Dr. Gale Ridge, Associate Scientist with the Dept. of Entomology at Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station will present a talk on Asian jumping worms.  She is an expert in human feeding bed bugs and oversees the daily activities of the insect inquiry office, which receives thousands of inquiries each year. Although not a worm expert, she can “spot a jumping worm a mile away” and currently does educational presentations on them.

Regardless of what one calls them, Asian jumping worms have invaded the Eastern US and have the potential to cause significant damage. Learn how to ID these crawlers and the best practices for controlling them. If you have worms in your garden and are not sure what kind they are, take photos/videos and bring them in for identification. Adult snake worms are killed by a hard freeze, but if you can bring live worms for ID, place collected worms in a plastic container with plenty of food (leaves, mulch, compost) to keep them alive until the program.

This meeting is in-person only (no Zoom), and is free and open to the public, as a public service. Bring friends! 7 pm social, 7:30 meeting. Raffle! Please feel free to donate plants or garden-related items for the monthly meeting raffle. Be sure plants are clean, and free of jumping worms!

Following is a link to a fact sheet published by CAES in case you want to look at it ahead of time.

https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/CAES/DOCUMENTS/Publications/Fact_Sheets/Entomology/Jumping-worms-in-Connecticut.pdf