Vermicoast

The Journey of the Worm

A: They came like many of us have, as immigrants. They hitched a ride on imported plants to the United Sates. The worms were either fully formed adults, new hatchlings cocoons or. Once the plant was introduced into our gardens the worms began to multiply and thrive in their new environments….

Earthworm taxonomist Sam James, a professor at Iowa’s Maharishi University of Management, says that until the arrival of European colonists, the continent above the glacial line was worm-free. “When ice sheets covered much of northern North America,” he says, “native earthworms were eradicated.” The glacial edge runs from Washington State to Long Island, with a southerly dip below the Great Lakes and Ohio.

Although native earthworms are found below this line, the innocuous locals, which number 90 or so identified species, still haven’t squirmed more than 100 miles north in thousands of years. The invaders came to this continent packed in the soil around potted plants, in ships’ ballast or tucked in the hooves of livestock. Aided by their fevered reproductive rate, the official blessing of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a reputation for results and durability with fishermen, they prospered. This last from  Wikipedia.

A: It is unlikely that the worms you find in your garden are composting worms. Most likely they are burrowing worms called Lumbricus Terrestris. This burrower is a robust, almost pencil thick worm, and frequently grows up to six inches long. It lives in depths of six inches to six feet.

By the very action of burrowing through the soil,  Lumbricus Terrestris creates tunnels that allow air and water to reach down into the plant root zones. Burrowers use their tunnels as underground throughways to move about, even creating chambers for winter hibernation. At the depths where they live the ground is stable enough and the burrows can last over time.

Burrowers move through the soil eating organic matter, dirt and whatever comes before them. These worms create tunnels that allow water, air and nutrients to filter down to the root levels of plants, shrubs and trees.

Another common burrowing worm Lumbricus rubellus has a distinctive red color and is often called a red worm. This points out the difficulty in using common names for specific animals, as the term “red worm” is used to describe at least two different worms with reddish coloration.

A: The top feeders have a slightly different function. Living in the top two to four inches of the soil, they devour large amounts of decaying matter which fall to the earths’ surface. In the wild these voracious eaters consume up to their own eight in organic matter each day. They leave behind their nutrient rich manure, referred to in these many ways: casts, worm castings, worm compost or vermicompost. Vermicompost is an excellent source of nutrients for plants, an organic and dynamic soil amendment.

One of the most common top feeders in the United States is Eisenia Foetida, highly recommended for vermicomposting. E Foetida is another worm referred to as a red worm because of it’s color.

Top feeders differ from burrowers in that they do not create permanent burrows. The material where they live is loose and whatever space they have created by moving through the area is soon compacted. They leave tunnels behind, but only as a consequence of their movement. These are not used aa a permanent throughway and are crushed or destroyed as soon as a human or animal walks above them.

I will have more of your questions and my answers here as time permits.

I hope your worms and their bins are doing well.

~Shel