Here is the pic.

Good news is they want to stay in the dirt. Is your plant really big right now? If it's not too big to do this- take the plant out of the pot and dunk the soil in a bucket of water for a count of 10 and pull it back out above the water and see what comes out. My guess is they can't swim.

Or see if someone else comes along that has had these little joys. Good luck!!

Thankyou Sara! Ha ha - 'little joys' :)

My plant is not really big actually. I'm so glad to hear they want to stay in the dirt, I have been having visions of them escaping, and .. I don't even want to complete that sentence.

I think I will have to do that tomorrow then. Are you thinking they will all come out if I do that?

I'm thinking that they "should" all come out but I don't know about the eggs or larvae or whatever (sorry), which is why I'm hoping someone else can help too. Hey- you found them because you watered the plant, so water must work....

If it makes you feel better, put the pot inside the bucket now, and leave it there overnight in the tub til you can do the dunk. (I would probably do that just so I could forget about it)

Further option, would be to remove all of the soil from the roots and rinse the roots to get rid of anything that's been in the soil. Or use an insecticide that would work on worms. But that's more involved so I'd wait to see who stumbles upon this thread.

Does the plant itself look ok?

Thanks Sara - I did put the pot in a bucket and it's sitting here looking at me (The plant I mean :) ). I will move it to the tub.

Yes the plant looks absolutely fine actually. It's putting out new leaves (very tiny though - but it hasn't been getting enough sun all winter. I thought that's what's been causing the leaves to be tiny?)

True - I will wait for someone else to stumble upon this - to see if they have suggestions about insecticides/ washing the roots.

Unfortunately I don't think I can take the plant outside, cause it's still pretty cold outside.

Not a very good picture, but what makes you think that they weren't baby earthworms?

Rhizo_1- I don't know whether they are baby earthworms or not. have you had this before?

I have no idea honestly. Does this picture help? They were too thin and thread like - which is why I thought they were something else.

No I have never had this before. I have had this plant for about 8 months now and have watered it in the tub, (allowing the water to drain off) , several times and never seen this before. (And I always look)

Several of my pots have earthworms in them. They pretty much keep to themselves and don't affect my plants in any negative ways. In fact, I think that they're beneficial. I copied this small excerpt from another website:

"Earthworms help create humus—a dark brown-black type of soil which holds important nutrients in place for plant growth and use. Earthworms also help create good soil structure; their burrows open up the soil and create aeration and drainage channels."

I like to collect rainwater, so, sometimes, I'll be out in my backyard after it's rained. Occasionally, I'll notice a couple of earthworms crawling across my porch, trying to reach higher ground. I don't like handling them, but I will use a stick or something to pick them up and place them in my larger pots outdoors. From there, they just burrow down into the soil and get back to work doing their thing.

Some of my medium-sized potted plants that I bring indoors, I'll place them in a bucket to soak right up to the soil line. That's when I'll see little baby earthworms crawling to the top and pretty much stay there until the "flood" water recedes. After I drain my pots, they just burrow back down without skipping a beat. I first noticed them several years ago and never once had a problem with them. They'll never try to leave the soil and escape into your house. They prefer it "underground," not out in the open where they're exposed and vulnerable. You have nothing to worry about. Personally, I don't care for them, but they are beneficial.

@Photo Synthesis - Thankyou so much! That's wonderful information. You don't know how I relieved I am to hear they won't leave the soil :)

I know the photo isn't the best quality , but do these look like baby earthworms?

So when it rains, the earthworms come out onto the sidewalks. Which is similar to why I was thinking the worms would come out with a dunk.

Doesn't explain how they got in the soil though which is causing the ID issue.

Yeah - no idea how it got there. But when I bought this houseplant it was sitting outside the dept store. Not housed inside the building. It was left out to die, cos it was getting cold, and I thought I was rescuing it. Could something have got in then?

While researching worms now, I also read somewhere that earthworm eggs take several months to hatch. I have had the plant for 8 months now.

