I dunno about NM, but here it seems that leaving something like that on the surface may work better for composting redworms, which tend to live in the debris at the surface rather than down deep.

That said- I added lots of organic matter and shredded leaves as mulch in my garden in the spring and the amount of worm castings is staggering. Most of the worms that I see at the surface are giant nightcrawlers rather than redworms. While they're not good for indoor bins and don't eat as fast as redworms (per pound) - the mix of worms in the garden is doing great because of sheer numbers. I have raised beds without sides and plan to harvest and spread some castings, then fill the areas between the raised beds with OPL and whatever OM I can scavenge for the winter. Then in the spring I'll harvest and start all over.

Similar to what you're doing- I put a cardboard box full of compostables in my garden- just becaiuse I was curious how quickly they'd populate it. Maybe that will be my seed population for another area of the yard.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you want to encourage worms to breed in your garden- if what you're doing doesn't work (or if it does give you a good seed population)- expanding the amount of OM in the garden, keeping it moist (I assume that's a task in NM), and throwing some cardboard on top may help a lot.

Hi again, Pablo!
I MUCH APPRECIATE your considerate comments!

The worms I have encountered here in my garden appear to be both some type of "redworm" and some type of "nightcrawler".

I steadily incorporate as much Organic Material as I can get my hands on...(I'm hoping to "beat the trash man" to peoples leaves left out on the sidewalk, soon.) Leaves are GREAT for QUICK decomposition!

I don't have a problem with water here in the yard because I have a good well with which to irrigate or sprinkle those areas that I choose to be wet. (Incidentally, this past few months here have been quite wet. More rain than I've noticed here since I was in High School-about 40 years ago. It started raining about the 4th of July and has done so every other day, almost, ever since. IN FACT, I'm getting a little SICK of it! The whole yard has been a mud-puddle for months! When it does dry out.....the yard will have cracks in it large enough to drive a Dumptruck into! That's this Caliche, Bentonite, Clay Soil!)

Let me know if you get results from the cardboard box with scraps in it!

Feel free to email me anytime: TwinButtesSixtySix@hotmail.com (The 66 is numeric)

How is the Fall Season now in New Hampshire? I'll bet the Fall tree colors are AWESOME!

Best Regards to YOU, Pablo!
Bruce (Junkmanme in New Mexico)
P.S. THANKS AGAIN for responding to my postings!

This has been a beautiful fall. Cooler than average temps and lots of rainfall this summer mean that the leaves are bright and have stayed on the trees well. I've live in New England all my 36 years, and I'm surprised at the beauty every fall.

So far my cardboard box has mostly attracted fruit flies (need a layer of leaves on top I think). I gave it a quick turn- getting a little heat cycle, and there were at least a couple of nightcrawlers in there (I was surprised). They're huge. When do they stop being worms and start being snakes? :)

My wife cleaned out the fridge yesterday- more worm food. I have to do the calculations, but I think I could produce cubic yards of castings between now and mid-spring next year. It gets pretty cold here, so I'll have to layer deep and put in a core of something green to heat up.

Are you in high desert down there? Do you get sustained cold in the winter?

Hi Pablo!
It sounds like your cardboard box idea is starting to work. I think I'll toss some torn-up currogated cardboard into my makeshift "wormtrap".
Take a CAREFUL, close look at your nightcrawler's heads (worm heads are different than snake heads). If they have "beedy little eyes"...STAY AWAY FROM THEM! (Those are snakes!). The baby rattlesnakes are more poisonous than adult rattlers! The reason they are is that they inject ALL of their venom, whereas adults ration it somewhat. CAREFUL NOW!

It sounds to me like your wife doesn't feed you much in the way of "leftovers". You are truly blessed!

Yes, I live in what has been described as "the high desert". There were many western movies filmed near here. A local Landmark Hotel (El Rancho)has walls of autographed photographs from movie stars who have stayed there. (Most particularly, many of John Wayne) The altitude here is 6500 ft. The temperature differential (daily high to low) is typically 40 to 50 degrees almost year-around. (That makes root development slow early in the growing season, which is short anyway...90 days plus a little, if we're lucky.) I start most of my veggie garden in the house on my homemade "seed-starting rack", then transplant to the garden after June 1.

