Editors Note: Long-time gardener and Discovery Bay resident Bonnie Broders contacted the Free Press in an effort to alert others in the county to a devastating worm infestation that she believes came from packaged organic potting soil purchased locally. She says that unlike conventional earthworms, these worms destroy plants and travel quickly. They multiply exponentially in a short time and exhibit very erratic behavior. The invasive worms have killed thousands of dollars worth of plants on her property and the effort to eradicate them is costing many thousands more. Bonnie cannot prove definitively now that this infestation came from the bagged soil because once the problem started, she destroyed the remaining soil. But circumstantial evidence is significant.
We have asked Bonnie to present her story in her own words. Have any readers had a similar experience? Please share feedback if you can contribute to this conversation.
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Last fall at the end of September, we had the first rains after a very warm fall. Each evening around 9 o’clock I would go out with a flashlight to capture the tiny slugs that were making holes in some of my greens.
The third night as I walked into my garden, I saw a huge worm migration of thousands of worms. They were traveling quickly on the ground and even climbing up my raised covered beds. I salted them all. They did not look like our normal worms, but were smaller and more slender and they moved like snakes. They were twisting up out of the soil and jumping around like crazy. The creepy worms gave me nightmares for many nights.
After researching bad worms on the internet the following night, several family members came out to the garden to look for the worms. A bag of potting soil left over from a local purchase of 20 bags was at the epicenter, right in the middle of the infestation.
In that area of the garden, I had difficulty planting a late summer crop as the leaf lettuce and arugula seeds would not come up. I kept buying more seeds and re-planting, at least four times, without any success. When we dug in that area, there were over 50 worms in one square foot. In other words, there were thousands and thousands of worms in one corner of my garden, radiating out from the bag of potting soil, which also had worms coming out of it.
[Note: This video was taken in cooler weather when worms are less active, whereas the author says, “When the weather was warm last September, the worms were disgustingly and disturbingly active.”]
We used about eighteen 50-pound bags of salt in that area to kill the worms. They were adult worms with the obvious egg sac around their body. We started tearing up all the vegetables left in the garden, like the broccoli and cauliflower and brussels sprouts and onions. We discovered worms around the roots of all the vegetables except the onions. It looked like the worms were eating the small hairs off of the vegetables, and the plants weren’t thriving. Later I would find out that they ate the root hairs off of all my blueberry plants in the garden, too.
It was obvious that the worm migration centered around this bag of potting soil with worms still in the bag. We burned the bag of soil and all the plants in the garden, and all the wooden raised bed boards and stakes.
Dismantling garden structures and burning infested materials.
At this point, we didn’t know how far the worm infestation would go, but we knew it had to have started from this bag of potting soil. Bad news is I had already spread 19 other bags of potting soil around my yard in various operations.
The Mustard Test and Seed Meal
I had six raised beds where I would grow lettuce above the ground to keep the slugs out. Each raised bed contained hundreds of worms. I learned from research on the internet that a person can look for bad worms by mixing powdered mustard with water and pouring it on the soil. That brings the worms up to the surface so you can see if you have any.
I had also used the potting soil in four areas where I plant annuals after my tulips are spent. I always need a little extra soil to plant the petunias or pansies. There were a few other areas I used the potting soil to add a little extra soil. I had one pot on the deck where I planted a tomato plant. I had four citrus plants on the patio, but I only put potting soil in two of them as the other two were full up of soil.
The mustard test in all of the areas where I put the potting soil showed that there were worms everywhere I put the soil. I also tested many other areas of the yard and I did not have worms in areas that I did not use potting soil. In doing that mustard test all around the yard, I could mark all the areas infected and determine the spread.
Unfortunately, there was just me to do the work and the worms were spreading like crazy as the weather was still very warm. There is only one product that when watered in can bring the worms above the ground and kill them, a particular type of fertilizer called tea tree seed meal. I ordered $2500 worth of this fertilizer and by the time I got it the worms had spread far and wide across three acres. This cut down on the worm population a bit, but the worms are very good at hiding under every leaf or piece of bark or rock or brick that is in the ground.
When the weather in late December hit a high of 53°, the little worms started to hatch and there were millions of them under leaf debris and under moss. By this time, I had five acres of worms, millions and millions of them. My plan was to systematically clean off all the leaves, edging, bricks, etc. and water in the worm-killing fertilizer.
