Talkback: Worms: It's warmer down below

Posts

• Gardeners' World Web User Posts: 17,147

  January 2009

  My husband was digging his veg patch last week quite deeply and unearthed a small sleepy toad much to our surprise. We didn't know whether to put it back in and cover it up or what, so in the end it hopped over to the log pile.
  As the next night was v.cold, I fear we might have killed it.
  What should we have done?

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• Gardeners' World Web User Posts: 17,147

  January 2009

  well dat is verry good to see and sorrry to hear about ure hamsters

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• Gardeners' World Web User Posts: 17,147

  January 2009

  and i was digging my self in my allopment up in north yorkshire nd as i was digging theye must of been hundreds of then theye kept on popping up nd a few blackbirds kept flydown eating them all as we wa diggin

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• Gardeners' World Web User Posts: 17,147

  January 2009

  Reply to Liz. There is not much you can do when unearthing something buried deep. You will never be able to recreate the exact texture of the soil around it and I suspect that if you had re-buried the toad, you might have entombed it for good. Toads are pretty tough things and although the night may have been cold, the log pile would have given some shelter. It probably scraped out a new hideaway under the wood.

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• Gardeners' World Web User Posts: 17,147

  January 2009

  Had a disasterous day last weekend fishing out dead frogs from my pond. It is approx.3mx2m approx.70-cm deep - raised. Well protected I thought but it did freeze over in the last long cold week we had. Could this what caused them to perish? What do I do in preparation for next year??

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• Gardeners' World Web User Posts: 17,147

  June 2009

  I am looking for help/advice on earth worms versus nz flatworms NO earthworms present in new garden but 1 nz fw and 2 cocooons HELP

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• Gardeners' World Web User Posts: 17,147

  June 2009

  Reply to gailms
  The furore about New Zealand flatworms seems to have fizzled out from the almighty to-do a few years ago. The promised ravages never occurred, and in most parts of the country earthworms continue to dig and burrow. I suspect that even if the flatworms are present in your garden, earthworms will still be around. The ecologist in me wants to reassure you that if the flatworms eat all the worms, they will starve themselves. So the worms will come back. At the other end of the ecological possibility spectrum the flatworms will have no appreciable effect on the worm population, which will continue as usual. The likelihood is that real events will be somewhere in between.

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• Gardeners' World Web User Posts: 17,147

  November 2011

  I had the job of digging a hole for my daughters hamster yesterday and for all its been freezeing temps I to was surprised to to see the worms and the soil was'nt hard at all, even though the boarders have ice which is covering the edges of the lawn on them. The little daffs are pokeing through and you can see all the flower heads so to are the snowdrops and the day lillies have started to grow.Roll on spring and happy gardening.

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• Nestleaver1 Posts: 2

  May 2013

  NZ flatworms HAVE ravaged my garden, from a walnut tree bought for me (from a reputable family-run nursery) about 6 years ago they have spread and destroyed the earthworm population.  These days I am surprised and delighted to see an earthworm...

  I set traps for them; they like to curl up under rocks or slates laid flat on the soil.  I have about 6 traps and check under them every morning.  I feed the ones I find to the chickens so I know for sure they are dead.  Still keep finding more; one morning I found 5 massive ones.  Very depressing.

  Hope you manage to keep them under control.  Apparently they don't like the heat so if we have a scorching summer they might all die.

  KT

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