There's a worm in my garden

Since I have a wooden privacy fence, I tend to take a very easy approach to my backyard.  I let the leaves lay where they fall.  I let the grass get a little longer, and I leave the clippings in place.  I've done this for years. 

The only chemical I use is fire ant bait.  Other than that, I'm all organic. 

Ron recently gave me "permission"  to dig up a new garden bed out back.  I got some emerald edging - boy, that stuff is great - my spading fork, and went to work. 

I quickly realized 2 things:  1.  The soil was fantastic, lots of organic matter  and 2.  Lots of worms, and I was hurting them.  My heart just breaks for a poor, bleeding, worm. 

One of the worst days in my garden, the day I accidentally stabbed a toad with my spading fork.  I feel horrible about that. 

I had grazed one of the worms, it wasn't mortal but it was clearly unhappy.  My usual "dig it deep and fork it over" plan wouldn't work. 

Besides, the soil looked great - lots of organic matter and lots of worms to prove it.  I poked around tentatively, enough to prove I didn't have a giant slab of concrete (garden bed 5), shingles (garden bed 4 &6),  styrofoam trash (bed 2), etc... and it was fine. 

I did, however, have a monster tree root.  My neighbor cut down the tree - it was an alder.  He was worried about it damaging the fence, so it went.  I got a new garden bed out of it, once I sold Ron. 

Anyway, there I am, standing in my sweat pants and oversized blue tshirt, boots on, whacking away at the tree root with my hatchet.  Handy devil, the hatchet.  Sharp, too.  I almost took a finger off putting it away. 

I had to get it at one side of the garden bed, and then the other.  I pulled it up in the middle and took it to Ron as a trophy.  [giggle]  You should have seen his face! 

I added about a cubic foot of soil amendments (composted manure, composted cotton burrs - love that stuff, and "soil improver" mix - basically sand and shredded bark).   I read a great book my John Jeavons (I try to attibute where possible), and he said a cubic foot is one and a half, five gallon buckets. 

Almost everyone has a 5 gallon bucket, so that's really handy.  My new garden bed is 2 feet by 8 feet.  I wanted a 4 foot easment in case we need fence access, lost balls, etc.  It has clearance so people can walk around it and easily access the fence. 

I must have seen 8 worms as I worked the soil.  Big, fat, ones.  I can hardly wait to plant it.  If they liked it before, wait until I'm finished adding the "candy" - more compost, cottonseed meal, bone meal (I have low Calcium), etc. 

I also need to put some blood meal, on the root zone of my salad greens. 

Did you go "eeew?"  Most people do when I mention blood meal as a fertilizer. 

I'm just using the whole animal, and the greens are always washed before cooking.