Should I add worms to my SFG?

Marc Iverson wrote:Are they multiplying in your window boxes?  I have been wondering what's the minimum to get them breeding.

Worms are hermaphrodites (see below)


   An earthworm can grow only so long. A well-fed adult will depend on what kind of worm it is, how many segments it has, how old it is and how well fed it is. An Lumbricus terrestris will be from 90-300 millimeters long.

   A worm has no arms, legs or eyes.

   There are approximately 2,700 different kinds of earthworms.

   Worms live where there is food, moisture, oxygen and a favorable temperature. If they don’t have these things, they go somewhere else.

   In one acre of land, there can be more than a million earthworms.

   The largest earthworm ever found was in South Africa and measured 22 feet from its nose to the tip of its tail.

   Worms tunnel deeply in the soil and bring subsoil closer to the surface mixing it with the topsoil. Slime, a secretion of earthworms, contains nitrogen. Nitrogen is an important nutrient for plants. The sticky slime helps to hold clusters of soil particles together in formations called aggregates.

   Charles Darwin spent 39 years studying earthworms more than 100 years ago.

   Worms are cold-blooded animals.

   Earthworms have the ability to replace or replicate lost segments. This ability varies greatly depending on the species of worm you have, the amount of damage to the worm and where it is cut. It may be easy for a worm to replace a lost tail, but may be very difficult or impossible to replace a lost head if things are not just right.

   Baby worms are not born. They hatch from cocoons smaller than a grain of rice.

   The Australian Gippsland Earthworm grows to 12 feet long and can weigh 1-1/2 pounds.

   Even though worms don’t have eyes, they can sense light, especially at their anterior (front end). They move away from light and will become paralyzed if exposed to light for too long (approximately one hour).

   If a worm’s skin dries out, it will die.

   Worms are hermaphrodites. Each worm has both male and female organs. Worms mate by joining their clitella (swollen area near the head of a mature worm) and exchanging sperm. Then each worm forms an egg capsule in its clitellum.
   Worms can eat their weight each day.

I once collected nightcrawlers for fishing, if you'd like to see something interesting, take a flashlight, cover the bulb area some how with a red transparent material, red cellophane, etc.
After or during a warm summer rain (at night)  prowl the grassy area with the red light focused on the grass..
Tis an amazing world

Jimmy that was the first time I have seen a time frame with regards to light and worm death.  Interesting!

Another interesting fact
Worms (nightcrawlers) are very very sensitive to vibration, they will detect you walking and shrink back into their hole.
Their withdrawal into a hole is about as fast as a rattlesnake's strike.
A little bit of their tail will remain in the hole, when danger is detected, whammoo they are gone in a flash of light.

Once you have grown your first crop and harvested it the hair roots will be rotting in the bed .

 Like my compost bins the brandling compost worms appeared of their own violation there were and still are loads in my 20 x 36 inch  high raised beds .

 I don't get any worm damage to my veg roots or above ground stuff so I can only deduce that there is plenty of decaying food for them . I love having  their castings in the beds as it saves me money & enhances the crops.

 What I have noticed is that in the lower levels of the 36 inch deep beds , I have started to find plenty of lob worms around 8 to 10 inches long  they came from somewhere and it wasn't from me .
 That's also good news for it tells me that my beds are working well

I've been working this past week on 1 of my compost piles.
Screening and cleaning it up so I can use it.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I got to the bottom, never have I seen so many worms in one area, piles of them, all seemingly happy.
Probably came from fresh cow manure I added in the spring, tossed a few clumps in the other pile.
Man do I love composting..

Those  worms will have migrated from elsewhere in your property , they can scent or taste gasses and fluids from decomposing vegetable matter  .

I doubt that there are many areas of the world that can support plant life that do not have some form of worm that takes care of primary decomposition of plant matter