[While salt will kill worms, it also kills plant life. Tea seed meal is a non-toxic organic fertilizer that kills snails, worms, nematodes, aquatic insects, and other biota without polluting water and soil. It is used on golf courses, rice fields, in aquaculture and other industries as a safe alternative to pesticides and other harmful chemicals.]
There were so many worms at this point that the worms that came out of the ground and were laying there dying were so thick — literally a thousand worms in a 10 x 10 area — that you could not walk without stepping on one or two.
Identifying the Worms
Unfortunately, when the Department of Agriculture came out to check, they sent a person on a 16-degree day. The worms disappear underground at this temperature. A worm that they DNA tested at the Washington State extension was found to be of the species “lumbricus”. My understanding is that there are over 20 varieties of that species, one of which is the common helpful everyday earthworm that can live deep in the ground and bring up nutrients. They did not go into any further detail.
As I did not trust their analysis, and since they got their specimen when it was 16° out, I sent a video or two to University of Wisconsin where they are dealing with the Asian jumping worm. The expert there said he did not know what my type of worm was, but it wasn’t the Asian jumping worm. I understand that the Asian jumping worm drops its tail to get away from predators and can run faster than a human can catch it.
There was no help from the master gardeners because their director believed these worms were not a threat because they were not Asian in origin, but a type of European worm. There has not been any help by any government agency. In fact, they all claim that since these are not Asian worms, they are not a problem. But I have discovered they eat all the seeds and they eat the roots of the plants.
It is obvious that my worm is invasive and not common to other people in this area. It lives in the upper part of the soil, or just on or under deciduous leaves and bark and moss. They also live under roots of plants, and eat the root hairs, because I have a number of plants that were destroyed because they have no root hairs. I have about 20 established blueberry plants in one area of my garden and the year before last they had an amazing crop. This year, nothing. And you can grab the blueberry and pull it right up out of the ground because there are no small roots anchoring it now. I have had many plants that I have just burned because they were practically dead, and not from lack of water last summer as I was very proactive in watering my yard.
We have dug up and destroyed thousands of dollars worth of plants. We are in the process of pouring some concrete in an area around our house, because we no longer can have bark. We must take all the ground down to bare dirt to make it possible to destroy the worms. All plants that touch the ground will have to be destroyed.
Taking soil down to bare ground.
There is not a day that I do not go outside and do jobs to eradicate these worms. I have discovered that the fertilizer will eradicate all the worms in an area but that more eggs will hatch in about 4 to 5 weeks so every inch of the ground must be redone in that amount of time. Worms can reproduce very quickly, with a single worm producing 500 to thousands of hatchlings in a year. They can migrate surprising distances. We have discovered that the worms have already traveled a mile down the road.
I have run across some of the hatchlings under some of the plants like the hostas. There can be hundreds of little hatchings jumping around. We also have a tennis court that has been fairly clean through the winter except for a few deciduous leaves that had fallen on the court. If you turned over any leaf, you would find three or four worms on each leaf. They climb very quickly and somehow I managed to get a half a dozen worms in my house.
There is also the consideration that my 20 bags of potting soil were not the only ones contaminated with worms. A nursery owner I spoke with told me that she had a customer that bought potting soil in the area and that it was filled with worms.
I wished I would’ve had some help from the master gardeners or somebody, but I am only one senior citizen, and there is only so much I can do every day. I also am committed to homeschooling my grand children, which is a big priority. This is going to be a big problem for our community and I will be happy to help anyone to discover if they have a problem and to help them if they do.
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Bonnie’s garden before the worm infestation:
Wow! I would like to know the brand of potting soil. Perhaps that is the best way to avoid this
Did you try to get a flock of chickens in there? They’d be more than happy to dig up all those worms for you, gobble them up and even lay you some great eggs. Since it sounds like you don’t have anything growing anyways any more it wouldn’t be a loss to try that. It’s easy to fence them with electric fencing in the areas you need help with. Good luck
I was thinking the same thing! My neighbor has chickens and ducks who love to free range in my field, leaving nothing behind lol!