I have been able to get free horse manure from a friend of mine who has a few horses at his "weekend ranch". I'm ready to go get some more-perhaps tomorrow. Maybe I should dig up the "wormtrap" and put some fresh "horsepucky" deep underneath the present hole. (Borrowing your idea of "heating things up a bit".)

I haven't seen any rattlesnakes here in the yard. (although 40 years ago they were plentiful in this area.) These days there are many roaming dogs and cats. I think that keeps the snake population way down. I HAVE SEEN some Bull Snakes in the garden from time to time. I leave them alone....they also keep rattlesnakes away!

I live outside of town on 1/2 acre in an 80+ yr. old cottage. Since my sweetheart passed on, it's just me and my master. (He MUST BE my MASTER....I feed him, but he has yet to feed me!)

Ha-Ha!
Have a NICE WEEKEND, Pablo (Paul?)
Bruce (Junkmanme in the High Desert)

Good luck with your experiments. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a failed experiment. I'm doing some of those myself though I'm not trying to capture any. I don't think they exist here.:-( I've lived in TX for 4yrs and could count on one hand how many I've found. However, the first month I got to this great state I was digging and found what I thought was a pile of the hugest night crawlers I had ever seen! It turned out to be three or four of what is called blind snakes? worm snakes? Anyway, at first I thought Darn! Things really ARE bigger in Texas.

Hi BeeAnne!

I have never heard of "blind snakes".....I guess they don't have those "beedy little eyes", right?

I did an Internet Search for blind snakes.....here's what came up:

blind snakes of Texas

I didn't notice if they were poisonous or not.

When I was still operating my "recycled auto parts - Wrecking Yard" near here, I had another couple living there ( a "Pollock" and his Navajo wife). One snowy morning, the Navajo wife (Ruth) went outside to the woodpile to get some firewood for the woodstove that was in the shop.

I told her, "Watch out for 'snow snakes'! I saw one under the snow when I was outside a little while ago!"
"Snow Snakes?", she said as she went out into the snowy morning.
In just a couples of minutes, she came running back into the shop and excitedly exclaimed, "I SEEN ONE OF THOSE 'SNOW SNAKES' JUST LIKE YOU SAID! IT WAS CRAWLING UNDER THE SNOW! IT WAS REALLY LONG!"
The "Pollock" and I burst out laughing! (There was a garden hose laying underneath this little bit of snow on the ground.) Ruth never did live that one down!

Ha-Ha,
Bruce (Junkmanme in New Mexico)

Here's another "link" about "blind snakes":

blind snakes non-venomous

Junkmanme

Yep, that's them. You can see why at first I thought I hit the jackpot on nightcrawlers. They look just like worms.

Love the pics of Boone.

I was just joking about worms becoming snakes, but now you'll have me looking! We don't get rattlers (supposedly get timber rattlers, but I've never seen one in all my time spent hunting/camping etc).

I think your worm capture experiment may net a few worms, but because of your design you may be limiting your captures to worm that dig deep enough to enter through the bottom. When I first started composting last Spring, I came across a few worms in the layers of pine-needles in my yard and threw them into the compost bin. Later, when I got more interested in vermicomposting, I ordered a worm factory and some worms. The worm factory arrived but no worms. I waited and waited for the worms. They never came but when I turned over the compost bin, the two or three worms I had thrown in there, plus a few who had sneaked in on their own had multiplied to many hundreds. I collected as many as I could seperate and put them in the worm factory. They multiplied again. I was wondering if I should give up on buying worms, but I was curious to see whether the Eisenia Foetida worms would be better. When the red worms arrived (ordered from a different dealer than the original ones) I found that the worms that I had were pretty identical to those that I bought. Some of my home-grown worms were different. One, a much bigger pinkish worm, seems to hang out on top of one of the trays all the time. I have thought about releasing him as he is probably more the sort of worm who will dig in the garden but I will save him from the cold and put him out when it gets warmer.