most of us wouldn't give earthworms a
second glance but not Emma Sherlock
earthworms are her passion you see Emma
is curator of worms at the Natural
History Museum in London not only that
she's president of the earthworm Society
of Britain as Emma is about to reveal
there's far more to the humble earthworm
than first meets the eye
most people think we've only got one
species of earthworm in the UK but
that's really not true we actually have
about 27 different species
we've got stumpy green ones and they're
bright green stripy ones these ones when
they stretch out you'll really see the
stripes on them we call them tiger worms
because of the strikes we've got pink
ones we've got grey ones we've got ones
with black heads we've got some deep red
ones some a really large sort of 30
centimeters in length right down to some
adults being just a few centimetres so
massive diversity surprisingly
scientists like Emma know very little
about the distribution of these
different earthworm species sampling the
worms in your garden can help fill in
these gaps the best way to sample
earthworms really it's just to dig a
hole in the ground so I don't really dig
around the plot pull out the square I've
dug and then just go through it and try
and see how many earthworms are in here
and in a plot this size potentially it
could be 50 100 maybe even if it was a
really really rich batch maybe even up
to 200 earthworms so in an area the size
of a football field you could get maybe
as many as 2 million earthworms
all gardeners may that earthworms are
really really good for the soil but the
reason that is is because they are
borrowing down into the soil they're
letting air in letting carbon dioxide
out earthworms are the recyclers of the
planet
they are breaking down all the organic
rubbish and releasing all those
nutrients back into the soil to be used
again by the plants without earthworms
in our soils life will pretty quickly
dry up earthworms aren't just good for
the soil they're juicy muscular bodies
are perfect food for lots of other
wildlife birds just can't resist them
Badgers gorge on them 60% of their diet
is made up of worms and moles well they
can eat 50 grams of worms a day
it does seem they get rather picked on
by other animals one neat little trick
I'm gonna share with you is something to
actually get the deep bearing worth
worms to the surface without the heavy
digging and that's this what I've done
here is mix mustard powder with water
maybe around 2 tablespoons per liter in
a half bottle and then pour it on the
ground what this technique does is it
just irritates the worm slightly so they
come up to the surface earthworm
behavior is also fascinating not least
the way they reproduce
I'll let Emma explain earthworms are
hermaphrodites that means they have male
and female parts but they still sexually
reproduce so they find another earthworm
kind of glue themselves together pass
each other sperm and then when they've
broken off
they then each produce a cocoon which
then sits in the soil until the
conditions are right and then the babies
emerge
I love earthworms because they're so
amazingly important for our soils
there's such fascinating animals and
when you actually start to look at them
it's amazing the diversity and variety
of them the sizes the colors the
different jobs that they all do and yet
no one's out there looking at them and
they're working so hard under our feet I
hope you see them in a different light
now
you