Earthworms one hundred percent move seeds. It's a well known phenomenon amongst observant farmers and gardeners and some of us can get sort of aggravated. I scold earthworms every single year at planting time, lol. Worms are capable of moving a lot of things around.....often grabbing items in their mouths and pulling them into a tunnel. Worm activity happens at night...unless you are observant about the details, you'll never realize what's going on under your nose. Darwin wasn't, by any means, the first to observe worms at work, but he may have been the first to study and document their behaviors. You have all probably seen earthworm middens but didn't know what they were. Lots of video on the web of worms excavating and pulling small items around. I remember seeing a Youtube video of a worm collecting seeds! So, yes! I KNOW that earthworms mess with seeds.

It's amazing what wet used coffee grounds will do... mix them in with your shredded leaves and pile on the area you wish to garden. Worms LOVE coffee. Get it from a local coffee shop - just ask and arrange for regular pick-up and be prepared to supply clean buckets. I believe Starbucks has a policy of giving their UCGs to gardeners, but I get mine from a gas station convenience store. Does your GW name indicate that you live by the ocean? If so, throw some seaweed on the top and leave it for a bit. The seaweed will keep things nice and moist underneath, and in turn feed the soil if you leave it there or turn it in - but I don't turn. The worms are too kind. Never saw a worm here for a couple of years. Then I started composting with UCGs. Now there are so many that when I lift the pitchfork full of compost out of the pile they dangle from the bottom and I wonder if my goal is to produce compost or create a worm farm. Ah, well, it works for me!

I wish this post came with a solid answer, as I am 100% dealing with the same problem. I live in eastern WV. I have a small 50 gallon pond with 2 filters- one for the spillway/waterfall, the second for a small fountain thing and a frog thing that spits water, and a layer of smallish rocks at the bottom. We shutdown the filters for winter, and at the beginning of April we went out to clean the muck and debris that had accumulated. There were giant (and by giant, I am not exaggerating when I say one of them was at least 10" long) earthworm looking things EVERYWHERE in the water! They were NOT dead, some of them seemed to be grouped around what *looked like* bloated ticks (that's what I originally thought, but after some research, they might have been eggs?). We got out the ones we could see, put a water clarifying agent in the water and started the pumps up. I tried to research what the heck we were seeing, and I couldn't get a solid answer because of these people who just want to argue about what you actually saw in your own pond. It wasn't limited to this page. April 18th (about a week or two later), the spillway pump was down to a trickle, and the water fountain had tiny little worms (these looked like tiny earthworms, not red in color) coming out of the holes. We took the filters out, cleaned the muck off from them and found tiny worms were INSIDE the filter mesh. Soooooo.... we went out and bought some goldfish to put in there. Fish like worms, right?? Obviously a tiny goldfish isn't going to eat a 10" worm, but we were hoping they would go after the babies... eggs... larvae? Two days ago, April 27, the spillway was slowing down to a trickle again, the fountain was fine, though. Again cleaned muck, found worms. My husband pushed some of the rocks at the bottom around, and more of these giant worms started popping out. We decided to just start shoveling the rocks out. There really wasn't any plan beyond that, just get as many rocks out as we can, and go from there. So. Many. Worms. This time I got pictures of some of them! As my husband is shoveling these rocks out (being extra careful not to puncture the lining, or a goldfish), I'm spraying them off with a hose. Besides the giant earthworm looking guys woven through the rocks (and very much alive), there's teeny-tiny red worms attached to the rocks, as well. What the heck is going on in my pond?! The internet has not been helpful. I've learned more about worms than I ever wanted to know, but I have zero answers to my own problems. I either have glycera bloodworms (because of the tiny red worms), nightcrawlers (because of the full grown looking worms), and/or non-biting midge fly larvae (because those are also tiny red worms called bloodworms). Terrifying fun fact, glycera bloodworms have metal teeth, and they bite 😐. I wish I could go back to last year when the only "problem" we had in the pond were tadpoles. Help? Anyone? Suggestions (besides taking a flame thrower to my whole backyard, my husband said that isn't an option)? This is too much nature for me. Nature is gross. At least they aren't African Jumping Worms, because that's a thing. *gag*

KG, we keep running into each other! Worms only exist where there is adequate food. They'll love the compost! My guess is that your soil is compacted clay, and they are coming up for air when the ground is water-soaked. Try core-aeration when the soil dries out. This removes plugs and should make a big difference. As for mowing lawn, leave the clipping on the soil. Weeds only spread if they have gone to seed, and that is the reason for mowing LONG but mowing OFTEN. Compost (or fertilizer) will not be needed as often since lawn essentially makes its own. If THATCH is a problem, again, you need to aerate. Thatch is DEAD grass, not grass clippings; and it too is common in compacted soils.