Healthy Soil, No Worms in Sight, I Don't Get It! Thoughts?

[NatGreeneVeg]

I'm a long time gardener but I haven't had enough time to delve into the depths of soil knowledge as much as I should. I'm a big believer in healthy soil yields healthy plants. Get your soil test and don't use synthetic products.

Now, I did a soil test this spring. We didn't need to amend according to the test. This is for a public demonstration garden where the produce is donated to a local food bank that serves 29 counties.

Well, our vegetable garden literally turned into a jungle. And I learned just how vigorous grafted tomato plants can be. I grafted them myself, they turned into monster plants. We planted mini zinnias, marigolds, and other low growing flowering plants along the paths because they were supposed to be small. Well, everything grew so well, they grew over the paths. The marigolds and zinnias were supposed to be no more than 12"-14" inches tall. The marigolds were 3 feet and the zinnias were 4-5 feet tall.

This garden has only had compost added every year made from the city's yard waste recycling program. No synthetic fertilizers.

I've been volunteering in this garden every other year for seven years. This season I was in charge of it. In all the time I've worked in the garden, I've only ever seen literally a handful of worms... less than 10 total. The other surrounding beds which are amended according to what's being grown in them seem to have worms.

Here is a copy of the soil test.

To see the garden, look

here

here

. There's no doubt in my mind that the soil will make plants grow. I just don't understand the lack of worm population. Can someone please explain this to me? Any theories?

[bunkerbob]

Originally Posted by NatGreeneVeg

I'm a long time gardener but I haven't had enough time to delve into the depths of soil knowledge as much as I should. I'm a big believer in healthy soil yields healthy plants. Get your soil test and don't use synthetic products.

Now, I did a soil test this spring. We didn't need to amend according to the test. This is for a public demonstration garden where the produce is donated to a local food bank that serves 29 counties.

Well, our vegetable garden literally turned into a jungle. And I learned just how vigorous grafted tomato plants can be. I grafted them myself, they turned into monster plants. We planted mini zinnias, marigolds, and other low growing flowering plants along the paths because they were supposed to be small. Well, everything grew so well, they grew over the paths. The marigolds and zinnias were supposed to be no more than 12"-14" inches tall. The marigolds were 3 feet and the zinnias were 4-5 feet tall.

This garden has only had compost added every year made from the city's yard waste recycling program. No synthetic fertilizers.

I've been volunteering in this garden every other year for seven years. This season I was in charge of it. In all the time I've worked in the garden, I've only ever seen literally a handful of worms... less than 10 total. The other surrounding beds which are amended according to what's being grown in them seem to have worms.

Here is a copy of the soil test.

To see the garden, look here. There's no doubt in my mind that the soil will make plants grow. I just don't understand the lack of worm population. Can someone please explain this to me? Any theories?

You might be suspect of the compost from the city. My brother-in-law ran his own tractor/trailer rig for years and watched them dump almost everything into the local compost pile the county maintained, including oil, diesel and the like. This is not monitored closely enough. Look for a good supply of manures, horse and cow, that is what I use, horse manure needs a little more time to break down though. I also purchased a couple of thousand red worms to bolster the population.

[NaeKid]

Just going to try to link-in the video one more time for you:

YouTube - Vegetable Garden | Potager Montage NatGreeneVeg Spring 2009