Since the weather cooled off I've noticed that my driveway has turned into a worm farm each morning. Is there something about the cooler nights that causes them all to commit suicide?

Mating. Worms are much more active in cooler weather and tend to stop or slow down a lot in summer. They're most active in spring and fall.

Damper, cooler nights mean go visiting, find a new home if necessary, locate a mate, and so on.

They are destroying my Reno lol. They are making holes and leaving worm castings all over.

[ Post made via Android ]

That's a Good Thing in the long run. Those castings are prime fertilizer, and the natural, gentle aeration will help your soil considerably.

i have a family of robins living off my worms.

Worms are a great sign that you're getting the soil life up-to-par.

Not to mention, they're good eatin' too!.

Yeh they frequent ONLY my lawn and backyard. Nobody else's!

Don't complain. Of the properties around here, I have worms. Nobody else really does.

Tiny worm busses and cabs arrive hourly out front delivering refugees from surrounding properties.

its weird that i really havent done much with soil conditioning yet as far as organic goes. I've only been doing MO at double bag rate monthly for the last 4 months, molasses and Nitron.

MO at double rate is an enormous amount of organic material--worms really like bacteria and fungi, so that will increase reproduction. Molasses, ditto. Nitron's a neutral, it doesn't really help or hinder, but does help get some OM down into the soil where the worms like it.

Ten to one your population wasn't bad to begin with.

here i am thinking i should be applying MO every week!

You can, and this month I have (plus soybean meal). But it's certainly not required.

I've got tons of worms on my lawn. Every morning I catch a half dozen or so and throw them back. I also get a bunch of robins every morning and they've always got worms in their mouths. In heavy rain, which we got a lot of this summer, the ground is moving with them. I know they indicate good soil and provide aeration, but their castings disrupted a few areas early in my reno and the sprouts in those areas got smothered. Most of the weeds and sedge in my lawn are rooted in worm castings, and all these worms attracted moles, whose tunnels potentially attracted voles. The other day i dug up a bare area in my reno (later discovered was caused by a guest's dog urine when seeds were sprouting) and there were 4 earthworms about 2 inches below the surface in a 3" x 5" inch space. I wish there was an easy way to turn them down a notch in my lawn without wiping them out completely. Hopefully the cooler weather sends them deeper into the soil.

so those little dirt volcanos are probably worms and their castings?

Yes, and expecting to have a good, organically-fed, balanced soil without worm casting "volcanoes" is a little like saying that you want to participate in water sports, but don't like getting wet.

andy10917 wrote:Yes, and expecting to have a good, organically-fed, balanced soil without worm casting "volcanoes" is a little like saying that you want to participate in water sports, but don't like getting wet.

i dont mind them i just never knew that was what they were. I was hoping it was something that was not bad, which it isnt I was glad to see worms in 2 years this is the first time I have see a single worm in my lawn/driveway.

my little volcanoes are starting to eat fallen leaves.

Buying worms at a bait store and throwing them on your lawn... good idea? bad idea? No duh idea?

crewdawg wrote:Buying worms at a bait store and throwing them on your lawn... good idea? bad idea? No duh idea?

It can work if you buy nightcrawlers, but other worms won't do well in the soil.

If you don't have enough OM to feed them, though, they'll die off. And if you have enough OM, you should probably have worms unless you're in a new subdivision where the soil was scraped clean and no worms have been brought in from anywhere (it's very common for them to hitch rides in potted plants).