Whether you’re a beginner gardener, a soon to be worm parent or a compost enthusiast, hopefully you’ll leave this article with some new valuable knowledge, even if they’re only tiny tidbits.
Speaking of tiny; lets talk about the true Soil Savers…that’s right the ORIGINAL Biome Builders…I’m talking about the wigglin’ wooooonders of the woooorld…composting worms. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘holy crap! I want some Soil Savers…no I NEED some soil savers’...your mind jumps to the worms in your driveway after the last rainstorm, or to your local gas station or bait shop, you even think about that one time your dogs poop had worms in it (straight nightmare fuel if you’ve ever seen it!) BUT WAIT! Not all worms are the right kind of worm! Earthworms are a type of worm that have a knack for composting and breaking down organic matter. But even then there are over 9000 different types of Earthworms!!!
Some of those worms like it hot while some of them like it cold. Some worms are very very small, while others like the “Prussian Blue” worm grow up to 6 feet long and they look like a legitimate gummy worm. But out of those 9000 worms we can divide them up into 3 categories; anecic (an-EE-sik), endogeic (en-doe-JEE-ik), and epigeic (epi-JEE-ik). Anecic worms are the big fat creepy crawlers that come to mind when you think of a textbook worm. These guys live in vertical burrows beneath the soil and eat soil with a little leaf salad time to time. Endogeic worms are smaller than they’re nightcrawling counterparts but they also live in the soil. They also live in horizontal burrows instead of vertical burrows and love to eat soil. And that leaves us with Epigeic worms, or our composting worms. These little guys have a taste for the finer things in life. They prefer to live above the soil, and they refuse to eat it (they tell me it tastes like dirt). They love to live in and eat litter, leaves, yard waste, compost, and manure.
(Prussian Blue; photo from Australian Geographic)
Out of all those worms…only 7 are the real compost crusaders. Red Wigglers (eisenia fetida), Red Tigers (eisenia andrei), European Nightcrawlers (eisenia hortensis/dendrobaena veneta), Red Earthworm (lumbricus rubellus), Blue Worm or Indian Blues (perionyx excavatus), African Nightcrawlers (eudrilus eugeniae) and the Alabama/Georgia Jumper (Amynthas gracilis). The first 4 worms listed are all temperate species which means they prefer cooler climates, while the last 3 are tropical species and they prefer it warmer. The 4 most common types of composting worms commonly found online are Red Wigglers, Indian Blues, European and African Nightcrawlers. VERMILUV uses a blend of Red Wigglers and Indian Blues because we feel that worm castings from multiple worms is far superior to worm castings from just one kind of worm.
While currently we don’t offer live worms thru our website we care about the vermi-community deeply and would love to point you in the right direction to fulfill your worm dreams. If you’re looking to buy your own worms we personally got started with some red wigglers from Brothers Worm Farm in Texas, and we’ve also heard great things from our local friend Captain Matt and his worm farm as well as Meme’s Worms down in Georgia.