Can a person have too many worms????? Ha, don't laugh!

I'm very confused as to what is happening to my soil in my raised greenhouse beds. I started off growing tomatoes and peppers in this soil last summer and they did great. Now, I'm growing lettuce and greens. I'm on my third harvest and am noticing that the plants are loosening up around the base. When I go to press the soil in around the plants, earth worms start crawling out like crazy! The soil has all of a sudden (in the last couple weeks) taken on a consistency almost like play-doh or clay. It's making it kind of hard to transplant. When I do transplant, so many worms come crawling out that I have to toss them to different areas of the beds so I don't smash them. What is going on? Are the worms doing this? In case it's needed, here is some background on my soil. I filled the beds with topsoil, seven months ago, from our land and have been adding composted horse manure before every new crop (in my case, once when I planted the tomatoes and peppers and again when I yanked those plants to get ready for the lettuce.) The only fertilizer I have been using is fish emulsion, which has only been applied twice (after every lettuce harvest.) All the plants are growing fine so far, but I'm worried I might have a potential problem.

Can anyone give me some info??
Thanks!

You've put out a banquet of fresh horse manure and fish emulsion in warm greenhouse when it's freezing outside and you're wondering why the worms want to move in with you?????
Sounds like you rang the dinner bell and offered cozy accomodations. What self respecting worm could refuse that?
:D

(please realize that I am immensely jealous of your worm abundance)

This message was edited Jan 4, 2007 10:17 AM

Too much of a good thing can be too much of a good thing. I don't know that you have a cause for concern however you might be interested in reading this thread and from there do a little bit of internet surfing yourself to see what you might be able to find online that might be of help to you in determining whether you have a potential problem or not.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/623846/

I think you may want to consider a more balanced compost, one that contains more carbon based ingredients.

It sounds like you have all nitrogen based components (manure and fish emulsion) which is worm food. And you may need to balance that out with some more carbon based organic matter, wood chips, straw, pine bark, shredded paper, chopped leaves. You will get fungal strands from the carbon material that can add more "structure" to the soil.

I would also find Kelly Slocum... everyone's favorite worm expert and ask her what she thinks. ( I think might find her on GW in the vermi forum?)

Here's a link to the vermicomposting forum on GardenWeb:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/verm/

Kelly and chuckiebtoo and most of the gang moved to

http://www.thegardenforums.org/viewforum.php?f=42&sid=58a283a12bafc4463ca165c31d492c71
The Garden Forums ~ View Forum - Vermicomposting

http://community.livejournal.com/compost_wackos/8853.html
compost_wackos: worm compost bins

Kelly hasn't been active lately at all. I did a web search and didn't find anything too recent other than a photo sans hair which may indicate a life change- whether in style or substance. It may explain her absence though.

The gardenforum gang is knowledgeable and helpful.

Maggie

Thanks for the links everyone and the bit of humor too! This excerpt HYPERLINK@www.uark.edu] from Equilibrium was quite interesting and a little troubling also as it seemed that the soil in my bed was indeed getting more dense. Although, the transplants are doing great, and I've notice the worms are still in action because just in the last few days the soil is once again getting crumbly and loose around the plants. I had packed the soil down quite hard when transplanting. I guess I'll let some time pass by and let the plants tell me when I should start becoming real concerned.

The link you tried to reference ended up getting buried at the site I originally linked to so here it is should anyone wish to read the discussion-
http://www.nativetreesociety.org/invasives/european_earthworms.htm

I remember reading about the forest destruction from introduced foreign worms in the Worm Digest a couple of years ago. This is another example of the need to "pack it in, pack it out" when visiting wilderness areas.

Very valid point. They try to teach this concept to Scouting groups. All unused worms go back in the boxes and they stress purchasing firewood locally and leaving it behind for other groups to use as opposed to bringing it back home to use on the next outing. Firewood from hunters and campers is one transport mechanism believed to have accelerated the spread of Emerald Ash Borer. EAB was documented as having been in Illinois as of last year. That was somewhere around 3 to five years ahead of earlier predictions. It will hit my county next year if it hasn't already. The foreign worms are already here and have been for a while.

upforachallenge - I'll be more than happy to send an address if you want to send worms this way!