My tall fescue lawn somehow managed to survive the brutal summer here in NC. Lots of August heat and dry weather starting in early June. Lawn was pretty stressed but mostly hanging on from the 0.1-0.2 inches of rain we got about every two weeks (I don't irrigate). I figure I lost maybe 30-40% of the overall lawn, which is a success compared to the past few years.

The first weekend in September I applied about 20-25lbs/1000sqft of pelletized sweet feed. Within a few days, I noticed that some of the areas with bare soil were "fluffed" up in spots. After a week huge areas were "fluffed" with about 1-1.5" of loose fluffy clay soil on the surface. Now probably 75% of the 1/4 acre lawn are fluffed. I dug around in many spots at all times of the days to see if I had been invaded by grubs or the Fall Armyworms I had seen alerts about. Nothing.

Could this have been earthworms going crazy on the sweetfeed? I have been applying "feed" to my lawn for about a year now (alfalfa, corn meal, mulching my leaves + 80 large bags of leaves from neighbors) with pre-emergent herbicide as the only chemical input due to the price of CGM. I did note a significant number of earthworms in the spring when I dug an asparagus bed compared to past years.

Earthworms or Aliens? Has anyone seen this "tilling" or "fluffing" before?