Invaders from below!

Earthworms - Threat or menace? I ask our local expert.

Dismissing any feelings of terror, Worm Lady of Charlestown Nancy Warner
plunges her hand into the worms' lair. Colleague Jenny Galli watches in awe.

By Will Collette

Last fall, my brother-in-law Mike O’Reilly continued our on-going repartee over the merits of one particular invasive species, the autumn olive. A shrub that can grow to tree size, the autumn olive puts out spicy fragrant flowers in the spring and an abundance of easy to pick, delicious berries in the late fall that are so nutritious that they qualify as a “super-food.” They are indeed invasive; they were imported into the US to reclaim strip mines since they will grow where nothing else will grow (and ironically, they generally won’t grow on good soil).

So Mike, who also happens to be the environmental officer for the Town of Dartmouth, MA (big deal) needles me for thinking that if every invasive species were like the autumn olive, we might have to re-think the concept. “Eat the berries,” he told me, “then cut every one of them down!” Even if I wanted to get rid of the autumn olives on our land, the only way to do that so they won’t grow back even stronger is to nuke them with chemicals.

Anyway, Mike decided to issue a new challenge, daring me to investigate the invasion of non-native earthworms that are destroying northern hardwood forests. As he put it, “Millions of acres of forests and gardens have been devoured by billions, nay trillions, of creepy crawly alien invaders”

This is not a joke, but a serious problem you can read about here, here and here.

Native earthworms were wiped out and pushed south in the last Ice Age. New European worms came in as part of the ballast of ships. More worms end up in the environment thanks to fishermen tossing out their unused but still live bait worms.

If you fish, you can cast your worms out into the water, but not the woods

These invasive worms cause their damage by eating away at the forests’ “duff” layer. Walk in any of Charlestown’s woods and you’ll feel the thick, soft layer of decaying leaves and vegetation that is vital to our forests’ health. As bugs, bacteria and fungi eat away at this layer, they release nutrients into the soil and also serve as the seed bed that replenishes the woodland.

So if worms are such a threat, then why does Charlestown play host to The Worm Ladies of Charlestown, I wondered? After all, Charlestown is ever vigilant to attack and destroy any and all threats to our rustic arboreal paradise. How did the Worm Ladies go unchallenged?

Going straight to the source (which also happens to be about half a mile from my house), I visited with head Worm Lady Nancy Warner at Worm Ladies Central on East Beach Road.

Red Wigglers, a.k.a. Rhody Worms, the good kind

Nancy and her husband Jim live in a charming home on four acres of woods. Her backyard is dominated by rabbit hutches for her angora rabbits – she weaves with their wool – and a bunch of large composters that are filled to the brim with compost and red wigglers (Eisenia fetida).

Nancy made it clear from the start that her red wigglers are entirely different than the worms that have scared the castings out of my brother-in-law. Unlike the bad worms, red wigglers are surface feeders that do not migrate. Like most worms, they don’t like light, but don’t go deep.

Nancy told me that she started with the rabbits while she was still living in Maryland. Rabbits produce lots of manure and manure attracts flies. To solve this nasty problem, Nancy bought some red wigglers from Arkansas and discovered that they provided a simple ecological solution to the manure problem.

When she and Jim moved to Rhode Island to live in the house her mother had owned, she moved her rabbits and red wigglers with her. She now calls them “Rhody Worms™.” I asked her if she also gave them individual names. She gave me a look and said no.

They're very photogenic little critters even though they are not keen on being out in the daylight.

Nancy is in the vanguard of the growing movement of people who promote composting as a great way to reduce as much as 35% of the waste that otherwise ends up in landfills. And for your effort, you get a wonderful garden additive. Cathy and I have been composting ever since we moved to Charlestown and can attest to its ease and usefulness.

Adding Rhody Worms™ to your compost – called vermicomposting – speeds up the process tremendously.

Her website is loaded with tips on composting in general, but as you might expect, especially on composting with worms. 

I told Nancy that I use a composting barrel that I can turn by pushing it with my foot. I asked her if the worms would get crushed if I did that. She told me that if I used red wigglers, I wouldn’t need to turn the barrel anymore, since the worms would do all the work.

I waited till spring to write the article, despite my brother-in-law’s taunts, to catch readers when they are thinking about their gardens. But the Rhody Worms™ do their work year-round. The cold slows them down a lot, as you might imagine, but Nancy said she doesn’t find many that freeze.

She still has her angora rabbits, too, and turns their wool into “wearable art” and yarn. I was tempted to ask – but didn’t – whether she ever considered knitting a warm cozy for the worms…

Nancy also makes concentrated organic fertilizer from the worm castings (“poop”). Worm “tea” is castings plus water. The primo stuff is “worm brew” which is aerated tea done using this recipe - click here.

You can find everything you need to get started on the Worm Ladies website. Or you can visit – call ahead, or drop by their open house on May 4^th, 10 AM – 3 PM.