Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Thursday, May 16. 2019

Buying earthworms


I hate invasive species, and I have read all about foreign earthworms. However, I am not askeered of European Nightcrawlers because they seem not to be able to handle certain sorts of winters, and they will not travel far.


So every couple of years I order 2500 of these rapid breeders. If you have decent soil, to a decent depth, regularly replenished with good mulch and fallen leaves, these guys will do a good job for your borders and other gardens while feeding the worm-eaters. 


All of my shrub, lawn, and vegetable gardens have been carefully prepared. No pesticides, etc, with good deep loam fortified with maure, etc. I let grass clippings lie, and fallen leaves too (until autumn). Feed the worms!


How can you tell whether your soil is lousy?  If you dig up a shovel full of earth and do not find 5 or 6 wigglers, it's either not very good or it's been a rough winter for them.


Posted by Bird Dog in Gardens, Plants, etc. at 15:53 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

When I was a youngster...my grandmother instructed me to never buy worms....
She had an out of the way spot in her backyard where she would pour grease from cooking (bacon sausage etc.)
That spot always was rich with hundreds of earthworms.
A few scoops with a spade and you were ready to go fishing.
#1 William Johnson on 2019-05-16 17:14 (Reply)
When I was a kid in the summer I would stay with my grandparents in their trailer (at a campground) along the Wabash River. I'd wait for it to rain and then go out at night with my flashlight, spotlight them and snatch them up. Next morning I'd sell them to the fishermen. All these years later I do the same in a local park (so I don't diminish the worm count on my property) and compost with them. I know most prefer red wigglers, but I've always done well with the nightcrawlers. My clay soil needs as many worms as it can get.
#2 Hoss on 2019-05-16 20:49 (Reply)
Spotlight the nightcrawlers, duh.

Say it in Johnny Cochran voice "You must edit before you hit submit!"
#2.1 Hoss on 2019-05-16 20:53 (Reply)
When I was a kid we used an electrified a metal rod about 3 feet long to raise worms from the soil. We would cut the end off an extension cord, strip the wire, and secure the end of the wires around the metal rod with electrical tape, separated by about one foot. A wooden handle was optional.

At about 9 pm we would soak a portion of the lawn with a sprinkler, push the rod into the soaking soil, plug in the extension cord for about 5 minutes, and then unplug it. The ground would be covered with worms that had surfaced.
#3 Guest on 2019-05-17 06:24 (Reply)
I have read that you can have earthworms or ants, but not both. I don't know if that's true, but I can tell you that we had lots of earthworms in our clayey Houston soil, and coddled and valued them highly. But here in sandy Rockport on the Gulf Coast, all we have are ants, nary an earthworm. I miss the earthworms. Of course, it could be that earthworms just don't like sandy soil and prefer clayey soil with lots of organic material, but I can't even keep earthworms going in the parts of the garden we've amended with a lot of mulch over the years, whereas the ants are getting along fine.
#4 Texan99 on 2019-05-17 08:56 (Reply)
Friday morning links thread has no comments other than this statement from the website in red:

Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.
#5 feeblemind on 2019-05-17 10:47 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.