bin.

*this one, not much good to you as it's London based, but there will be others nearer to you if you Google. The price is now about twice what I paid!

 

When we moved in we dug this lot of heavy clay up and found zero worms. Literally, none.

Over the past 4 years I have been adding rotted manure, MPC, sand and anything organic looking around the plants and the difference is huge. Worms are everywhere and so are blackbirds pulling them out after rain.

Digging planting holes versus digging the whole border up is a slow process to improve the soil overall, but eventually the added plants and soil will blend in and the worms will appear. I have that approach in the front border because I just can't do the digging and there are established shrubs there. Digging bulbs and annuals in with plenty of manure and MPC is slowly making the soil better and the worms are starting to appear.

 

Today I went out to take a sample for soil testing from between the two shrubs I planted and subsequently died. The ground was like concrete. If the traffic wasn't an issue I could have easier taken a sample from the overtaking lane of the City Bypass. It took me 10 minutes using the "Brothers" to dig a six-inch deep hole and then trying to take a sample from the side of the hole, with a trowel, was a nightmare. Now this entire area has been rotovated twice recently, at the end of 2020 and the last time exactly 12 months ago. Short of digging it over by hand (and I am not fit enough for that), I don't know what to do.

 

You seem to be watering most days Jocko, so why is the ground like concrete?

Keep rotavating, especially when its getting dry and crumbly, and you really need to get some manure or compost in as you rotavate if you can, it wont happen fast but every year it should get easier.