Here's the website I mentioned earlier: Benefits of Earthworms in the Garden

I don't know why I didn't mention this, but a while back, I purchased a bag of "earthworm castings." I like to mix it in with my soil when I repot my plants. This adds nutrients to the soil and all of my plants love it. :)

Great website! Thankyou!

But my worms don't look like these earthworms :( Is it because they are babies? Or some other kind of earthworm?

My smaller- and medium-sized pots, I never add the larger earthworms to them when it rains. Yet they seemed to have found their own way. They are much smaller in size and look like the ones in your photos. I've watched mine, while the pots were soaking, and could see that they were earthworms, only smaller.

Yeah, they always crawl across my porches and sidewalks when it rains, to reach higher ground and wait for the water to recede. Because here in Tornado Alley, when it rains, it pours, HaHa...

OK gottit! Thankyou :) . That certainly calms me down, I was getting a bit freaked out. Earthworms I can handle a bit.

But I think I will still try and repot them, I really don't want them indoors - I wasn't planning to repot this monstera this year, but I guess i have no choice then.

I would also re-pot. Bugs and worms do not belong inside. Unless you want to pretend you live in a tent :)

Glad it's better- that's half the battle.

ha ha . Yeah hopefully in 1-2 weeks we will have better weather, to take this situation outside. Oh I forgot to mention I am a total plant newbie - only had plants for just over a year now, and only indoors, cos I am in an apartment. And I have never re-potted anything. What a 'nice' way for the universe to teach me.

Thanks @Photo Synthesis. :) I don't know if I will be able to forget about them though, ha ha.

This maybe a stupid question - but would they multiply inside the pot?

But that is so true - plants don't belong inside, but we bring them in anyway :)

Not to the scale that they would outdoors. They still need a food source to sustain themselves. When they have nothing more to eat, they'll die off and their bodies will easily break down into fertilizers for your plants. My pots have had earthworms in them for several years now, and they've only grown no bigger than the ones in your photos. I forget about them even being there because they'll never come above ground unless forced to do so.

That's really interesting to know.

I wish they had never come out, so I would have never known! lol.

But thankyou! I appreciate all the information you are sending my way! I may have developed a soft spot for earthworms! ;)

There's a sentence I never thought I would say!

Yes, iamhop, they are earthworms. I'd be surprised if there aren't more.

I'm going to burst the bubble here. Earthworms ARE beneficial in an outdoor soil, in the garden or lawn but not so much within the confines of a small container.

They will turn the potting mix, which is hopefully porous and coarse textured into worm digested sludge. This won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Of course, containerized plants need to be repotted periodically into fresh medium, which would take care of that issue, but in the meantime, the earthworms will be slowly, methodically transforming a porous fast draining potting mix to a more water retentive substance.

That's not what our plants, our containerized plants, prefer.

I've been growing plants for as long as I can remember. My mother told me that I would be out in the yard helping my grandmother in her garden when I was little. She's where I inherited my greenthumb. That being said, I'm always learning something new all of the time. We never stop learning.

When growing plants, I do my best to replicate the conditions that the plants would have out in their native habitats. Or as close as possible. Once you get a fair understanding of that, the rest is a piece of cake. I read on here all of the time where people are dousing their plants in fungicides and insecticides to mitigate whatever problems their plants are having. Truthfully, I can't even remember the last time I used either. Not that I have anything against using them when needed. I don't even own any fungicides or insecticides. Yet I never encounter any of the problems that I read about from others posting on here. I'm not even one of those anti-chemical people. Though I do try to be as natural as possible. I don't go out of my way to be, I just try to. I still use chemical fertilizers and such. Even if it came down to me having to use a fungicide/insecticide, I wouldn't hesitate in doing so. I've just never really needed to. As I've mentioned earlier, once you get a fair understanding of your plants' most basic needs, the rest is a piece of cake.

What Earthworms Do:

• Earthworms eat dead leaves and grass, rotting plants, animal manure, semi-rotted compost, and bits of soil; organic matter is ground in their gizzards, mixed with digestive juices and enzymes in the stomach then returned to the soil.

• Earthworms remove surface debris and fungal spores from the garden; they clean the garden of unwanted organic materials.

