I wish I had good news for you, but in my sandy, highly organic creek bottom soil in zone 8A, I've never seen a worm. It is dark loamy sand in heavily hardwood timbered area, undisturbed for many years and even then not much.

I'm going to try to add some though.

Mark

When I started here, some 35 years ago with Lake Michigan beach sand for soil, there was mary a worm to be seen. Since then I have been adding sufficient levels of organic matter to the soil and I find 10 plus earthworms per shovel full of this sand and organic matter mixture and the plants grow quite well free of insect pests and plant diseases, and the soil test I have done periodically tell me that the nutrient load is in balance.

Thanks kimmsr. That's what I was hoping.

It is my understanding that worms do not do as well in sandy soils. Generally seems to hold true, although I am sure you could get some going. Have kimmsr send you a wad of worms, they are already accustomed to beach conditions.

I'm in a sandy area of FL and worms do turn up here. A major part of it is they need organic matter and a covering of mulch as well as sufficient moisture to show themselves.

I've never actually found a worm in a shovelful of soil here at my place in FL. I have discovered them as I was raking mulch.

Here is something that happened to me this past season. The ground under the citrus trees was quite bare sand with some weeds. When I found out that it would be ok to use a thin layer of mulch under the citrus (since the soil is sand) so long as I keep it away from the trunks. I spread a thin layer of mushroom compost (1/2 to and inch), sprinkled some corn meal (well actually cracked corn), then added a thin single layer of wood chips. About a week later I noticed that some of the cracked corn had sprouted so I took a rake to mix things up and uproot the corn seedlings. And Guess what, there were worms feeding in that mulch of wood chips, corn meal, and mushroom compost! (oh, and I know the worms didn't come from the mushroom compost as it is steam sterilized both before and after it gets used for the mushrooms.)

Good luck, make em a habitat and they should come.