On the rare days it rains here I'm the weird lady in the bright pink jacket walking the streets...with a bucket in one hand picking the worms off everyone's driveway and curbs. I get odd looks but I don't care. I don't get that many but every worm is a precious thing in my garden

I rarely see a worm in any of my gardens.

zeuspaul wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:08 am I rarely see a worm in any of my gardens.

That's okay. Did you know that worms are not native to the USA? Things grew here for centuries without them.

zeuspaul wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:08 am I rarely see a worm in any of my gardens.

I wonder why that is.

When I got to my last residence, years ago, I too saw very few worms. Over the years, after additions of organic matter to the soil and lawns, they magically appeared! Robins have feasted there for a long time now.
I guess if they're not there in the first place there is nothing to grow a population of them from?

In Toronto during the '50's and '60's my dad would water the lawn heavily then go out with a flashlight at night to stock up on fishing worms. They were just there. No weed killers or fertilizers were ever used on his lawns.

Lack of rain except a little in the Winter months. Eight inches so far this season which is an inch more than I got last year and little chance of any more until November.

If I were to explore under the avocado trees which are well watered and have a good layer of leaf mulch I am sure I would find some worms.

Growing Coastal wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 9:06 pm I wonder why that is.
/quote]

Just moved & am putting in a bed on top of native dirt. So far I've seen 6 worms. Two got relocated to a worm bin, hoping they get fat & happy on the scraps I put in there.

Have any of you had experience with the Asian Jumping Worms? What are you doing to deal with them?
I discovered last fall that I have them: big fat worms with a ring around the neck. They can do a lot of destruction to the soil and reproduce really fast. Unlike the other worms they live close to the surface and are voracious feeders so outdo the regular worms. While removing them and drowning them is one way to deal with then, I was wondering if reintroducing the “good” worms would help and what kind (red wigglers?)
Apparently they don’t like pine needles so adding those can discourage them. They die in the cold winters but leave behind eggs in the soil which hatch in the spring. They are super simple to identify so for the moment will try to remove them as I find them when planting and weeding but really want to get the good guys back. Worm castings are my go to fertilizer. Now I understand why parts of my garden have a strange granular consistency. There is some good information on the internet about these worms.

Here's an article on Asian Jumping Worms. The ones I always find are the less active kinds, so far! I see them every time I turn the soil over, or move something that has been sitting for any length of time. The robins love it out there!
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/inva ... ping-worms

Very good article. Now that I am aware that these worms are in my garden I will be vigilant about removing them and checking the mulch I get delivered each year.
I still would like to know if buying the regular worms to reintroduce them to the garden would be worthwhile or a waste. Not sure one can completely eradicate these but certainly reducing the population will help. Birds do not eat these!
If nothing else I hope I have helped make others aware of these pests!

Oh no! I think ive seen these. I didn't think much of it at the time. Eeeek

Neither did I! I thought I was so lucky to have such big, fat worms working the soil! Yikes, was I wrong! I wish I had known about these sooner but awareness is at least a beginning. It’s important to make all gardening friends aware of this potential problem in their beds!

Yeah I thought I got the bad end of the stick with centipedes instead of worms - those Asian worms sound awful and I will certainly be keeping an eye out now that I know what they look like.
Meanwhile today... best day of the year!! Shoveling horse puckey from a pickup on a sunny day. SO MANY WORMS!!! A lot of little red wigglers like they just hatched out and by golly, they made up a good bit of the entire 'biomass' shoveled!

How lucky for you, Bower! Need to see if I can import some good worms. It’s still early to check if all garden beds are infected. Worms are tiny so hard to see the telltale collar!

That is a shame to read about the invasive jumping worms. I have of course heard of alabama jumpers, but had no idea they were imports.

I know it was said that there are no native worms in the US...clearly that is not correct. Robins and timberdoodles and many other species evolved specifically to eat worms. It is only the most recent glacier slides that tore up the worms in some areas.

Well finally after a year thinking about it im going to set up a worm bin. Worms are currently being fedexed to me

Wish me luck!

Aaaaaaaaand they are dead. They must have frozen in transit

Temperatures are better and I got nice fat alive worms today!

Put them in their home, hope they like it.

I'm glad your worms are alive! I've never had this problem. My garden beds are full of them. I'm sure my compost is too. I do my best to create healthy conditions for them though, including avoiding pesticides like glyphosate and Sevin that linger forever in the soil. I did notice when digging out my Phythophthora-ridden strawberry bed last year I had almost no worms. I'd been fighting the infestation with Captan. I lost the battle, killed my worms, and ended up re-digging and replanting the entire bed. I also moved the new strawberry bed and now plant potatoes in the infected bed. Phythopthora is pretty host specific, thankfully.

Earthworms like my beds. If I dig into the soil, I find earthworms. I tend to dump various leaves vegetable debris into the beds. Earthworms appreciate this.