Earthworms have a top place in the garden ecosystem. They help to maintain the quality of the soil by recycling decaying material, mixing up the top layers and improving drainage. They also increase the fertility of the soil. Worms can create 2.5cm of rich topsoil in about five years compared to between 500 and 1000 years without them. The number of worms in the soil depends on its quality, but your lawn probably has about 25 worms in every cubic foot! Building a wormery is a brilliant way to observe worms burrowing through the soil and going about their daily lives. What to do... 1. First catch your earthworms! You'll need about 10. Worms come to the surface when it is wet and they prefer the dark. You could either wait for a very rainy night and then go out hunting for them, or you could pour a couple of watering cans of water onto a patch of soil and see what comes to the surface. Another idea is to place a piece of old carpet on top of the soil. Leave it there for a day or so before taking it off to see what creatures have collected underneath. Be brave, there may be all sorts of creepy-crawlies, but they will scuttle away very quickly, leaving you to pick up the worms. 2. Cut the top off a large plastic soft drinks bottle. 3. Fill the bottle up with alternate layers of damp soil and soft sand, making each layer about 3 cm deep. 4. Place some leaves on the surface of the top layer and then place your earthworms on the top. 5. Worms like the dark, so cover the outside of the bottle with a tube made of a thick layer of black paper or cardboard to keep the light out. Make sure the soil is kept damp but definitely not wet, and store the container in a cool place. 6. You can check on the earthworms’ activities by taking off the paper tube and seeing how they tunnel through the earth, churning up the soil and sand layers. The may also have dragged some of the leaves from the surface down into the soil. After a week or so it will probably be time to let the earthworms go. Release them back into your garden where they can continue their valuable work – but make sure they wriggle away before the birds can get them! Go back