{"id":19799,"date":"2023-03-08T08:04:53","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T13:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/?p=19799"},"modified":"2023-03-08T08:04:53","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T13:04:53","slug":"earthworms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/","title":{"rendered":"Earthworms"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOW EARTHWORMS BENEFIT OUR SOIL<\/h3>\n

Some people are freaked out when they see earthworms. Earthworms aren\u2019t everybody\u2019s favorite. I get that. But having earthworms in your soil is an excellent sign in many ways. Earthworms provide many benefits to healthy, productive soils, and wise gardeners do everything they can to maintain healthy populations of earthworms in the ground.<\/p>\n

There are many different species of earthworms throughout the world. The \u201cnight crawler\u201d is the most common species in Central Virginia. Did you know that our night crawlers are not native? It is thought that they were accidentally brought to North America by European settlers in the soil of plants they brought with them.<\/p>\n

Smile and count your lucky stars if you see earthworms in your soil. Seeing earthworms is a sign that you have healthy soil. More worms mean more organic material being created in your soil.<\/p>\n

HERE ARE TWO BENEFITS OF HAVING EARTHWORMS IN YOUR SOIL<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Worms eat plant debris and soil. Their \u201cpoop,\u201d or worm castings, is full of nitrogen which is then available to plants.<\/li>\n
  2. Worms channel through our soil, which loosens and aerates the soil and improves soil drainage.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    HOW TO ENCOURAGE EARTHWORMS IN YOUR SOIL<\/h3>\n
      \n
    1. Keep the soil pH above 4.5. Earthworms do not like acid soils. Using lime to keep the pH from being too acidic is essential to encourage a healthy earthworm population.<\/li>\n
    2. Here in Central Virginia, we tend to have compacted clay soil. Can worms live in and break up clay soil? The quick answer is No, not very well. To help encourage more worms in your soil, you need to start by incorporating organic compost into the clay. You need to keep clay soil moist and soft for worms to dig through the soil. Gypsum is an excellent product to encourage worms to live in clay soil.<\/li>\n
    3. Worms need reasonably aerated soil with improved drainage. You need to reduce soil compaction.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Did you know that there are worm farms? These farms collect the worm \u201cpoop\u201d from the soil and produce bags of earthworm castings. This product is readily available. We carry a good selection of worm castings. Worm castings are an excellent all-natural plant food that comes to you directly from Mother Nature. Worm castings are a non-burning, long-lasting organic fertilizer for all plants. It\u2019s a soil builder! Start adding worm castings to your different gardens. And soon, you will have your own worms doing their magic to your soil and plants.<\/p>\n

      HAPPY GARDENING!!!!!!!!!!!!<\/em><\/p>\n

      To read more posts from Doug, visit our blog<\/a><\/p>\n

      Return to the Great Big Greenhouse homepage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      HOW EARTHWORMS BENEFIT OUR SOIL Some people are freaked out when they see earthworms. Earthworms aren\u2019t everybody\u2019s favorite. I get that. But having earthworms in your soil is an excellent sign in many ways. Earthworms provide many benefits to healthy, productive soils, and wise gardeners do everything they can to maintain healthy populations of earthworms … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":19800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[289,181,290,291],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEarthworms - The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some people are freaked out when they see earthworms. Earthworms aren\u2019t everybody\u2019s favorite. But having them in the soil is excellent.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Earthworms - The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some people are freaked out when they see earthworms. Earthworms aren\u2019t everybody\u2019s favorite. But having them in the soil is excellent.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Doug Hensel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Doug Hensel\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b2dd1f1c9555f3f037eabcbfe0fc6c40\"},\"headline\":\"Earthworms\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/\"},\"wordCount\":431,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"earthworms\",\"soil\",\"soil health\",\"worm castings\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Gardening with Doug\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/\",\"name\":\"Earthworms - The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00\",\"description\":\"Some people are freaked out when they see earthworms. Earthworms aren\u2019t everybody\u2019s favorite. But having them in the soil is excellent.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":750,\"caption\":\"Several earthworms in the soil\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Earthworms\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog\",\"description\":\"The plants you expect. The people you know. The experience you\u2019ll remember.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/08\/GBGH-logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/08\/GBGH-logo.png\",\"width\":400,\"height\":315,\"caption\":\"The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b2dd1f1c9555f3f037eabcbfe0fc6c40\",\"name\":\"Doug Hensel\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/author\/dhensel\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Earthworms - The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog","description":"Some people are freaked out when they see earthworms. Earthworms aren\u2019t everybody\u2019s favorite. But having them in the soil is excellent.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Earthworms - The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog","og_description":"Some people are freaked out when they see earthworms. Earthworms aren\u2019t everybody\u2019s favorite. But having them in the soil is excellent.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/","og_site_name":"The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog","article_published_time":"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":750,"url":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Doug Hensel","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/"},"author":{"name":"Doug Hensel","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b2dd1f1c9555f3f037eabcbfe0fc6c40"},"headline":"Earthworms","datePublished":"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00","dateModified":"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/"},"wordCount":431,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg","keywords":["earthworms","soil","soil health","worm castings"],"articleSection":["Gardening with Doug"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/","url":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/","name":"Earthworms - The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg","datePublished":"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00","dateModified":"2023-03-08T13:04:53+00:00","description":"Some people are freaked out when they see earthworms. Earthworms aren\u2019t everybody\u2019s favorite. But having them in the soil is excellent.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/doug-blog-earthworms.jpg","width":1000,"height":750,"caption":"Several earthworms in the soil"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/earthworms\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Earthworms"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/","name":"The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog","description":"The plants you expect. The people you know. The experience you\u2019ll remember.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#organization","name":"The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog","url":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/08\/GBGH-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/08\/GBGH-logo.png","width":400,"height":315,"caption":"The Great Big Greenhouse Gardening Blog"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b2dd1f1c9555f3f037eabcbfe0fc6c40","name":"Doug Hensel","url":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/author\/dhensel\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19802,"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19799\/revisions\/19802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meadowsfarms.com\/great-big-greenhouse-gardening-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}