The compost-type (likely red wiggler) worms generally live in the above-ground layers of mulch and/or organic matter. When I first built my raised beds, the horse manure I got came with a nice supply of these guys. That supply has grown quite well.

These guys were polishing off some pumpkin I buried in the garden last winter. (click if you care to enlarge)

From Tales of a Transplanted Gardener

From what I understand, worms work on a "if you build it they will come" sort of theory- meaning feed them (by adding organic matter) and they'll find it. If that theory doesn't work (and frankly, I might have my doubts out here), perhaps I could dig some up for you :-) (if I'm remembering right, you live very nearby?)

There's my non-scientific summary as I understand it. I hope it's at least slightly helpful.

These are the worms I was finding in my Compost Pile Potato Garden last year when I was digging up the potatoes one time. The potato garden is filled with half-finished compost, and there were a lot of worms anyway, but there were amazing concentrations of them wherever I found one of the tiny potatoes that had started to rot. Here’s a pic of one of the tangles of worms—after half of them had "disappeared" while I went to get the camera!

And I also discovered, quite by accident, that when I leave bags of leaves laying on top of the soil in my veggie garden in fall, the worms live and procreate under the bags all winter—protected from the cold by the leaf insulation! It’s impossible to get a good picture of them, because as soon as I lift a bag to take a picture, the red wigglers IMMEDIATELY disappear into the ground! But here’s a pic of the big ones (night crawlers?) that are left when the red wigglers have disappeared!

And since I discovered that I can "grow" worms under the bags all winter, I now intentionally spread the bags out to cover as much surface of the veggie garden over winter as I can—especially in the areas with the poorest soil. I’ve been doing this for two years now, and I can hardly believe how many worms I have now compared to when I started. Here’s a pic with some of the remaining bags of leaves on March 18 of this year, and I left them spread out for as long as I could. Besides the warmth the bags provide, the worms apparently love to eat the remaining grass mulch that I’ve been using in the veggie garden all summer!

If you have somewhere where you can build a compost pile directly on the soil—even if it’s a fairly small one, the worms will migrate up into it and happily procreate for you! I’ve never tried this, but I suspect that if you lift parts of the pile and put wet kitchen scraps directly on the surface of the soil (under the "other" composting stuff), you’ll get an even better migration into the pile. From what I’ve seen, just adding a little bit of organic matter/compost to the soil in general doesn’t make much difference. It’s where they have a big, easy supply of food that they’ll really proliferate, and then you can "transplant" them to where you want them.

Worms are GOOD!

Skybird

P.S. GreenBean, my "summary" is pretty unscientific too! ;-)

I was dismayed last year when I increased my veggie garden and found NO worms!!

The robins are loving life though eating those dozens and dozens of Walmart worms...

I started composting - with worms. DH built these great outdoor worm bins. I ordered Red Wigglers online and received some from a composter in Fort Collins.

I also ordered European Nightcrawler cocoons last year after reading that transplanted worms do not thrive like hatched worms. Could be true...Not sure.

I chose the European variety because I read that they compost only dead material (hopefully ignoring my tomato plants) and dig deeper then the Red Wrigglers (will compost live plants if necessary) and American/Canadan Nightcrawlers. I also read that these populations sometimes die when the ground freezes, because they don't dig deep enough to avoid it.

Covering the veggie garden with bags of leaves is an AWESOME idea!! Must help to keep the ground warm for the worms!!

So I buried the cocoons in my veggie garden and also buried food scraps. The cocoons must have done well because I have HUGE nightcrawlers throughout the garden and yard. The European Nightcrawler (larger variety) must indeed be thriving in my clay. I highly recommend them.

Happy Gardening -

Dan

I have ordered Red Wrigglers a few times online with great success. You can usually get about 1000 worms for around $30. Just Google "worms" ... or you can even order them through Amazon.com!