Books: Earthworms
- On June 21, 2010
- By Meleah
- In Books
- 0
I just finished reading Amy Stewart’s book “The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms,” and I thought it was fascinating. You know how you always hear that soil is healthy and in good shape when you dig into it and find a lot of earthworms?
Well, that’s true! They may be deaf, blind and spineless, Stewart writes, but earthworms have a tremendous impact on the soil. As they move about consuming soil and decomposing matter like bits of leaves and pooping it back out as “castings,” earthworms literally change the composition of dirt so it can do things like absorb nutrients and hold water better. Research has shown that the most beneficial fungi that boost plant growth often increases dramatically when earthworms are around.
It isn’t hard to encourage earthworms to hang around in your garden. Feed your soil by occasionally adding compost, grass clippings, shredded leaves and mulch. Worms thrive in their presence. Keep soil moist. Worms, for obvious reasons, don’t really like drying out. And for heavens sake, don’t till. Instead, experienced gardeners are recommending more and more that we disturb the soil as little as possible so rather than turning over entire beds, just dig holes for plants and plop them in with a little compost. Then, cover the whole bed with more compost and the worms will take care of pulling the compost down into the soil where it needs to be. (This is all news to me, too.)
This post originally appeared in the Southwest Journal.