I seem to have forgotten. I know they can divide. Do they lay eggs? I found a bunch of really small earth worms on something I picked up off the ground today and it got me to thinking and I can't remember.

If I remember correctly, earthworms belong to the Phylum Annelida, the "segmented worms", which also include leeches and polychaetes. (Other worms may belong to Phylum Platyhelminthes, the "flatworms" or Nematoda, the "roundworms").

I believe they are hermaphroditic, possessing both male and female reproductive systems. They join together, connecting at that little thickened band you see about 1/3 of the way down their bodies, and swap genetic material.

I did NOT look this up, but wrote it from memory. I'll check to make sure I remember correctly.

In my garden, very abundantly!!

I know, that was a smart-a$$ answer. I have seen them joined many times, so know there will be many more to come!

yup, they're hemaphrodies. They fertilize each other.

Hi,
yup that's how they "do it"...lol...but they make a cocoon kinda thing...I have red wigglers, so I am assuming it is somewhat similar, but I'm not sure..the red wigglers leave a cocoon of sorts behind, it is a yellowish kinda thing that resembles the shape of an onion.

don't they lay egg sort of things from which the baby worms hatch?

All I know is that they've been reproducing abundantly in our gardens this year. Maybe it's because of the three truckloads of leaves we mixed into the soil in the spring.

When we dug our early- and mid-season potatoes this year we came across hundreds of very tiny worms.

Do they have a particular reproductive 'season'?

insect reproduction is T O T A L L Y fascinating.

Hi wasrabbity,

Try this:

http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/wormwatch/about/ecology.html#reproduce

Hope that helps!

Heather

I must be doing something right here because I have a Plethora of young earthworms under everything I pick up in the yard. Of course, after all the rain we've had, maybe they are coming to the surface to keep from drowning in this over saturated soil. (Or is that just an old wives tale?) BUt I have lots of little wrigglers everywhere.

So they do lay eggs?

I've had baby earthworms hatching in bags of earthworm castings on the shelf and in some of the finer screened potting soils that contain castings - so if you're low on them, put out castings and you're likely to increase your population at the same time as you are adding lots of yummies to the soil.

Wasrabbity. those earthworms come up out of water saturated soil because of lack of air in the soil. Like many other things they need a moist soil but also one with lots of air, just as your plants do. The single most bestest way to increase your earthworm population is to feed your soil, lots of organic matter, so those earthworms have a food source. While worm castings are one of the good additions you can use they will not support earthworms because those castings are the worms excrement.

Yes, Kimm1, organic matter is very important to feed the critters - I was merely looking at the increasing of the numbers. But you're right, if they don't have anything to eat, all the worm castings in the world won't help long term. They'll go off in search of greener pastures, er, browner soil.

Okay... Let me get this across.. I have so much organic matter when it comes to forest debris that I can stay busy just moving the stuff around. In fact, I want to thank all of you for showing me the light. That light being that I just needed to put that debris in the garden rather than putting it over to the side of the yard.. No wonder the weeds, native vines and everything were going like gang busters. They were reaping the good stuff.

This year I'm putting everything I can get into the garden beds... but the debris falls fast.

One of these days I'll get some digital pictures and load them up for everyone to see.

So the old wives tale is right... the earthworms have to come to the surface for air.
(No air = Drowning or suffocating) We've had 9 inches of rain in September! Hopefully we won't have to worry about forest fires in October (a problem here)