Earthworm questions

[OkeeDon]

The funny thing is, while that report came from UF, I actually can't recall seeing an earthworm in South Florida sand. In all the clearing, pond digging and trenching I've done in Okeechobee, not one worm. I was actually trying to find a reason when I came across the UF report. Based on the recomended temperatures in the report, I suspect it's just too hot for them. I though maybe they'd be deeper, but we dug the pond to about 16' in the Fall, and I didn't see any. I didn't even see any when I flipped my tractor into a 10' deep hole...and I had to crawl and scratch my way up the bank /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[DUMBDOG]

Have seen the earth work here in central Florida, have to wait for night after a rain.

 

[reb]

I think worms like about any kind of decaying organic matter. At the edge of one of my goat pens, near the water barrel, the goat berries pile up a couple of inches deep. The pile is usually moist and full of worms. That brings me to a question--Whenever we get a significant rain, I find worms inside the water barrel. How (and why) do they get there? The water barrel is the bottom third of a fifty gallon drum. The only way in is up the side.

 

[ShaleniFarm]

Here is one place you can buy earthworm eggs.

Earthworm Eggs

I'm going to try this too.

Have fun,
Neil.

 

[TOMLESCOEQUIP]

Just talking about worms & fishing has caused us to get 4" of wet snow here in NE ohio today !! I guess it's just god's april fools joke on us !! See what I get for thinking "SPRING".............I guess we'll put off our worm condo project a week or two.........Tom

 

[ShaleniFarm]

I guess that is why you bury the barrel - so the worms don't become popsicles???? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I have an old bathtub I'm going to try.

Think Spring,
Neil.

 

[MossRoad]

<font color="blue"> We had some left but the scene was not pretty..... </font>

The great worm massacre! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

We use to keep several leaf piles on our property. If we needed worms we would go to the leaf pile, turn back the pile to expose the wet soil and pick as many worms as we needed. They'd be in the wet leaves and in the soil. Also, water your lawn in the afternoon, then go out after dark with a flashlight with red plastic filter. You will see the nightcrawlers in the lawn. Grab them, but don't pull or they will break in half, as they keep their rear ends in their burrows. Just hold on to them with some pressure and they will give up in about 30 seconds.

I made a worm bin one year as described by some of the others. Boards in the ground, sand, rocks, leaves, dirt and feed the occasional kitchen scraps. It worked pretty well. However, I have since diverted the kitchen scraps to the composter and left the worms to the leaves.

 

[TOMLESCOEQUIP]

Back in the mid sixties when I was around 6 years old, my dad and I would go to the local golf course at 2:30 am and collect nightcrawlers on the greens............I thought we'd get in trouble , but there was half a dozen others out there too armed with coffee cans and flashlights...........Funny what you remember from growing up..............Tom

 

[MossRoad]

You ever go into the woods on a damp night and hear the leaves on the ground moving? It use to creep me out until I figured out it was the nightcrawlers pullnging leaves into their tunnels. I use to watch them curl them up and pull them down. Pretty neat.

There use to be a market for hand picked nightcrawlers at the local bait shops. The guy would give you 50 cents a dozen and then sell them for a buck. Now they buy them all from Canada.

 

[EastTexFrank]

My 85 year old mother-in-law loves to fish. The day after I caught her standing on the dock, cutting worms in half because she couldn't find enough of them, I built her a worm box. I got the plans off the web (I couldn't believe how much information on worm rearing there was out there) and I think it cost me about $50. I filled it and stocked it and she's had beautiful worms for the past 4 years. She feeds them coffee grounds, egg shells, vegetable kitchen waste ... even cardboard ... just about anything except meats. Every spring we change out the the soil and she uses it on her vegetable garden. She says it's the best fertillizer she's ever used. I checked and worm castings sell for $2-$4 a POUND down here. It's actually a fun kinda hobby for her and she loves it, so much in fact she had me build her a second one.