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Should I buy endogeic worms?

19 years ago

I have just planted a new garden where most of the earth has been imported using Â½ soil and Â½ compost. Since this new soil had no worms, I added some night crawlers and red worms bought at a fishing tackle shop. I have no experience with worms, except for the knowledge they are a good thing for the garden. I hope I did the right thing.

After reading a description of the three types of worms, I have been looking for endogeic worms since the ground cover will soon preclude any tilling of the soil and I notice a hard layer forming below 6 inches after the heavy rains of the past three months.

I hope these endogeic worms can help with soil aeration and drainage.

I do not know whether this is a realistic expectation but it appears logical.

However, I can find neither the names of endogeic worms nor a source where I can purchase them.

Am I going in the wrong direction looking for this type of worm? Can they be used for that purpose? If so, where can I find them?

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Comments (4)

squeeze
19 years ago
you won't find the type you're lookin for on the market - they live deeper in the soil, and not in quantities that would 'till' your subsoil, nor provide drainage - sounds like you've already got a good start by adding the compost and worms, just make sure you can continue w/ at least yearly additions of compost, even just as a topdressing, and the worms will breed and take care of the topsoil layer, which is the important part - few things smaller than trees put roots down deep, and those that do can handle the hardpan if they need to

if you have a real drainage problem [kinda wet in CA this year? :-)] then you need to put in some drain tile in that area, also if you'll not be able to work the soil there later, dig it over as deep as you can and incorporate somea that better soil and compost deeper than 6"

Bill
annemariela
Original Author
19 years ago
Bill, I am grateful for your advice, which I followed.
A few of the night crawlers were not so appreciative when I started to dig as deep as I could...
I am sorry that endogeic worms are not commercially available. I really liked the idea of them actually eating the soil and making extensive lateral burrows. Even if their impact was not major, I would have liked to try them. Well, at least now I can stop looking. Thank you!
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No Big 5 stores around here. I don't think any sporting good stores around here would sell them because we don't have many freshwater fishing areas in the county, I don't even know if they allow fishing in the freshwater ponds around here. So all of the live bait they sell are for salt water fishing. I found two redworms yesterday in the woodchips that are around my patio, but the rest were nightcrawlers. I threw those two in the bin, but I know that at this rate it is going to take forever. I am continuing to wet the cardboard. There is a local retailer I found online, but I don't think they have a store--all mailorder or online, and the minimum they sell are 1000 worms for $28. Ouch. I am going to send them an email and see if they will sell a smaller amount for someone local, and maybe save on shipping since I can pick up. Also, after a storm when all the worms come up to the surface, are redworms usually among them. Before I started this project a worm was a worm and i never tried to differentiate. But, the redworms are red, and smaller (I am noticing from what have been reading and finding in my soil), right?
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Bdadawg
19 years ago
As long as you keeping adding compost material to that area you will attract in worms. The deeper burrowing ones will pull the compost material into their burrows. Itll take a while, but eventually you will have enough worms working the area.

You may want to try out the soil,compost forum for more info regarding how to attract/keep them.

Bryan
dragonthoughts
19 years ago
a search on yahoo on reducing soil crust will provide some info that may help.

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