Everyday, we sell earthworms to customers looking to relax and do a little fishing. We carry both the large nightcrawlers and smaller red worms for a variety of fishing situations. But these worms can be used for a lot more than just fishing. 

Charles Darwin once said that earthworms, rather than dogs, deserve the title of man’s best friend, and for the home gardener, this couldn’t be truer. Earthworms are extremely beneficial in the transformation of organic material into nutrients for plants. Worm compost, or vermicompost, has five times more nitrogen, seven times more phosphorus, almost eleven times more potassium and twice the calcium of the raw organic material before being processed by the worms. Vermicompost enriches soil with plant nutrients and microorganisms, as well as adding plant hormones and enzymes. 

Earthworms burrow through the soil creating space for air to reach plant roots and allow rain and irrigation water to penetrate the soil. Earthworms break up hardpan, which we have plenty of around here. Hardpan is the dense soil that is inhospitable to plant roots. They can burrow to as deep as six feet in the soil. Their digestive juices enrich the soil and when earthworms die their protein-rich bodies return nitrogen fertilizer to the soil. They eat dead leaves and grass, rotting plants, animal manure, semi-rotted compost, and bits of soil. Organic matter is ground in their gizzards, mixed with digestive juices and enzymes in the stomach then returned to the soil as castings (worm poop). They eat their own weight in organic matter and soil each day. 

A pound of earthworms eat a pound of organic matter and soil each day. Earthworms reproduce quickly and increase their population exponentially; one breeding earthworm can produce over ninety new baby worms in six months. Of course robins can eat up to twenty-five worms per day, so worms need to reproduce fast. 

If your garden has few or no earthworms and you want to add some, the best way to transfer worms into your garden is to dig up large chunks of soil rich in worms and worm burrows and set the whole chunks in your garden so that new earthworm colonies can get started. Or, you can just come in and buy some worms and release them at dusk so they can start working on making themselves a new home in your garden.