Bum
Information Number Six: I'm always appalled by the
suggestion of an occasional gardener that earthworms have a negative impact on
lawns and gardens! "Well," they say, "they make these
little piles of dirt all over the place. It looks like they're tearing up my
lawn. That can't be good!"
The short response to that statement is, "Baloney!"
Earthworms are, without a doubt, the best thing that ever happens in a
garden's soil foundation. At somewhere in the range of 100,000 or more of them
in an average acre of responsibly-maintained soil (soil that hasn't been
damaged by over-use of chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides), earthworms
recycle enormous quantities of organic matter, aerate the soil with their vast
complex of underground tunnels, and those little mounds of soil
(worm-castings) are positively loaded with nutrition—free fertilizer. Most
people are surprised to learn that worm-castings contain five or six times the
nitrogen (for foliage), about eight times the phosphorus (for flowers), at
least twice the calcium and magnesium, and over eleven times the potash (for
strength, disease resistance, winter survivability) as the best garden or
farmland topsoil found anywhere in the US! Entire industries have sprung up
for the harvesting, marketing and promotion of the virtues of—you guessed it: worm-castings.
It's true that golfers aren't fond of those little mounds
of "dirt" that get in the way of their little white ball, but
gardeners should revel in this wonderful resource.
