My new best friend in the garden is a cheerful little robin who has continued throughout this gloomy month to make me feel loved.

He’s even started to sit on the window sill checking my whereabouts if I haven’t been out and about during the day.

Of course, as far as he’s concerned it’s just cupboard love: his true passion lies with the worms I dig up whilst gardening.

I have no particular affection for the numerous earthworms in my garden, however, these innocuous creatures do play a vital and frequently unrecognised role in a garden’s health.

In 1881, Charles Darwin wrote: “It may be doubted whether there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organised creatures.”

Darwin was the first naturalist to demonstrate the invaluable role of earthworms in dragging plant remains below the soil surface, bringing rich, organic soil up to the surface and improving aeration and drainage by the creation of tunnels.

About 90 per cent of the fallen leaves in your garden (assuming you didn’t tidy them up in the autumn) will be dragged into the soil by worms. A fertile soil will attract as many as 100 worms per square metre and they should be treated with all the respect a true gardener’s friend deserves.

Being cut in two is, alas, a frequent fate of many an earthworm.

Dear reader, if you are remotely squeamish please stop reading right now.

The two halves wriggle quite actively and many gardeners assume that the ends heal and the two halves continue on their way none the worse for their beheading with the garden spade.

But the two halves do, in fact, generally die a long and lingering death.

On a happier note, if just the tail end of a worm is severed, new segments are formed and the worm is soon as good as new and ready to its bit for the environment once again.

When the head end is removed, the injured worm stays immobile for about a couple of months, by which time a new head is regenerated. It then wriggles away - a born again worm!

Believe it or not, worms have quite an interesting sex life. Each one bears male and female organs, but self fertilisation is rare. Instead, two worms come together head to tail, covering themselves with mucus. Once fertilisation has taken place the membrane around the eggs forms a protective cocoon and after a few months the baby worms wiggle off to lead long happy lives... so long as they stay away from their various predators.

Apart from the obvious hazard of the gardener’s fork, there are many animals that greedily await these little creatures.

Not only do they form a tasty meal for my new robin friend and his relatives, they represent cordon bleu cuisine for badgers, hedgehogs, beetles and slugs, to mention just a few.

Worm poo is one of the most valuable products you can introduce into your soil. It’s like probiotic yogurt for your garden. The more worms you have in your earth the more fertile it’s likely to be, so although the robin keeps me company, it’s the worms who are my true allies.

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