Worms usually come to the surface after dark to find dead leaves and vegetation. So go out into the garden at night with a torch and you should be able to find some on the lawn or in flower beds. During the day, you should be able to find worms under large stones or logs. Rain also brings them to the surface.
Worm Dance
One fun way to dry and bring worms to the surface is to try a spot of worm charming.
Tap the ground or dance around on a patch of grass or soil. This should fool the worms into thinking its raining. Continue until the worms start popping up. Sprinkling some water onto the soil should help too.
Dry or Damp?
Place two large books on a table. Lay a sheet of paper on each, but leave a small gap between the sheets.
Sprinkle water on one sheet of paper to make it damp. Then put your worm on the other sheet, which is dry.
After a while, the worm should move between the two pieces of paper, towards the damp one.
Did you know that the worlds largest creatures are bootlace worms, which can grow up to 60m long.
Make a Wormery
Materials: Large glass jar; 3 or 4 worms; dead leaves; sand; sieved soil; water; old newspapers
Put alternative layers or soil and sand in the jar, making the layers about 2.5cm deep. Sprinkle each with water before you add more soil or sand. Don't press the soil or sand down too firmly.
Gently put the worms onto the top of the jar and cover the top of the soil with the dead leaves.
Put the finished wormery in a dark place.
After several days, the worms will have tunnelled through the sand and soil, mixing the different layers up as they go along. They will have also dragged the leaves down into the soil to eat them.