Bonnie’s story is so disturbing to all of us who garden. I myself only eat what I grow. So in fairness to every serious gardener out there,,, I am asking Bonnie to please divulge the name of the potting soil and where it was purchased? This is serious need to know?
After a lengthy conversation with Bonnie,, she did reveal that the state of origin is Oregon on the bag and she said “stick to Miracle Grow”. So we know it’s not miracle grow!
That is not normal at all, I’m 47 and been here the whole time. I’ve also noticed a new black small scorpion type insect it even raises up its back with stingers on it, I’ve just noticed it more and more over the last few years but never before. Also I’ve seen a new type of spider over the last couple years too that I have never seen before and oddly enough they both look mean, I’ve also seen a black panther in Quilcene maybe it global warming 🤔
Basha’s choice of the word ‘disturbing’ hits the nail on the head. And the fact that the same worms have been found a mile away is very concerning. Just how far might they go and how many gardens might they destroy? I wonder where else they might already be lurking.
I hear that burning vinyl chloride and other chemicals is a great (and government-approved) way to kill animals….
Brings to mind the ‘jigras’ in the novel ‘the sheep look up’ by john brunner. It’s from the late sixties. I was so shocked when i first read it i started keeping a scrapbook of environmental disasters. pretty soon i realized that the developments i thought were beyond belief in the novel were happening faster than in the science fiction novel.
More welcome worm incursions from back in the day [Sugar & Spike #58, May 1965]
I agree, we need to know! I’m about to get my gardening going for spring and would really appreciate knowing!
Without the brand info, this story is disturbing, but not very helpful.
Bonnie (we’re about the same age) — it was painful & saddening to hear your story, especially given the diligence of decades working/loving the land to create something beautiful & productive.
Are these worms from hell, rapaciously devouring while tenaciously extending territory for their predatory parasitism, towards some inevitable dead end? What kind of dark worminess is this?
Sounds like science fiction. Nonetheless, it seems yet another mad-hatter glimpse into the bizarre disharmonies of our collective moment, local to global. The larger sad truth being — we’ve come to live/inhabit a far cry from the natural symbiosis & balances within the natural world, or what’s left of it.
The human species was able to live in relative harmony within shared surroundings for millennia. Yet the most recent (apparently) “civilized” iteration, grossly materialistic & crosswise, has utterly trashed the planet in just a few centuries, with barely an honest glimpse back. Whist reaching for the last crumbs & dregs, still partying like it was 1999. The utter disregard has been palpable.
Such stubbornly reflective surfaces we find all around us these days. How will we utilize them in whatever time remains?; and will we change? It’s as late as it is dark, and thus far such essential questions remain mostly unasked, if not profoundly unanswered.
Perhaps there are trash heaps of broken/discarded worlds somewhere in cosmic dumps & junkyards, for similarly failed species “experiments”. The warning sirens have been blaring for quite some time, enough to wake the dead & ancestors, but the living did not attend.
All blessings hence, as we double-barrel into unknown territory.
A hopi word/perception for “life out of balance”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi
Koyaanisqatsi – Wikipedia
It is a big liability for me to disclose the name of the potting soil, and the store, where I purchased the soil. However, both have been notified, and of course the soil company has lawyered up. My recommendation is to buy powdered mustard and mix 1/3 cup with 1 gallon of water. Pour it over test areas of your ground where you used any local potting soil. And in the future that should be part of your routine and also any time you add any nursery plants to your yard. If you would like to contact me personally my phone number is 360-301-3368.
I recommend buying locally produced substantiable compost from the Jefferson County Solid Waste facility. Especially if you need that much. It is aged in large hot piles and has no food waste in it. And no worms I have seen. I have done this for years. Last time I got some it was still just $12 a cubic yard, which is equivalent to 27 bags of the type you would otherwise get in front of a grocery store etc. A yard fits in a small pickup or trailer. At the facility they load it for you. You need to use a shovel when you get home. Or go in with someone on the deal and or help. Better stuff than what is shipped up here in bags with the worms. The compost normally is available in the spring, call 360-385-7908. I do not work there but always enjoy dealing with them.
