Since there are no indigenous worms in my garden, last season I started adding red wigglers to holes dug for transplanting tomato, pepper, cucumber, squash and pumpkin plants. My garden sets on bed rock which is at the base of the average frost line of about two feet. Not a very hospitable environmental for any worm much less red wigglers.

I decided to try this experiment after seeing some residual red wigglers in last springs tilling of holes dug the previous year. I mulch these plants with alfalfa straw and use a drip feed system to irrigate. Upon cultivation and inspection of these holes throughout the growing season I saw evidence of worm activity near the surface. These holes are filled with a combination of top soil, composted manure, and a cottage cheese container full of vermicompost media containing hundreds of red worms.

My thinking was that the worms would last through the growing season and benefit the aeration process. Since there were worms still present in these holes after the fall tilling, it would appear this project was successful.

With recent discussions in this forum about worms and their symbiotic relationship to beneficial microbes I have been thinking about extending this process to raised beds and container planting as well.

What I'm considering doing next season is to double the volume of aged cow manure in a few of these holes to see if it's possible to obtain a greater yield using red wiggler activity. I is difficult to draw any conclusions as to how much benefit was actually obtained by adding worms to the holes dug for these various plants, but my yields were very good last season.

Mini garden vermicomposting as I will call this process, may have some value in a process which is not ideally suited for red wigglers. This exercise may join my list of many useless experiments with red wiggler vermicomposting, but making mistakes is just another way of learning. I have enjoyed the discussions in this forum and hope to gain more ideas like this as time goes on.