Some years ago I was planting an Imperial Fritillaria bulb, a flower shaped a little like an UFO mothership. Specially with those strange big spots inside
The species needs a lot of drainage so I added sand and started to mix it in the dirt with my hands. Light was fading fast in the sunset. To my surprise some short cylinders started glowing from nowhere. It was poisonous green; kryptonite green. Little 2-3cm bars glowing on the kind of fluorescent green that everybody associates with the word radioactive; all around the pot and too close to my fingers. Yuck! I removed my hand really fast and, to my surprise, the lights started to vanish slowly. I touched the soil again and some lights appeared here and there. That stuff was alive!. It was an E.T. moment.
That day I learned that even the humble earthworms can be awesome, specially the bioluminiscent ones.
Don't tell Monsanto before they genetically engineer them and replace the natural population of worms with patented ones that have to be killed and replaced each year.
It wasn’t a bankruptcy asset purchase but a corporate merger. It’s objectively incorrect to suggest they “closed up shop.” That’s just… not what happened.
Worms will come, and multiply, all by themselves. IF they have stuff to munch on.
The great thing about worms is they mix & aerate the soil without disturbing its overall structure. Unlike tilling (which imho should be avoided as much as possible).
From the (limited) gardening I've done in my life, some lessons learned:
1) Try to keep something growing at all times, even if it's just grass, a cover crop, or fast growing in-between like lettuce. Even weeds are better than bare soil (imho).
2) Organic material! Don't remove any if it's not harvest, add more if possible. Wood chips, twigs, fall leaves, straw, grass, organic kitchen scraps, even cardboard, as long as it's clean (100% "cold" compostable, no plastic bits etc) it's welcome. Not in the least 'cause it gives the worms something to chew on.
This is one of many ways where modern agriculture fails: harvest = entire crop cleared in 1 swoop. And sometimes the waste (like straw) also has uses so often that's removed as well. Leaving very little organic matter in the field. Not to mention repeated destruction of the soil structure.
Funny things is science knows the soil below our feet about as 'well' as deep oceans... Many of the critters down there only classified by family, relatively few by individual species. Let alone their lifecycle or feeding habits. It's a free-for-all but unknown world down there.
Most US farmers rely on tillage, which arguably[1] damages earthworm populations.
I'm curious though because people noted in other threads that earthworms are basically an invasive species. If so, did Native Americans practice no-till, and if so how did that work w/out worms?
Just recently I was thinking about the expression “Early bird gets the worm.” First off, who even likes to eat worms? Gross. What’s the corollary for night owls? “Night owl gets the rat?” I don’t want to eat rats either. And what type of bird represents everyone else? The Pigeon? Pigeons eat whatever they want. Why am I waking up early for worms and staying up late for rats? Pigeons are eating best out of all the birds and they wake up whenever the hell they want.
Actually metaphors literally are literal. That's why dictionaries can change the meaning of literally to mean figuratively, instead of understanding figurative language.
The species needs a lot of drainage so I added sand and started to mix it in the dirt with my hands. Light was fading fast in the sunset. To my surprise some short cylinders started glowing from nowhere. It was poisonous green; kryptonite green. Little 2-3cm bars glowing on the kind of fluorescent green that everybody associates with the word radioactive; all around the pot and too close to my fingers. Yuck! I removed my hand really fast and, to my surprise, the lights started to vanish slowly. I touched the soil again and some lights appeared here and there. That stuff was alive!. It was an E.T. moment.
That day I learned that even the humble earthworms can be awesome, specially the bioluminiscent ones.