Profile — WILD, WIGGLY WORMS
Posted in People on May 21st, 2008 by Plant Talk – Be the first to comment
Every few weeks an employee or friend of the Garden takes a quick stroll around the lush 250-acre grounds and writes down his or her thoughts. This week, Annie Novak, coordinator of the Children’s Gardening Program at The New York Botanical Garden, took time to discuss one of her ickier interests: worms! 
Young gardeners visiting the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden during the first warm weeks of spring are often delighted by the return of the red-breasted American robin. Watching the birds hop from plot to plot early this morning, I was reminded of another, more secretive, Garden inhabitant, whom we only see when we turn the earth with our trowels. If an acre of land is said to contain about a million worms, we can hardly start our gardening season without acknowledging the invaluable work red wrigglers and earthworms contribute to our healthy beds. Thanks to their digging and digesting, the soil turns loose and dark in our hands as we put seeds into the earth. Without worms to help us break down our lunch scraps, we wouldn’t have the rich dirt in which to grow more lunch!