No earthworms???

[HamdenRice]

First there was the news that bee colonies were collapsing this year. Then there was news that song bird populations were collapsing.

This may just be my paranoia, but I haven't encountered one earthworm this year. It's weird because I have a compost bin, and very rich soil in my tomato plot and usually there are tons of earthworms. I did get a late start because of the weather, and understand that earthworms go somewhat dormant in the summer, but this is very strange.

Anyone else notice a lack of earthworms in your garden this year?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. lots in Oregon...

We had a lot of rain last month, and they were scattered all over the pavement and sidewalks for a couple of days.

I did notice that there were no med. or large ones.... just hundreds of little tiny ones. :shrug:

[HamdenRice]

2. In NY, the weather was weird

Very long cold spring -- then suddenly it's 90 degrees. I would have thought the mild spring would be good for them, but when I turned over the soil it was quite dry.

[uppityperson]

3. I found a bunch weeding today in W.WA

[Blue Gardener]

4. I have plenty

I think when the weather is hot you might have to dig a little deeper to find them.

[Xithras]

5. I've never had a lot of worms in my garden.

I think they have a hard time tunneling through the hard clay soil to reach it. I've been thinking about buying some from the local fishing shack to dump in the garden, but I don't know enough about worms to know whether fishing worms work for gardening.

[AlecBGreen]

7. soil is more important

try to add as much compost and organic matter as possible, reduce tillage, and keep the soil moist. They'll flock to ya!

[flying_wahini]

8. I did exactly that a couple of years ago...

It was great... got a couple of large containers of red wigglers
and my flower beds never looked better.....
I put one in each big container pot, too...

[karlrschneider]

6. There are literally millions of them here. I even saw several thousand

dead in the road after a (another) heavy rain yesterday. ;-(