Where can I buy earthworms?

Question for all of you. Where can I purchase earthworms? I am wanting to start raising them for my gardens and need a good, reliable source for my initial purchase. Can anyone help me with this? Thanks so much!
Belinda

Know any fishermen? they can tell you where the nearest live bait shop is.

There's a bait shop in Dublin and Proctor. This link isn't coming out quite right, but if you type 'tackle' in the space, a few bait shops show up.



http://www.google.com/maps?q=Dublin,%20TX&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title





This message was edited Mar 5, 2007 10:47 PM

I am not sure with Texas but worms are free. All you have to do is build a lasagna bed, coffee grounds, cut grass or manure mixed with a little leaf. They will show up in the pile if there are any in Texas. I am sure there are. Put Nitrogen on the ground and there they are.

There might even be some in Louisiana that could be coaxed over there!

I like Soferdig's idea best! :-) lol And yes, I do know that I have a few earthworms around my gardens, but I would like to have LOTS of them, my poor soil needs them desperately.

gloria125 - - - I'll do my best to drag a few Cajun worms over! I bet they a bit "spicy" - - - - roflmbo (jk you Cajuns)

clay, I do know of a tackle/bait shop in Proctor. I did call them yesterday and they have been OUT since the fall. That however gave me an even better idea - - - - raise those little boogers and sell them to him! :-)

Thanks to all of you for helping me find some worms............I'm heading outside to build me a lasagna bed! :) "Here wormy, wormy, here wormy, wormy" lololololol You all have a great day!
Belinda

The Louisiana worms that migrate from New Orleans will be culturally refined, Creole worms....

By all means, Gymgirl - - - - I MUST have a few of those in my gardens! lol Don't we all need a few? I bet you have a few culturally refined Creole people in your Houston world, right?

Sure do.

My heart goes out to all of them, displaced from their homes - - - that can't be easy.............culturally refined or not! :-)

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/623846/

This is a thread started by Equilibrium. It has links to some serious problems caused by imported fishing worms. Moral: if you do buy worms, make sure they came from local sources.

This message was edited Mar 13, 2007 8:14 AM

Thanks for the thread gloria125, I will check into it, asap. I'm hoping not to buy any at all - - - I hope to attract enough to my lasagna bed to start with.

I know I always get a lot of them under my rabbit cages.

All I do to get worms is pile up some leaves or manure or both and make sure they are wet. The worms will find it and will multiply as long as there is enough to eat -- but need the pile to be moist. Lasagna bed is fine.

The home I grew up in, and my sister's home next door were the only properties in my entire sphere of friends and relatives, that did not sustain any damage...

My sisters evacuated to Houston, and stayed here for two months. She received reports from home on how high the water was in our neighborhood. When she went home, she could see the floodline watermark on the house. She opened the door and looked in, expecting all the hardwood floors to be buckled. Nothing was out or order. She said is looked like she had gone on vacation for two months...

Only God could raise the water above the hardwood floors, yet keep it from entering a house...

I give continual praise!

Moisture being key - - - I will add some water next trip out the back door. Thanks for the tip.

Gymgirl, so very well said:
"Only God could raise the water above the hardwood floors, yet keep it from entering a house..."

Amazing story ~ you definitely are living right! :) Thanks for sharing with all of us.

Gymgirl: It is so hard to think of evacuatees in our own country who still can't go home.

There's a whole branch of my relatives who had been flooded out once (purposely by the city fathers), twice (another storm), and three times (Katrina). They rebuilt their homes the first two times. But, they are up in age now, and have permanently relocated to a strange new country called "Tennessee."

Tennessee is a strange country all right. But I have never known any one there not to give a big welcome to strangers. In the country that is. I owned a piece of land in Wayne County on the Natchez Trace. Had a twisted channel of two streams on it. It was very sad to sell that land. I also worked for 4 years north of Nashville on an archeological project on the Cumberland River. All in the stix. Don't like towns much.

I hope your relatives found a good place to live out their days.

DH and I LOVE Tennessee...........could be because of the small rural areas we vacation in remind us so much of home. :)
Gymgirl - - they say that the "third time is the charm" indeed it sounds like that was it was them. As long as they are happy and content in their new hopefully flood-free home, all is well. :-)

gloria - your patch of land sounds fantastic!!!!!!!! I can invision the twisted channel of two streams right now.......we have a small branch of water that runs through our entire place and to me, nothing is more calming than to sit and listen to the water trickle along. Makes for a great place to sit and read. As for towns, I too am NOT a town gal. YIKES. To say that I am a country "bumpkin" is putting it mildly. I live 27 miles away from anything remotely close to a "town" and that would be Dublin. For anyone who has been through Dublin, it has a little grocery store, a PO, a DQ, a Sonic and that is literally about it. :) OH, how could I forget the infamous Dublin Dr. Pepper plant! :) My point being that living in remote areas is what makes me happy and content. Would love to have seen your TN place.

