Illiterate worms

[Owdboggy]

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?

 

[roadrunner]

This is a topic, where I wish I had a small plot of land with various soil types to play around with in attempting to build it up...but then again there are so many other factors, such as differences in climate, wildlife...that we all have to deal with.

I started out with very sandy soil, with virtually no soil life (of course not zero), but absolutely zero worms, just too dry and sandy, mostly thanks to mowing the grass and Florida's deadly sun.

I did start by heavily mulching with leaves collected around the neighborhood and the leaf litter does have "millions of molluscs" and they will eat away little seedlings, but I allowed weeds to grow, they can't get them all, because to make soil you must have plants in the ground. Furthermore, many of the hated plants in my area are actually very good at attracting pollinators and other beneficials. I have learned how to control these "weeds" so I can now grow whatever I want, but I still have the "weeds" in my yard, because I see them as beneficial and they've kind of grown on me. I do understand having to pull away leaves to start the cultivated little ones, else they become soil.

How deep is your layer of mulch? Does it stay moist year around at the bottom of the layer of mulch? Dry leaves don't get eaten by worms or much of anything, including the "millions of molluscs". The leaves much be constantly wet and having microscopic things growing on it before the worms are interested.

 

[Owdboggy]

The mulch is a couple of inches deep and even the Celandines are struggling to grow through it. The soil here is clay, but not that heavy. We think that in the past the leaves from the surrounding trees were collected and disposed of, rather than being used to increase the humus in the soil.
I have left some areas just covered with mulch and wet leaves (dry ones blow away) and dug over other places we shall see what happens.

 

[Woollie]

We had millions of lesser celandines on our 'very highwater table property' when living in Bexhill ...Claypot soil fed one side by huge Oaks sod the soil was fair. The non tree side was, apart from the Winter months, was solid clay with deep crevices, we tried adding the leaves but because that side was so well drained, the soil stayed fairly dead and leaves did not break down either...So maybe yours is too dry.
We had a Himalayan Honeysuckle in that area and it did stay small compared to what I have seen with ours here..it is growing well and have to prune it a tad...I think your only hope to improve it is to add your own compost/manure often...

 

[Owdboggy]

The soil at present is very damp. As most clays do it does dry somewhat in Summer, but not to the extent (so far) of cracking. The Snowdrops I planted have moved themselves down to about 9 inches in depth so I assume that the soil at that depth retains its moisture.
Bit hard to say how much things grow as the previous occupants only seem to have grown bedding out plants without doing anything other than feed them with artificial fertiliser.
It would have been nice to have bought and used a lorry load of manure as we did in all three of our previous gardens, but a. We no longer have contact with any farmers. b. Manure these days is like gold and c. The drive is a bit narrow for getting a nice big trailer of muck up it and I don't think we would have been popular having 20 tons of it dumped at the bottom of the drive. Not sure we could have barrowed it up either.
We shall see as we observe the local environment over the next few years. There is no hurry.

 

[roadrunner]

I use leaf litter, because it's easy to use on my sandy soil, but I also use a lot of wood that I collect, but not woodchips, just logs and stick, it's just more organic matter and provides a food source for the local woodpeckers.

What I've noticed is that worms love to bore thru old wood. I've seen this many times, where they disappear inside a log, much like you'd expect them to bore thru an apple core. However, the strangest thing I've seen is having baby worms (a large group of them) on top of an old log. I don't know how they get up there, since the top of it (where I find them) is 1-3/4 meters off the ground and these baby worms are only about 5mm in length, but they are earthworms.

My only theory is that adult worms are laying eggs within the log and the babies come to the top to feed on the stuff growing under the pile of bird feed I have on top of the log (I find them under the bird feed); they also probably feed off the log as well and then they go back into the pores of the log.

I say this, because maybe you should consider putting down logs in the soil, or even wood chips, instead of leaves and work them into the soil and even maybe work the leaves into the soil. Maybe that will make the job of the worms easier. Maybe they can't bring the leaves down into your clay soil, but that's just a guess.

I worked some clay soil once at my mom's house in Maryland, very thick stuff. I found a few worms in there and the did not have an easy time of getting thru that stuff.

I'd also consider growing some cover crops that are known to have clay-busting qualities, such as Fava Beans. I know there are other crops that can do this, but none coming to mind just yet...actually a few just jumped in there, say some sunflowers and millet....I know there are more types....

The woodpeckers really love the grubs

 

[Woollie]

A very interesting post @roadrunner Worms breeding, my tale..

..where our 1st house was in the UK (it's the one with the blue thingy on the steps year at the time was 1967) it had well over a metre climb to the front door. Husband and my late Dad built a new support wall with small flower beds in between then steps and another two walls to tie the front in nicely..One of the lower beds had a bit of a smell of gas so we got the gas people to test..no very low so no leak..well it got worse and worse. So we called them out again..the soil was filled with hundreds of small worms..turned out the small gas leak was the cause of all the worms being attracted to that situation.....

The Secret to a Longer (Worm's) Life: A Breath of Poison Gas

Small quantities of toxic hydrogen sulfide in the air lengthen life in a nematode by 70 percent

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[Owdboggy]

The mulch I put on was shreddings from the conifers etc. which totally filled this garden when we moved in, so plenty of wood bits in it. No sign of the mulch disappearing into the soil either. Be interesting to see what the soil is like where I have dug in the mulch and the l;eaves. That will wait until we can buy some plants to put in.
Our second garden was on a south facing sand dune. Despite putting 20 tons of manure on it every year, we never did find a worm except in the manure and they disappeared rapidly as well. Things grew well though.

 

[headfullofbees]

Try putting some dead vegetation under the mulch, like leek flags or veg peels; this will slightly warm the mulch & feed the worms.