Earth worm soil aeration
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I did years ago and saw no benefit. It might make sense if using a living soil but not sure what synthetic nutes/commercial soil would do to them.
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Depends on your growing medium amd the size of the container. I use them in my 25 gallons only because there is enough space for them to actually move around and do their job. Anything less than that they really wouldnt be beneficial.
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I don’t add them, but they are in my soil naturally. I dump it all out and to mix in my beds in the fallow winter. Then refill them. Worms are always abundant. Anything under a 5 gallon they usually all die back. In 5s and up they survive. I know because I see the surface holes on the soil where they deposit their castings when they come up. And in the fall when I dump my pots they are loaded. One or two in every scoop of soil. I just run living soil. I think concentrated nutrient doses, organic or salts cause the pot environment to not favor worms. That has been my experience before I went all living soil. They (worms) never survived high ppm feedings or top dresses…
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The worm castings I bought claimed to have worm eggs in it. This seemed a little sketchy to me, but if some hatch and live that’s fine. If not, oh well.
Just a guess but i dont think they would survive in a synthetic nutrient soil
I add to my living soil. They live years. They work for me. If they dont why do we use their poop? Does the poop from a live worm not work as well as worm poop in a bag? I dont know how they react to synthetics. I still find a few in every new planting. Reused soil. My 20 gallon pots always get a couple new boxes. I dont use cold weather worms. Southern earthworms. Just my usage of them.
TL;DR: Not worth it.
Late reply but if you’re in an area of the US where the invasive earthworm known as snakeworm, crazy snakeworm, jumping worm etc has arrived you don’t want them anywhere near your plants. They consume all organic matter and destroy soil structure with their castings the size of fish gravel - in areas of the northeastern USA, they have caused forest trees to fall because the roots cannot hold onto anything in the ruined woodland soil, and the soil can’t hold enough moisture anymore either.
They aren’t supposed to be here, they were being sold as fishing bait, and too many people just dumped them out on the ground afterward thinking they were doing a good thing.
Areas of deep forest have had all the leaves and ground matter eaten to bare soil by these worms, and the trees have died. The castings also concentrate toxins from the soil the worms have eaten - the opposite of what we think worm castings are good for!
You’ll know if you have them by the way they thrash and ‘jump’ when disturbed, similar to a snake, and they’re also HUGE. Like nightmare versions of the happy earthworms we were taught about.
Once you have them you can’t get rid of them with any kind of pesticide or treatment; they have no natural predators here. They spread by soil transfer, live or in egg sacs invisible in the soil.
They got onto my property a few years ago and it’s awful. The only way to get their numbers down is to starve them out along with manually removing them. The problem is that to starve them, you can’t put any mulch, leaves, new soil or compost down anywhere. Give up an entire growing season or more!
I filled 5 gallon buckets half with water to drown them…some can still escape unless you keep the bucket covered between throwing them into it. Poke a shovel or pitchfork into a soil bed and they will come springing out of the ground - catch as many as you can and drown them. Some put them in black trash bags and tied shut, leave them in the sun to kill them off in large numbers. Birds will not eat them, not even chickens.
So… no, don’t bother with adding worms to live soil; at best it won’t help at all, at worst, you could get these things infesting your grow.
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