• Earthworms eat their own weight in organic matter and soil each day. A pound of earthworms eat a pound of organic matter and soil each day.

• Earthworm digestive juices enrich the soil.

• Earthworms burrow through the soil creating space for air to reach plant roots.

• Earthworms create tunnels that allow rain and irrigation water to penetrate the soil.

• Earthworms leave behind excrement or castings containing from 5 to 11 times the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium they have ingested.

• Earthworms turn soil into humus improving soil structure. Their coil-like castings are stable when both wet and dry thus improving soil structure.

Sure, the soils we use for our potted plants are different and better than the dirt we have in our own yards, but the benefits are still the same. Their castings enrich the soil and make them better. I always use a porous, fast-draining potting mix for all of my plants. Not once have I ever had any of them become essentially "worm-digested sludge." In fact, there were a couple of plants that I repotted a while back. Whenever I went to water them, the water took longer than usual to drain through. Over time, this problem eventually went away on its own. Leaving me to wonder why. Now when I water them, or whenever it rains, the water flows through the potting mix much faster.

Again, Do not put earthworms in indoor potted plants. There are much better ways to replicate what the plants natural conditions would be.

Earthworms are an unwelcome guest in the plants perspective. They do no good in an indoor pot. You do not need them to help aerate if you use a fast draining mix. They slowly break down the soil, a process you don't want to speed up.

This topic happened about a week ago:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1497602/put-worms-in-potted-houseplants?n=30

iamhopscotch- Make it rain!!! Lol I would still do the dunking and see what comes out of the dirt.

If you really want to save the worm(s) and make everyone feel good, pick them off and lovingly and place them in a cup of dirt they can play in and then name them. If you find two again, I vote for the names Fred and Ginger. :)

Just to clarify, I only placed them in my larger outdoor pots while I was outside. Somehow, they found their own way into my smaller- & medium-sized pots all on their own. Which happened while my plants were outdoors. I didn't even know that they were there until I went to soak my pots. And even then, there were only a few of them. All of which were a fraction of the size of the outdoor earthworms. No bigger than the ones in iamhopscotch's photos. They have been there for at least two years now and not once have they ever negatively affected the health of any of my plants. So I pretty much leave them alone. I don't use them to aerate my already fast-draining soil. And even if they "break down" the soil, "Earthworms leave behind excrement or castings containing from 5 to 11 times the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium they have ingested." All of which the plants can use.I repot my plants long before the soil gets depleted, and the old soil gets tossed out into the remote corners of my yard, along which whatever's inhabiting it. Even if my new, fresh potting soil were to somehow gain newer earthworms, I wouldn't go out of my way to try and rid them from my pots.

People want to try and grow their plants in sterile environments, dousing their plants with fungicides and insecticides, and nature doesn't work like that. I'm not advocating putting earthworms in your indoor pots. I was simply stating that I found them in my indoor plants and never once have I encountered any problems from them being there. Sure, I placed them in my large, outdoor pots. But that was because those pots stay outdoors year-round. The smaller earthworms found their own way into my smaller pots, while those pots were outdoors. People claim that they can't survive living in containers, but the small ones in mine seem to do just fine. Even if they were to die, their remains end up breaking down into enriched nutrients that the plants can use.

Very well. I just a didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea and start filling their indoor pots with earthworms.

Thankyou everyone!

@SaraM - maybe I will 'release' them into the wild, so they can be happy? :)

@Dave(Vermont - z5a) I was wondering if everyone agreed these are tiny earthworms?

In which case (they will stay inside the pot)and I can wait a week before I do the dunking, because I just watered it really deeply yesterday (which is what made them come out), and I don't want to do water/dunk again immediately. Is that a good decision?

Hey- don't save them on my account. I, personally, would squish them. (I just suggested it because of the pro-earthworm group.)

@SaraM Ha ha ha , don't worry, Fred and Ginger shall be saved ;) (I just hope they don't have other friends)

These worms are called red wriggles. They won't harm your plant nor, will they grow any bigger than the largest in ythe photo, they also shouldn't become numerous in population. .