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A company has many challenges to overcome in the lawn care business. One of these challenges is how to stop worm or earthworm castings from appearing on a lawn. As earthworm activity might often damage your plant's growth, you need to look after it.

However, if you have night-crawlers as they often feed on organic material, you can use cornmeal bait to lure them away.

What Are Worm Casts?

Castings are a by-product of worms that live in the earth and eat organic material such as fallen leaves and collect grass clippings that have fallen in your lawn.

When buried into the soil, earthworms produce tiny liquid droplets containing nutrients and good bacteria, which help provide food for plants and improve soil quality. This worm activity, in most cases, is known as worm compost or worm mounds. Through this worm activity, the soil surface remains aerated.

The worm cast can be described as muddy soil found on the surface of your lawn or even in gardens. Typically, a lot of earthworms are used to prepare worm casts. The two types of worms that produce worm casts are:

1. Common Worm

2. Grey Worm

The common worm, as the name implies, is the most common of any other species of worms.

Benefits of Having Earthworms in Your Lawn

It may seem that having earthworms in your garden is a problem. However, that is not the case. Earthworms have several benefits, including contributing towards a healthier lawn. More specifically, having them around achieves the following:

1. Improves Soil Surface

Castings can also be helpful for over-watering lawns and gardens that you may not correctly aerate. When you water your grass, the water's pressure forces the worm to cast up through the soil, where they can help improve the soil quality of your garden or lawns.

2. Increases Nutrients in the Soil

The presence of earthworms aids in the healthy growth of lawns and gardens. Earthworms or worms excrete a lot more nitrogen than they consume. So, more worms equals more nutrients into the soil. This, in turn, leads to a healthy lawn rich in nutrients which is beneficial for the grass and plants. Moreover, earthworms tend to maintain the soil pH as well.

3. Natural Fertilizer

Worms decompose quickly when they die, thus adding more nitrogen to the soil and acting as a natural fertilizer. They tend to repel insects or pests that might harm the lawn's surface. Besides, they are organic matter, so there are no harmful nutrients or chemicals.

Plus, there is no need to use a chemical fertilizer if you are using organic worm castings and mulch. Worm castings are an excellent organic fertilizer that you can apply in the root zone of your plants to help them grow strong and healthy. However, make sure to spread worm castings evenly.

4. Aids Plant Growth

Decomposed leaves, lawn clippings, and other debris that fall from a lawn turn into a nutrient-rich material. The nutrients and microbes from a worm cast benefit plant growth and good soil.

Why Are They a Problem?

Despite their benefits, worm casts still result from worms leaving worm poop behind, which can often be a nuisance to your lawn's health. Worm casts usually form when a worm's body creates soil that absorbs water, other organic material, and nutrients from the ground.

The worms will likely leave these casts in areas with low light levels, such as under trees and bushes. In the summer months, these casts may become heavy and fall on your lawn, causing damage to them.

How to Stop Worm Activity on Lawn

To kill worms in the soil is not a solution to stop worm casts on lawns. If you want to prevent excessive earthworm castings from appearing on lawns, you can use several different methods to achieve this goal. Let's look at some ways to control worms:

1. Grow Grass Near the Sidewalk

A common way to prevent worm castings from being deposited onto your garden is by planting grass near the sidewalk or driveway where there is less shade to keep the root zone moist and cool. Planting an attractive plant in these areas can also help prevent worm casts.

2. Use Pebbles

Another way to control worm castings is by covering the soil around your plants and trees with refined material such as pebbles or cobblestones to keep the soil from absorbing water from the ground. This can be an effective way to keep grass from being damaged by falling worm casts.

3. Use an Iron Sheet

If you wish to stop worm casts from appearing all over your garden, an iron sheet can be used as a deterrent for worms. Be sure not to leave this sheet in place for too long, as it can damage root systems by depriving them of air and sunlight.

4. Using Mulch

Using a mulch around your garden can also help slow worm casts because they will tend to crawl under the mulch rather than on the garden's surface. Another way to make sure that worms do not deposit castings on your lawn is by putting a board or piece of wood near the worm's entry point. Worms will avoid areas where there is a barrier.

5. Using Pesticides

Another way to kill earthworms and prevent their castings from being deposited onto your lawn is to use an insecticide or organic pesticide. Usually, gardeners apply pesticides around plants or trees to keep worms away.

Tips and Tricks

  1. Dump broken down feed onto your lawn and let it sit for a day or so (this will allow worms time to eat it all up and will benefit the overall growth of your lawn)
  2. Use common lawn fertilizers at half or quarter strength
  3. Spread lawn conditioner over your lawns surface and weed it in so that it does not wash away
  4. Pick them up by hand and either throw them onto lawns or put them in a compost pile
  5. Use a leaf blower to blow all the castings onto the weeds in lawns so that they can be eaten by worms living there
  6. Bag all of the castings together, put them behind your home where you do not see them, and let the worms eat everything for you

Final Words

To sum it up, whether autumn or spring, you have to look after the control of worms and earthworm castings on your lawn. To have the best power, choose a good fertilizer according to your soil's requirements. An earthworm can be a gardener's best friend but make sure to control the amount of them. Best of luck!

Grow Bigger Plants with Simple Grow

Do you wish your plants would grow bigger? Was your garden less than it should've been last year?

If you're tired of growing puny vegetables and fruits, it's time for an upgrade...Simple Grow Worm Castings!

What are worm castings? Another term for worm manure. Why would you want to use it in your garden, raised beds, and house plants? Because it makes them grow bigger, faster and healthier...with no chemicals!

How do worm castings do this? It's like giving your plants a powerful multivitamin with everything they need to grow. Trace minerals, nutrients, and most importantly...worm castings are chock full of beneficial microbes. Why does that make a difference?

In recent years, we've learned the importance of gut bacteria for humans and know that it impacts so many different parts of our health. The same thing applies with worms. Gut bacteria from the worm's digestive tract gets into the soil from the worm castings and promotes plant health. Plants have a symbiotic relationship with the microbes from the worm's digestive tract. Plants respond to it and grow really big...really fast!

If you've never tried worm castings before, you owe it to yourself to give them a try. Instead of using traditional chemical fertilizers from the big box store, why not try fresh, certified organic worm castings this year? You'll be able to grow bigger, healthier plants that you actually can feel good about eating. 

Take advantage of our special bundle sale on 25lb bags today!

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