Success at Draco Hill comes in many forms, but since our motto is “Reclaiming the earth one worm at a time” we thought we’d celebrate one of the biggest earthworms we’ve ever seen here. (OK – Paul claims to have seen a worm as big as a snake but

1. He’s a Texan so we expect that sort of thing from him and
2. He has no proof. So we’ll have to go with this one for now.)

Earthworms, while not native, serve an important purpose in our degraded soil, most importantly by aerating it, and secondly by fertilizing it. In fact, we have a worm bin of thousands of worms we use in the gardens to help fertilize and rebuild the soil. This year we’re also experimenting with compost tea made from worm castings.

But to us, it’s a celebration just to see insects emerging from the soil when we dig to plant tomatoes or cucumbers. Two years ago we threw this shovelful of soil on a piece of cardboard and all we saw was a clump of clay with no visible life in it at all.