Providing ourselves and our loved ones with a clean and healthy home environment is the one domain we can truly have control over. What we clean with, what we put on our skin, what we eat and how we grow; we have a choice on how we take care of these areas.

To manage your own chemical free garden, growing, harvesting, preparing and consuming your own chemical free nutrient dense foods, knowing your roses will bloom bright - naturally, feeling the satisfaction of growing just as mother nature intended is a gift to the well-being of yourself and those you share it with. So how does the worm fit into this?

It has always been a given that the presence of worms in the garden is a barometer to a healthy soil. But why so?

Just as we are now recognising the importance of gut health in human well-being we are now also acknowledging the importance of soil health in plant health. There is both a parity and an analogy in this statement as each is connected to the next .. particularly important in edible gardens where biologically rich soil grows nutrient dense food with bioavailable nutrients which provide robust nutrition. Explained by renowned world leader in sustainable agriculture, Graeme Sait, “Consider the soil the plants’ stomach, an external stomach from which it draws all its nutritional requirements. And know that within the soil, around the root zone of plants exists a microbial food chain that is more diverse and complex than the food chain in the macro world.” 

A square metre of good healthy rich soil can contain up to 7 billion living organisms. What a blow out!

Within this underground party there is hummus, the single most important component in productivity. “It is the home base in which microorganisms live, it is the soil glue and the storage system for carbon, water & minerals.”

So here’s the key, worms have 4 times more capability to build hummus than any other known hummus building strategy. 

They oxygenate the soil, burrowing and leaving behind slimes and glues, enhancing soil structure.

In addition their castings or excrement are jam packed with a diverse array of beneficial microbes making them a premium living fertiliser. 

Graeme quotes “Castings contain 10 time more potassium, 7 times more phosphorous, 5 times more nitrogen and 3 x more magnesium than the surrounding soil.”

In short, worms and their deposits are the quite achievers, our soil engineers and the workforce in creating a healthy soil foodweb. And a healthy soil foodweb is the perfect environment from which to grow nutrient dense edible food, thriving blooms, vibrant lawns and know that you have acted just as mother nature intended.

So get a wriggle on and become your own soil warrior. No Worm of a Lie!