Worm Survey

“Grow Together” held a community engagement event along with Barleythorpe Allotment Society on the 22nd May 2019, to do some worm charming and a soil survey. It was a lovely May evening and around 30 people came out in summer clothes for an early evening get-together! We sang, played drums, stamped our feet and dug holes to encourage any worms living in the new allotment beds to have a wriggle around! 
 
Around six samples were completed and overall only three worms were found! This is not to say that worms don’t exist here, but as the allotments are a new site with builder’s rubble in the imported topsoil, this is not an ideal habitat for our worm friends.
 
More worms would be of real benefit for this growing space for food and flowers and would greatly improve the quality of the soil. Worms help to improve drainage and aerate the soil so that plants grow better allowing them to root more efficiently to draw up the water and nutrients that they need to grow. 
 
It was evident that work needs to be done to enrich the soil on this new allotment site. No doubt this will be done as the older allotment site at Barleythorpe has a productive and thriving soil, growing food and worms in abundance!
 
We shall host the worm survey again next May after a year of growing and adding nutrition to the soil and hope that the worm population increases!
 
Thank you to Cllr Sue Webb for working on this project with Grow Together and to all for coming to the event and for thinking about maintaining good growing conditions for food for families for now and in the future.