Rick, I agree that the cost savings and also environmental benefits (no plastic packaging, locally produced, so no shipping footprint) are tremendous for our local compost. As you say, it won’t contain living organisms because those are killed by the high composting temps. But for anyone gardening organically it is an unknown in other regards. The yard waste others have brought to the facility may have been treated with herbicides and/or pesticides and the county septic pumpings which are also mixed in often contain heavy metals and toxic chemicals used in treatment. These are not removed by the heat process. As someone who was involved in bringing that composting facility into existence when I was on City Council 30+ years ago, I am grateful that we have it, but its product is not something that meets an organic grower’s standards for their edibles.
I am leery of bagged products for similar reasons — you don’t know the source of materials used. Even those labeled organic may not be free of contaminants, so from that perspective the city compost may be no worse than the commercial bagged products. Just a cautionary for those trying to grow their food organically.
Hi Ana. Yes I forgot to mention they use that septage to speed decomposition. But I believe (and you will know better) they are permitted by the state and hopefully do testing somewhere along the line. Or should be. I admit I have not used it for growing food, but primarily as a soil amendment for growing landscape plants (“deer proof”) given how poor the soil is up here. I mostly gave up growing food years ago due to all the work dealing with deer, birds, slugs, snails, insects, now worms etc. Hats off to those persistent organic food growers. They always find a solution.
Rick and Ana, I do believe it’s good compost, but it isn’t tested for PFAS, which can be taken up by plants and never really break down. That would concern me in a vegetable garden. I would happily use the compost for landscaping plants, though, as Rick suggested.
I’m going to have worm nightmares along with Bonnie now.
Bonnie, your dilemma reminds me of this Bioneers talk that mushroom man Paul Stamets gave nearly 10 years ago. At 14+ minutes in, he describes an experiment he undertook with carpenter ants that were dining on his home. He offered them a particular mycelium species, which they took back to their nest. Rather quickly, they became mummified by their treat and were soon turned into little fungi factories, with the mushrooms growing out of their wee bodies. It’s fascinating!
It couldn’t hurt to try to connect with him for suggestions. Hard to imagine that a mycelium exists that can distinguish between worms you want and those you don’t, but Stamets’ team may know of fungi that can restore balance to your soil more quickly than can be done otherwise. It makes sense that the salt and mustard could use some help disappearing from the ground, even after the problem worms are gone.
Best of luck with sorting this out…
I am an earthworm specialist, who has worked on the Asian jumping worm situation, cooperating with the people at U of Wisconsin, among others. The jumping worms found in the USA have an annual life cycle. This means they die off after laying their egg cases (cocoons), and overwinter as egg cases. They start to grow when the weather warms up. They belong to the genus Amynthas. A single worm cannot produce hundreds of eggs, let alone thousands, but that is not important. They do reproduce rapidly, and spread by moving around. Normally they do not move fast, only jumping short distances when disturbed. There are no good options for controlling them, at least none better than you have tried, or have been suggested by others: chickens and ducks. The genus Lumbricus contains 20 or so species, only two of which are common outside of Europe. None are jumpers, and all have longer life cycles, lower reproductive rates, and are not known to cause any such damage as has been described here. They are also unlikely to survive in a bag of potting soil, whereas the Amynthas species can do that as egg cases. Lumbricus terrestris aka nightcrawler, is large and lives in a deep vertical burrow. Lumbricus rubellus is smaller, redder and lives in the upper few inches of soil and under mulch. They are foreign to North America, but have been around for a very long time in NA, and you probably had them all along and never really noticed. It is easy to ID these things- at least for me. If you really want to know, get some 90% rubbing alcohol and catch some adults- the ones with the band (clitellum) around the body near the head. Drop them in a jar with about 4 volumes of alcohol per volume of worm bodies. Then email me and we can talk about the next step. It is free except for shipping.
Samuel,, it does not sound to me like these are the Asian Jumping worms. Something completely different IMHO.
Basha
It would certainly be very important to really nail down what these creatures really are. Make absolutely certain.
All I need is quality photos of adult worms to get a good idea.
