Yup... Nightcrawlers have been decimating my carrot seedlings for a couple of years now. I have ruled out other things such as slugs, damping off, earwigs etc. I mulch my garden pretty heavily, but the carrot beds were intentionally left clean to avoid competition for the emerging seedlings.. The poor worms were just hungry. They came up, looked around - nothing to eat except carrot seedlings - oh well, better Garth's carrots than nothing... chomp - chomp - replant - chomp - chomp... So I started mulching the bed with grass clippings and more seedlings survived. Ready to do war again this year. Perhaps I will string bright lights over the carrot bed. I simply have too many worms in my ultra rich organic soil. They know a good thing when they find it. I have photos of the stockpiles of debris over their holes. Amazing critters.

I agree that leaf mulch brings worms like nothing else. However, take heart. If you apply organic matter and keep the soil reasonably moist the worms come. I mulch my beds with leaves in fall, and in spring they are literally crawling with worms. My clay tends to be pretty wet in spring too, and the worms are happy as can be. They always become less apparent in the drier summer months. By late last summer, the drought with a foot rainfall deficit had definitely taken it's toll. My worms were gone, probably deep in the soil in search of moisture. A network of huge tunnels remained, but worms in the top 10 inches or so were few and far between. If you did your soil examination 6 months ago when you moved in, in the midst of that drought, that might have been a big reason for for lack of worms. I suggest you take another close look in spring and see if it looks better. Hopefully you have had some drought relief since fall? Add whatever organic matter you have access to: leaves, grass clippings, coffee grounds, compost, whatever you can get. Karen

You may not be aware that Lumbricus rubellus is invasive and is threatening North American Forests. Quoting from: Invasive EarthwormsA Threat to North American Forests Plants & Gardens News : Volume 19, Number 1 : Spring 2004 by Niall Dunne http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/essays/2004su_worms.html "In 2002, Michael Gundale of Michigan Technological University published a report detailing how the epigeic bait and compost worm Lumbricus rubellus may be wiping out populations of the rare goblin fern, Botrychium mormo, and possibly other rare native plants too, in the Chippewa National Forest. Gundale credits the epigeic worm's destruction of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil as a reason for the goblin fern's decline. "John C. Maerz and colleagues from Cornell University have found strong evidence linking salamander decline in the hardwood forests of central New York and southeastern Pennsylvania to invasions by L. rubellus and Asian Amynthas species, among others. ..." "... With invasive earthworms wriggling amok in our forest soils, gardeners who use worms to decompose kitchen scraps and plant waste may want to take a closer look at what theyve got growing in their compost piles. Some of the traits that make worms ideal for vermicompostingsuch as high reproductive rate and adaptabilitymay also make them potentially successful invaders. "The worm predominantly sold for composting is the red wiggler or red tiger worm, Eisenia fetida. It has a rusty brown color with alternating yellow and maroon bands down the length of its body; a pigmentless membrane separates each segment. It grows up to three inches long and is highly prolific. Though the worm has established itself in the wild here, so far it has not been identified as a problem species. "Another popular compost species, the red worm, Lumbricus rubellus, is causing trouble, however, and should be avoided. It also grows up to three inches long and has a history of being confused with E. fetida. This worm is dark red to maroon, has a light yellow underside, and lacks striping between segments. "In The Earth Moved (Algonquin Books, 2004), a wonderful new book on earthworms by Amy Stewart, forest ecologist Cindy Hale advises worm composters to freeze their castings in air-tight bags for a least a week before adding them to garden soil, no matter what worms species they use. "It won't hurt the soil microbes, but it will kill all the worms."

Thank you all!! Mystery solved! I had never picked one up until you guys requested a pic. Now I realize that the iridescence, fluorescent 'glow' was as Wormy-Acres stated; due to the way the light hit -- once I picked them up, the fluorescence disappeared when the slime dried up! Prior they had been moving so fast I had thought the iridescence was actually in the color of the worm, and not its slime. (like my title stated: a newbie!!) I had never seen worms quite so iridescent before (the image is from an inexpensive camera and didn't quite capture the fluorescence very well) and so many of them to boot, (piles of glowing worms!) so it was quite intriguing! Thanks a bunch for all your suggestions and thoughts! Here is a link that might be useful: