Does anyone know whether it's really necessary for me to obsessively pick vermiculture worms (red wigglers, I assume) out of a 'worm bin'?? Someone gave me the castings & dregs of their worm box (to use in my garden) but they didn't remove all of their worms & eggs - which meant that I had to spend ages picking out "their foreign worms" from the healthy population in "my" compost. I gave up on that tho, and so now I have a box of most (?) of their worms plus far too many of mine and I don't know whether I can safely mix it into my garden/compost or whether my only option is to give it all to someone with a worm bin. I don't know if "my" worms are native species' or not, but I don't want to release the invaders if there's any chance that I don't already have'em in my garden. I've tried identifying them but can't find any info on what (if any) our native worm species are - only what non-natives look like. Do you guys know whether we have any (or any pockets of) native worm species in Vancouver anymore?? Should I avoid mixing the worms together or would I only be closing the barn door too late? ps: anyone want a box of hungry worms? ;)
Fern--both in Vancouver and now in Surrey, any compost pile or stored manure pile of mine has produced a large crop of the red wriggler type worms, so I assume these are already in the soil in smaller numbers than the usual lumbricus type earthworms we see most of the time. My understanding is that none of these are actually native...but way too late to try and fix that now, if we even want to. Apparently the boreal forests are a different situation, and really shouldn't have earthworms introduced to them...but our suburban gardens are far removed from that biome.
Fern--maybe there's a worm expert out there that can give the scientific take on this situation...I'm only giving a very layman type opinion. The red wrigglers appear to exist in small numbers here in Surrey, since they always appear in a new compost pile without any human intervention. They are rare otherwise, since I always see the other "pinker" worms when digging in the garden. I think the "compost" or "manure" worms are just a species that specializes in organic rich areas, so really mulitiply in the compost piles. Therefore, releasing your little boxful wouldn't upset the system...the red guys should remain quite scarce while the other worms will be the more common in lawn and garden here. I say let 'em go free!
Hehe. Thanks growest. I just wasn't entirely sure which way you were leaning. I just don't want to mess with any remaining vestiges of the original ecosystem, y'know? I guess I'll mix the new guys in and hope for the best... Cheers!
I find the red wrigglers do not like to live anywhere but the compost pile, and they seem to do a darn good job there. The earthworms seem to prefer the garden. I would not worry about mixing the populations. They sort themselves out. Neither the red wrigglers nor the earthworm are native to the New World. In a recent issue of National Geographic, there was an article that mentioned this. Apparently worms came over in pilgrim garden stock, and the forests were very different before the worms arrived. The leaf litter did not break down as quickly without earthworms and thus suppressed undergrowth, making for open, easily traversed forests.
Ya, that's what I'd heard too (from an earthworm expert) but since then I've only found websites that say worms are native HERE but not out east. Very confusing. Anyway here's an update: I decided to keep those worms separate until I had a reliable answer about Vanc species. But I ended up giving the whole lot of'em to a woman on freecycle.com who was starting a vermiculture bin & didn't want to pay the steep price of wrigglers ($25/lb?). Perfect solution :)
I have been composting for about 30 years, and my mother composted all her life - or at least, ever since I was born - and our compost bins have always been full of red wrigglers. When I shovel properly-composted material from the bin to the garden, it is maybe 5% by volume red worms. But I seldom see them in the garden itself, causing me to believe that they do not thrive there. Anyway, the compost pile naturally rests on the soil so if they wanted to migrate out of the pile I can't imagine how I could stop them. I have never introduced any worms to my compost pile (or to any other place) and I would be surprised if any midnight skulker ever tossed a handful into my pile. So although I have no idea if the red worms came to Vancouver from Finland, Greenland, or Cloudcuckooland, I do know that they got to my pile from the local soil.
Here is a link to that interesting National Geographic article: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/05/jamestown/charles-mann-text.html Anyway, I would not worry about what worms you are using...they have already invaded, so enjoy your composting, which is certainly an excellent, environment-friendly endeavour!