I dont know if you can but compost worms and earthworms thrive under different conditions and thats what the suppliers were getting at.with earthworms its a real case of if you build it they will come.you might have earthworms in your garden already but they will burrow deep if the soil is dry or hot and to seek out food so you wont always see them.if you start adding organic material to your garden like compost, manure, mulches etc they will come and find it and multiply and you will have a lot more worms and see more of them closer to the surface.I dont think there is any advantage to adding them because if the food (organic material) isnt there they most likely will just move on until they find better conditions.

we often start my beds with composting worms especially if there are no common garden worms to be seen, and in our last gardens i cultivated composting worms so i could harvest them for our composting toilet.

with composting worms in the beds you just need to keep up the food regime for them as they stay put not like the common ones who wander off all over the place looking for a nibble.

we put all our rottable kitchen scraps along with grey water straight into our beds and mulch with green mulches this keeps a good supply of food for all worms.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

I didn't know there was a difference, so you learn something every day. I've seen earth worms occasionally in the lower portions of my compost bins along with millions of slaters and those root eating curl grubs. Don't mind curl grubs chewing away and getting fat in the compost bins but am wary of their proliferation in the vegie patch or other gardens. As for worms, I just add my broken down compost (a combination of most vegitative matter with added chook manure, blood and bone and dolamite lime) to the garden and when I later dig in the soil there's hundreds of (earth) worms.

The composting earthworms (sometimes called Red worms or Tiger worms) prefer much wetter conditions and breakdown organic matter much faster. While the common garden type earthworms will tolerate drier soil conditions and take their nutrients out of the decomposed organic matter in the soil.

Composting worms will not last long in the soil unless it is continually damp.

Ehhh, interesting Robert, but composting worms wouldn't be much good for me, my compost bins are a bit on the dry side, they are open to the weather and when I water the vegie garden nearby I also pour a bit into the compost bins. Besides, I have a huge kookaburra sits on the edges of the bins early morning and late afternoon and on the paling fence close by and as soon as anything moves in there he dives onto it and gobbles it up. He simply loves big fat curl grubs.

Funnelweb, count yourself lucky. I have to have a compost bin with a top on it to keep my worms. Because if I happen to leave the top off, the brush turkeys get into it and tear it apart, feasting on all my lovely worms.

I also have Butcher Birds and Kookaburras that come round when I am digging in the garden. They wait for me to through out the odd curl grub and then it is a race to see who can get there first.

re; Earth Worms & Compost Worms and worm farms etc...

Earth Worms thrive under certain soil conditions. Those conditions are best achieved by maintaining a good quality soil. Rich fertile soil that is cared for organically and well-fed, can reap its reward in a healthy earth worm population, whilst denuded, overworked, and eroded land will almost certainly contain fewer, scrawny, undernourished earth worms.

Adding compost mulch to the surface of your garden soil actually helps provide an optimal living environment for earth worms as at the end of the day, it's all organic and our living systems are linked via our environment. The environment is like a big food chain of complementary organic systems.

Thus as much as you might seek a healthy population of earth worms, actually having compost worms to help you produce organic compost from your green waste for distribution over your garden, can encourage the population growth of your earth worms.

If you have a family, you might be better off with a decent sized worm farm or compost bin, not like those small plastic worm farms you get at large chain stores, but something larger like a 140 to 240 litre system.

I would suggest 1 kg of compost worms for each family member. I understand that compost worms can eat their body weight in green waste each day !

In essence, spreading your compost worm castings and other organic fertiliser over your garden, can help improve the health of your garden's earth worm population. I hope that perspective helps.

cheers,

WormsRUs
http://www.wormsrus.com.au

Here is a link that might be useful: WormsRUs - Compost Worms, Worm Farms