I have total sympathy for what Bonnie is going through and we should all be really wary…something is going on, her seeds are not sprouting or being eaten. On the other hand, looking at the video link at the beginning of the article appears to show ordinary worms. Were those supposed to be the asian type? They seem move slowly with an inch worm like motion like more ordinary worms. In contrast, the youtube link to Asian Jumping Worms and the many other videos we can watch, show small, very muscular, moving rapidly like snakes, wriggling violently. Very different. While something has gone really wrong in her garden, perhaps it would be good to send worm samples to other Agriculture University programs for another DNA test and see what they say. Worth the effort to confirm what is really going on.
https://www.yakimaherald.com/explore_yakima/home_and_garden/master-gardeners-asian-jumping-worms-are-not-entertaining/article_1775afbd-d445-5d5f-a0a5-e2e1fcb79148.html#:~:text=Although%20jumping%20worms%20are%20not,the%20air%20above%20the%20soil
Unfortunately, the year I got the city compost, it brought bind weed to my property, which I’ve spent the last 3 years trying to eradicate. Only the areas I used that compost on had/have bind weed. Another friend said they had the same experience from getting city compost at that time.
Bonnie, that’s good to know. People/facilities that hot compost don’t hesitate to add noxious or invasive weeds to the compost pile because the heat destroys their ability to grow and they compost down like any other component. If bindweed roots are surviving the process at our local facility, that tells us that the process is not achieving high enough temperatures… which means that pest eggs and other biota may make it through as well. Very concerning.
The worms are a non-issue. Salting your own property is, but the worms are not. All of the actions you have taken have probably made the situation worse. You would have been better off spending that money on vacation and when you come back I bet the worms would be gone.
I thought salt made ground sterile for planting? I am using vinegar spray on weeds growing in a gravel drive and it works and is not harmful to pets and wildlife.
Anyone who thinks dumping 900lbs of salt to get rid of “worms” is a reasonable action probably shouldn’t be homeschooling their grandkids.
Chickens may be a powerful solution to jumping worms. I found this report from a person that said her chickens just “binged” on her neighbors jumping worms. (even though there are reports that chickens don’t like jumping worms.) The jumping worms like to live closer to the surface of the soil, that makes them a perfect target for chickens. Chickens will scratch down deep. I have heard if chickens don’t like something they can be trained to. For example, there is a youtube video of a woman who “trained” her chickens to love slugs by cutting up a large slug and feeding them the pieces. Once they got the flavor, they then became enthusiastic slug eaters.
Here is the direct link to the report:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/jumping-worms.1484224/
…and the comment from that link:
My neighbor across the street just discovered jumping worms (a lot of them!!) in her yard. DH brought part of our flock over to the neighbor’s yard today to see if they would help eliminate some worms. I would not have let that happen, (so many possible issues for my flock!!) if I would have been asked, but done is done. Anyway, the girls absolutely binged on worms. According to the few online resources I’ve found, chickens aren’t supposed to like jumping worms, but I guess my girls didn’t get that memo.
Rick and Ana, I do believe it’s good compost, but it isn’t tested for PFAS, which can be taken up by plants and never really break down. That would concern me in a vegetable garden. I would happily use the compost for landscaping plants, though, as Rick suggested.
I’m going to have worm nightmares along with Bonnie now.
Thanks, Ben. Hopefully the composting facility now gets the piles to adequate heat levels so that noxious weeds like the bindweed Bonnie Masi and others experienced are no longer viable.
I haven’t researched this, but it sounds like you may have. Do you know IF they are testing and if so, WHAT they are testing for? Yard waste being dumped there may contain Round-up and other poisons. Sewage sludge often has heavy metals and other toxins as mentioned previously. And the batches could vary considerably. Do they test every batch?
Ana, I passionately hate bindweed, myself. When I toured the facility last year, I saw that they were monitoring temperatures and making that a priority. But with any system, there needs to be constant feedback. I recommend anyone who has any issues like that, provide that feedback as immediately as possible. In my experience, that’s the best way to get to excellence. I will mention it as well.
Testing requirements of the biosolids has increased now that we have passed 10,000 residents. So I’m hoping that we, as residents and potential customers, will have better access to those results. That’s something I’ve brought up in Council recently and that I’ll be following up on.
So anything come of this unsubstantiated fear mongering crap? Did you all salt and mustard your soil? Jumping worms invade your house yet? – I can’t believe this stuff got published.
Just saw your reply. Yes, I did have several hundred worms in my house because I pulled my citrus pots from the outside to indoors for the fall. I was surprised at how many worms could live in a citrus pot! And a little salt does keep my paths from harboring worms.
I wish Bonnie would say brand of soil the worms were in.