Wow, that article is very detailed and scary. My son has been telling me for the last couple of years that worms aren't beneficial. After reading the article, I now understand how he meant. Thanks for the link.

I read the same article on another gardening site..I don't know if I have any bad worms..I'm curious to take a closer look this summer..

Yep, have them. Noticed this summer, WI and IL they are all over. Thing with worms if there is not enough food, aka soil is not full of compostable material, there are usually very few worms there. I suspect jumping worms are not an exception. For me they are mostly in woodchips covered garden paths. Sure woodchips disappear faster.

Jumping worms do change the soil texture, but in a negative fashion, and remove more organic matter than they cast - my interpretation of the things I have read. They are bad for garden settings. Other earth worms, in the Midwest, don't add any more organic matter than they leave. An over abundance can decrease the number of other organisms that feed on organic matter that are considered beneficial. The overall effect is a lack of biodiversity which I also would consider bad. I would not add worms to my garden for any reason.

I have not see garden and definitely hope not to see any! Yikes!

Beverly, I'm glad you brought the topic up, there's a misleading conception that all earthworms are good and no matter what the concentration of them. Not all of what comes out of the back end of an earthworm is those small black nutrient rich pellets. I have also observed areas of forest floor leaf litter that has been consumed by earthworms and with copious amounts of their oopy goopy excrement having dried like cement in the sun. Such has also occurred in my garden. Below is a paragraph I had recently written on the matter.

"I also certainly have noticed what occurs to amendments seems to depend on one's soil type. Where my soil has a high degree of silt, added peat moss can persist relatively unchanged for a surprisingly long time. Though, where peat and manure have been added together, there's been a much faster break down with the earthworms really having gotten into it. When previously gardening on clay soil, it did NOT matter how much peat was incorporated, within years it was converted to black heavy sticky stuff and being nearly impossible to drive a spade through when dry! And, when I finally did, big hard clods came up completely riddled with slimy earthworm trails. One time, my sister had stood there laughing and saying "What happened to that nice soft soil of yours?" Several friends have spoken of having their soil turn surprisingly hard and sticky only years after adding copious amounts of amendments and the earthworms coming in by the masses ... and, yes, with the soil productivity then having been reduced.

Yes, earthworms open up the soil and transfer a certain degree of nutrients to lower levels ... though, as well described in the article, they sure in the heck can also negatively impact the soil structure and ecology. Come to my place and you'll frequently see sun dried earthworms that I have gleefully tossed out onto the hot sidewalk!