Yes, you struck gold! Earthworms are the best thing for the garden. They indicate a rich healthy & living soil. Work in some well rotted compost & fruit & vegetable scraps from the kitchen to keep them well fed and coming around.

They are growing big and fat on all that good stuff you dug in last year. Shows you did a good job!

Well, unless they're the alien flatworms, Hank, but they'd be a reddish pink colour if they are. Those eat our earthworms... some info in the link below, though its not exactly up to date info, but the regions where they're most active are the wetter parts of the UK, so where you are and the west country

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/wanted-dead-or-alive-flatworms-1349018.html

Hi hank a bloke told me years ago that there is 10 tons of worms to the acre if its true or not i dont know but i pity the poor devil who counted them.

I have taken a census and there are 53,767 worms per acre in the USA. Now pardon me while I scrape the dirt out from under my fingernails and wash my hands.

Hi loosestrife but did you weigh them as well and also is American acre the same as an english acre? haha.

Yes the Imperial acre is the same as the American one. Sorry, but the battery on my postage scale was totally drained so I went to the store to get one. Returning all the worms to work I was able to dig up a few again and achieved an average of 1000 red worms per pound which came to a total of OOPS! ...the battery ran down on my calculator now ... You will have to derive the total poundage yourself my pal......Pardon me but I not only have to wash the dirt off my hands again but also wash the soil off my ipad screen and pick off a worm that I see crawling across it.

Thanks all. My worms are not reddish pink flatworms and I live about 12 miles from Manchester. And I'll certainly treat my beds in the same way again at the end of this year, it obviously did them the power of good.