[QUOTE 4991204, member: 9609"]without worms your garden would probably die. They are truly wondrous creatures, ...[/quote]
Yup. Charles Darwin's OTHER important book ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Formation_of_Vegetable_Mould_through_the_Action_of_Worms
[QUOTE 4991204, member: 9609"]Just a thought and I don't know the answer to this - would we even have soil without worms ? If worms had never existed how differant would our flora be?[/QUOTE]
Hmm - light years from being knowledgeable on this. But we certainly wouldn't have the deep, fertile soils we have in the UK without worms.*
Beasts, bugs, creepy crawlies, and slitheries are an important part of soil formation wherever in the world ... but I can't think I ever saw evidence of worms in the soils of Egypt, Yemen, or Senegal. Lots of other beasties, but not worms, I don't think.
*
Except where intensive, chemical-based farming is killing off the worms and other good beasts, and therefore killing off the soil!
Don't know how old you are, but I remember the last days of horse-ploughing? And the little grey Fergie drawing it's wee three-blade plough? Followed by skirls of wheeling lapwings, and wheels of skirling gulls ... all after the worm and other juicies just turned over. Wonderful sight and sound. Such a normal part of the turning of the seasons.
All gone.
Now so many soils have been so degraded, as to be, effectively, dead concrete. There is no way on earth a wee grey Fergie (all of 20hp!) could plough the soils I see on my rides. Lord only knows what enormous power the giant John Deere tractors need to plough the "soil" these days.
"
Britain has only 100 years harvests left in its farm soil."
Killing worms and other beasties ... kills the soil.
