Dig for victory was a popular phrase among humans during wartime, but if you’re an earthworm it’s a way of life!
Aristotle was apparently a fan, and Countryfile’s John Craven is patron of a society set up to promote them. We’re talking slithery soil diggers here, as I prepare to film at a Scottish wormery. It’s part of a ‘where there’s muck there’s money’ strand for a TV series, and is not the most glamorous job in the world. But someone’s got to do it I suppose.
When I was a child I used to scream with fright when my brothers chased me with a fistful of worms they dug up in the garden. They both settled down and went on to get sensible jobs in the NHS. Happily I am no longer so squeamish, and worms, well, they bring you down to earth. Standing waist-high in a flooded river, fishing rod in hand, a bag of worm bait in the other, is a great leveller.
I’ve filmed them before, at a Moffat worm farm, so I know what to expect and it’s not the uncontrolled slimy mess you might imagine.
These rather dry and well-behaved wrigglers are known as ‘nature’s plough’. They keep everything joyfully moving, breaking down organic matter and leaving holes in their wake. A million of them burrowing in a small field can apparently create a drainage system equal to several hundred feet of pipe. Whether it would do anything to help alleviate the flooding down south is debatable, but if your house is two feet under water you’d probably consider anything
Then there’s the fact that worm casts make a fantastic fertiliser. Which is all making me wonder if I shouldn’t join the growing list of devotees and become a member of the Earthworm Society of Britain. Yes, there really is such a beast and you can follow its progress on Facebook and Twitter.
I definitely need some of those aerators to help me with the compost heap. It’s been going for three years now, and, frankly, not a lot’s happened. Three years of collecting used teabags, cracked egg shells and pounds of peelings, and I still haven’t a single solitary spade of decent manure.
I must be doing something wrong, but perhaps a bucket of worms will help. If I do get some, I’ll have to keep them from the Naughties. They don’t seem to realise it, but worms are for birds, not dogs. It’s bad enough to see them munching on flies and beetles, but I really draw the line at watching something going down spaghetti-like…
But that’s enough earthy talk: the fact that I am noticing anything to do with the garden means that spring must be on the way. The snowdrops are in full bloom and the daffies are peeping through the grass, although they must have got a shock when we had that recent brief and belated dump of snow.
Fingers crossed, this has been one of the mildest Scottish winters I can remember. Back in October, the weathermen told us it would be arctic now wriggle out of that one…