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Illiterate worms

PalustrisPalustris Posts: 4,307
in The potting shed
Perceived wisdom is to leave fallen leaves on the soil as mulch. Also to mulch clay soil. the worms  etc. are supposed to  take this down into the soil and improve it. Well my worms have not read the book. The leaves which fell 2 years ago are still lying on the surface, brown admittedly but not pulled down into the  soil. The mulch is also still there on top. I am now having to clear away leaves and mulch so that the plants underneath are not rotting away or being eaten by the millions of molluscs hiding in the leaf litter.
There are plenty of worms in the soil, ask the Robin who helps me dig, but the clay is just as empty of humus as if we had done nothing. The only part of the garden where the soil is of reasonable quality is in the Veg patch where I have dug in manure and limed it.
So the question is, Is the wisdom correct or are my worms lazy little tykes?
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  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Have you given them a copy of the appropriate handbook @Palustris?

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • CeresCeres Posts: 2,698
    Maybe they were overwhelmed by the scale of the job and thought it best to let you dig it over a bit first.
  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    Maybe you don't have the right sort of worms?:

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    or maybe they just prefer nice juicy manure to dry old dead leaves.

    I've just emptied 2 bags of manure onto a small raised bed ready to plant rhubarb and there were loads of worms in the bag.    A week or so ago I tipped out plastic bags of partially rotted leaves and leaf mould and not a worm in sight. 
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • PalustrisPalustris Posts: 4,307
    The worms are supposed to be in the soil and pull the leaves down into it, here they don't seem to. There is a layer of well rotted leaves in one part of the garden where they have obviously lain for a very long time, the soil underneath is solid clay with no sign of any of the leaf mould ever being incorporated by worms or microbes. The leaves by the way are a mix of Beech, Birch, Sycamore, Oak and Rowan, fairly standard for Britain.
    BUT the advice often given is to leave the leaf littler on top and it will be incorporated into the soil. Digging destroys the soil structure, so they say, but if the humus is not going in then what else is there to do but dig it in?
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    I have often seen this advice, too, but I don't believe it. I have a theory that a lot of people BELIEVE they have clay soil but they have never seen the real article. I have spent 30 years digging in muck and grit to my solid soil and the results are excellent, but if I'd waited for the worms to do it then it would take about a century. Dig, dig, dig. It's the only way.
  • SporophyteBoySporophyteBoy Posts: 118
    BobtheGardener is on the right track, there are about 30 - 40 earthworms worthy of the name to gardeners - all with different habits, desires and expectations, for instance, only a few make wormcasts and most of this type will roll up leaves and pull them down into the soil because they live in a burrow. Other types, such as those preferred by the Robins around me - are much smaller and noticeably twitch when exposed to the light - pretty daft thing to do when there's Robins about but I'm not a worm - may be there's a long term evolutionary benefit I'm missing!

    Posy also makes sense - if purely natural processes could be relied upon, we could all just sit in our gardens and watch them produce whatever we wanted, reality is somewhat different. Nature will produce something on each piece of ground but generally not what we want - so I'm afraid it's forks out and heads down.

    My own allotments have vastly differing worm numbers and types yet they are quite close on the same site, our plots are roughly 45 Sqmtrs each, I have 8 in full cultivation in two blocks again roughly rectangular. One block is relatively level on the top of a gently rolling hill and the other on a small gradient downhill, the site is very open and gets full sun all day apart from the last bit of sunset as it sinks behind the hedge. Along that hedge the soil is much more clayey than the rest and has produced large quantities of flints from fist size down, this area has few small worms but two or three big pink jobs in virtually every forkful. Only ten metres away the soil is more loamy and darker with more small worms and hardly any big ones. The story is similar on the plots downhill with one half supporting a good worm load but in half the other half hardly any. The first area was cut out of a field left fallow for years but some of it was a plot in times past as I dug up the number peg. The rest were overgrown derelicts but have lovely dark brown earth. I have dug the whole lot to distraction for up to seven years - sometimes three times in a season and added loads of Eco green waste compost, rotted stable manure and most green matter produced is recycled.    
  • PalustrisPalustris Posts: 4,307
    edited March 2021
    The substrate here is clay, but not the really heavy Boulder clay of our first ever garden. That was what we used to call 'get taller clay', as you got taller walking across it as it stuck to one's boots. It is full of fibrous tree roots too as the garden is surrounded by big trees (with TPO's on them). It is fairly easy to dig (except where previous people have dumped stuff).
    My point actually was that just expecting the soil to magically improve itself, structurally, by doing nothing to it just does not work. The advice given to let the worms and microbes do the job is frequently given on here and by soi-dit experts. I wish it did, my back is very averse to digging these days.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I must have the mixing worms, then. Obviously,they're not going to remove a few inches of leaves without a little help so sometimes I jiggle the top few inches of soil but I wouldn't actually call it digging. 
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    I don't think anyone is saying that you can put a layer of organic matter down on poor soil and expect to be able to grow anything successfully within a few years.  Indeed, compacted and other 'poor' soils will need to be broken up and organic stuff dug-in if you want to use it immediately.  The point is once that has been done, there is no need for annual digging, once the Anecic worms arrive and a thick mulch of manure etc laid in the autumn is all that is needed in the future to keep the soil healthy, well drained and productive. :)
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
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