TexasGardenMom: Me too. My place in Tenn. which I had to sell was a few miles out from Collinwood, Tn. You would need a magnifying glass to find that place on the map. Dublin is a huge town compared to Collinwood. I think there is a gas station there. Not sure if there is any gas at the gas station. The Natchez Trace of course is a national parkway, so there was quite an elegant entre. The land--22 acres had a braided stream channel and a small waterfall. At one point Beavers had moved in, and they really do make a mess. The Park Rangers were able to trap them and move them somewhere else. Oh, I hated to sell that place. But, I am no a rich person to have an estate in every State. I had no idea how I would sell it, since it was so far out in the Toolies (sp?).

One day a middle aged couple showed up at the house museum where I worked. They said they wanted to move, because their santuary in Alabama was being encroached upon. I guess my land is in good hands. I doubt if anybody is going to encroach upon that particular chunk of Tennessee.

Oh gloria, girl that place in Tennessee sounds just like something DH and I would have loved to purchase. Absolutely dreamy. We were last looking at a place just outside of of Gatlingburg and we both decided that it was a bit "touristy" for our taste. Gorgeous area though, tucked just outside of the Smoky Mountains.......mornings there were simply beautiful.
You know, nothing happens "just because"........sounds like your middle aged couple found their way to you for a reason and I bet they are as happy as can be.

I agree. They were God sent!

I hope they love it as much as I did.

http://www.rabbitsetc.com 352-796-0459 I bought three pounds for $30.00 plus $8.60 for shipping. That was the best deal that I could find when I was looking. Hope this helps, Mike

Hey Mike, great link and thank you for that. Will check it out today. I appreciate you sharing that with me! Have a terrific weekend.
Belinda

Your welcome, glad to help. I have been looking for yukon gold seed potatoes today. I ordered some from Gurney's in December and some more in January. I called them yesterday to see why I did not get them. The first lady I talked to was very rude in her way of telling me that my credit card denied both orders. I told her that I did get some items on both orders. She then said that they bill them as they send them. I called my credit card company and they said that they ran my card twice in one day and two more times the next couple of days and it looked suspicious so they denied it. I would have thought that Gurney's or the credit card company would have called or emailed me that there was a problem. I would have liked to have had them in the ground a couple of weeks ago. Tractor supply had one 5lb bag of yukon gold left and I bought it. If I can not find some tomorrow I will just plant what is available. Not actually about worms, but thats what was on my mind lol. Take care, Mike

Have you tried the Milk Ranch for seed potatoes? They have several varieties of yellow potato, including Yukon Gold. I've ordered from them for two years now and am very happy with the quality. I'm growing German Butterball, Desiree and Dutch Bintje this year.

http://www.milkranch.com/

Thanks mermaid, I already found some and put them in the ground today. I went to the milk ranch site for a possible source for next year, but found them to be a little pricey plus shipping. Definately more choices of potatoes though. Thanks anyway, Mike

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mike. That is what I love about DG - - - wealth of info, lots of great stories and so many good sources for a zillion different things! Earthworms are on the way!

Good deal. When I bought mine, I got one pound of red wigglers, one of european, and I believe the other was african. The red wigglers seemed the most active. Take care, Mike

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/623846/

Please be aware of the potential danger of imported worms.

Where is your compost pile? I bet there are worms living underneath your compost pile.

You don't have a compost pile? What?, I've never heard of such balderdash.
You must start a compost pile, right away - no time like the present.

I'm amazed at what wonderful progress the worms can make in my terrible ground around here - - - we are sitting in the midst of a sand/clay hill. Terrible drainage and terrible ph levels..........and yes, joepyeweed, I do have a compost pile (a large one as a matter of fact); but those worms are happy and content working in that area - - - I needed these earthworms as an additive to my gardens.........for aeration and also for their castings. Mike, do the red wigglers stay put as well as the africans? Just wondering how badly they "wandered" off? Thanks again! Belinda

As far as I can tell, they stayed pretty much where I put them. I put some in one of those 5 tier worm farm tea makers with a light over them the first week, some in the garden area scattered over 1/4acre, some in a compost pile, and for a select few lucky ones I made about a 10' x 10' area mixed with horse manure, dirt, and leaves with a tarp over it. I did see some there a month later under the tarp but there were ants there too. I dug into the ant area and looked again a few days later and the ants were gone. They probably just moved to another part of the tarped area. The ones in the 5 tier worm thingy are in the chicken house now so if they do not stay put they will be chicken feed. Oh yeah, whereever you put them, if you keep a light on close buy the first week they should get adjusted. Mike